capital impact


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CCWC Lusaka

Challenges

Poverty Status of Orphan and non-Orphan Children
The data available to us demonstrates that 77% of maternal orphans live below the poverty line and 75% of paternal orphans live below the poverty line.

The overall level of poverty in rural areas is significantly higher than urban areas in Zambia. The Zambia Human Development Report indicates that 83% of the rural population lives below the poverty line whereas 46% of urban residents (the majority of the Zambian population) fall below the poverty line. However, there is little notable distinction between the urban and rural poverty levels of orphan and non-orphan children. The data continues to support the fact that children in Zambia are economically disadvantaged and poverty is a real issue facing the majority of households.

Primary Care Giver
Almost half of orphans reside in a household headed by a surviving parent or guardian. The national statistics indicate that grandparents and aunts/uncles look after 35% of orphans. In most cases, orphans and other vulnerable children are as a result of parents who have died from HIV/AIDS related complications.

A greater percentage of orphans are looked after by grandparents who are in their retirement age. This development causes some serious concerns because as these grandparents begin to die of old ages, the fate of the already orphaned children will dramatically worsen.

An even more disturbing development is that a significant number of school-aged children, both orphans and non-orphans, are not attending school due to serious economic pressures faced by their aged guardians. If the current negative economic trend continues, it is probable that in the near future more families will be unable to send their children to school and a greater percentage of these children will grow up without the benefits of a primary education.

Diverse Academic Challenges
Many former street and vulnerable children are age-inappropriate for their grade, and exhibit emotional and behavioral problems that impede their learning ability. The lack of earlier educational stimulation, along with substance abuse and the like, further complicate their learning process. Our challenge is to find a caring educational environment and a supportive curriculum that will help these children learn and become productive members of society.

The younger the children are, and the shorter their time on the street, when they are brought into our LifeNet facility, the more likely they are to be reintegrated into the mainstream education system. Older children who have missed years of early and intermediate childhood education are more acutely at risk, yet they often realize that they need an education but no longer fit into the regular school system.