Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 1

I have not yet received a response so I went to the website of the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s page. I read about childhood poverty in India. The website was very informative.

The insights I gained from studying the website. First I learned that approximately 400 million of India populations are children who are between the ages 0-18. The children there experience a difficult life. Just about half of all of the children are under and age 5 and are malnourished. Many of the newborns are born with low birth weights. There have been significant changes in health and education. As a result, infant mortality fell from 80% per 1000 live births in 1990 to 69 in 2000. I thought it was interesting that primary school age enrollment in school rose from 68 % in 1992-93 to 82% at the end of the decade. However they still have a great number of working children and many of them are under the age of 16.

The additional insight I received is in regards to providing for the well being of children is mostly determined by the children gender, instead of the need of the child. Sadly, girls are limited in their opportunity for survival in India. They experience this immediately at birth and it follows them throughout their childhood and into motherhood then past on to the next generation. Female children are neglected, their ratio is lower, less female are entitle to go to school and they are more likely to be subjected to child labor force.

Finally, the insight I gained on the ways India tries to address the issues of poverty in their country. There program are run by central government. They focus on three types of rural employment. The targets are infrastructure development, self employment and food subsidy programs. Each of the programs has made modification over the years in an attempt to provide for those who are definitely in need and cover more area. They also have food subsidy program the largest is the Public Distribution System which clearly targets the poor. In regards to children the largest program is Integrated Child Development Services Program (ICDS) which targets children that are in the 0-6 age range.  

As of result of reading about poverty India I was able to visualize how tough it is for children in that country. The information was overwhelming especially the way the girls are treated in that country. It is truly heart breaking.

Reference:

Childhood Poverty Research and Policy. (n.d.). Retrieved from   http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/index.php