Children in Africa

What is life like for a child in Africa? CBBC Newsround explores what it would be like to grow up in Africa and discuss what happens on a daily basis. A few highlighted points are their education, gender divide, and poverty.

Many kids in Africa want to attend school to learn to read and write, but many cannot attend due to the lack of money. School requires to pay fees that most cannot afford, along with kids are needed to help out at home. For those children who do attend school they have to walk hours to get there, and sometimes must leave very early to avoid the heat.

There is a large gender divide for African children. Often times the girls work and the boys go to school. In places where water is sparse the girls will have to walk miles to fetch water, and then the boys may go to school. If the girls get water daily they will be unable to attend school, and girls as young as 10 start collecting water for the whole family. For an example in Malawi 20% of females cannot read or write, 4% of females have secondary education and 28% girls and 50% boys have under four years of school.

Poverty is something many kids in Africa will face, especially because many of the poorest countries are in Africa. Being impoverished affects a child because they do not have enough money, food, shelter or education. The following stats shows how bad poverty can be:

-Eight out of ten people in Zambia are living below the poverty line.

-One out of every two people in southern Africa is ill because of a poor diet

-Seven out of every ten people in Malawi live in poverty

-More than three million kids in Malawi have too little to eat

 

The stats really help put into perspective how many people in Africa struggle. A kids life in Africa can be so much different than what we are used to. I hope someday kids can have equal opportunities and can become educated.  

The CBBC Newsround has an great site to explore more about a typical day for a kid in Africa, here is the link to the site. All pictures are from the site.