Priorities during tough times, a perspective
Posted by Elizabeth Mechael, Intern
There is a real risk that development will start to go backwards in many countries as the money dries up and that the recession will lead to worsening poverty and terrible consequences for the men, women and children caught in its grip.”
- Dr. Claire Melamed, ActionAid’s head of policy
Anyone who has kids knows that every mother and father in Africa must love their children as much as they do, and to watch your kids die, to watch them die and then to die yourself in trying to protect them, that’s not right. And they’ll look back on us lot and say – “people were actually dying in their millions unnecessarily, in front of you, on your TV screens. What were you thinking? You knew what to do to stop it happening and you didn’t do those things. Shame on you.” Be great instead of being ashamed. It can’t be impossible. It must be possible.
- The Girl in the Café
Everywhere I look, Americans are in a blind panic about the economy: TV commentators, my father, my professors, my friends. I need to figure out where the money for my last semester of college is going to come from. The first luxuries we all cut from our personal budgets – before restaurants, video games, or manicures – is always ‘charity.’ It’s the easiest thing in the world to take out of a budget because it won’t affect our lives in the least. It’s hard to even picture how it might affect someone else’s life.
Yet every three seconds a child dies from preventable causes – in most cases from diarrheal disease. Diarrheal disease can usually be prevented by preventing exposure to contaminated water, which is something that SMRC is working to do for a whole community in Kenya. An investment as simple as oral rehydration salts, which cost about ten cents, prevents about 90% of child deaths from diarrheal dehydration. For the ten dollars I just spent on a sandwich in a shop next to SMRC, 100 deaths of children under five could have been prevented.
I know it’s painful for my father to wonder about my tuition, or even to not be able to help me with travel costs. The pain of a mother or father who can’t protect their four year old child from contaminated water that leads to her death is beyond my comprehension. It’s not about guilt or blame, but it is about change. We, as a nation and as students, have made amazing strides towards development in health and education in Africa. Now we’re at a risk of losing that. Though I know it’s getting more difficult, I’m completely sure that with knowledge and empowerment, we can save more lives than ever before.
