THE CHALLENGE
Children of Fire accepts that any measures to create a long term
reduction in the fire fatalities and severe burns injuries that occur across
the continent can only be done by working with other agencies, collecting
reliable statistics (and keeping them up to date), and trying to lessen the
problems that lead to the overcrowded squatter settlements and shanty towns in
which burns injuries are most common. Street children also suffer frequent
burns. In Johannesburg in July 2000, Children of Fire started links with
organisations that try to prevent the children, once high on glue sniffing,
from then falling into fires.
This section of the website will endeavour to document political and
economic moves that have an affect on poverty, health education and prevention
of injury. It is the poorest people with the least education and the most
children who suffer most burns. The majority of people who are injured were
already at risk before the injury occurred.
EXTREME POVERTY
In June 2000 the United Nations teamed up for the first time with world
financial institutions to back moves to cut extreme poverty in half over the
next 15 years. Developing countries, disappointed by the lack of action
following previous pledges told a special session of the U.N. General Assembly
in Geneva that it is time to end the rhetoric. The UN.. the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development presented goals for enrollment of all children in primary school
and a two-thirds cut in child mortality by 2015. Their joint study, "A Better
World for All," marked the first time the four international organisations had
worked together to review progress on social issues. The report says poverty
rates can be cut in half by 2015 if countries follow policies that reduce
social and gender inequalities and create income-earning opportunities for the
poor. About 15 heads of state or government, mainly from Africa, attended the
summit.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
A four-day workshop on reproductive health programmes in Africa was held
in Accra, Ghana in late June. The workshop was aimed at setting up an African
network for developing high quality reproductive health information and
services for adolescents on the continent. About 50 participants from 13
African countries attended the forum. Ghana deputy health minister Charles
Kpabitey..says that the growing reproductive health needs facing adolescents in
Africa pose great challenges to all African governments. He says the increasing
cases of unwanted pregnancies, risky child bearing behaviour, backdoor
abortions and sexually transmitted diseases among young people have now become
development challenges which need to be tackled. World Bank officials say the
Bank will soon launch a poverty reduction project that will benefit street
children.
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
The new EU-ACP agreement..signed in June 2000, focuses on poverty
alleviation and prevention of conflicts within civil society. The 71 Africa,
Caribbean and Pacific countries and the 15 European Union countries signed the
new partnership agreement in Cotonou. The new agreement, which replaces the
previous Lome Convention, also calls for private sector involvement in
development strategies, economic and trade co-operation as well as reforms in
financial co-operation. Officials say the new agreement will ensure continuous
co-operation between the ACP and EU. Meanwhile, Palau Republic, Marshall
Islands, Niue Islands, Micronesia Federate States, Cook Islands and Marau
Republic are six newcomers joining the ACP/EU arrangement.
KENYA'S HEALTH CARE
Kenya has been ranked among those that provide the poorest health
services to the public. A World Health Organisation report on the world's
health system says Kenya's health care system does not respond to people's
needs. Kenyan authorities do not give much emphasis to health, in terms of
funding or infrastructure. Kenya is ranked lower than other sub-Sahara African
countries that are considered to have poorer economies. Apart from being
afflicted by African diseases, Kenyans are also suffering from disorders such
as diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiac ailments..because they had
acquired a Western lifestyle.
SEYCHELLES/ZAMBIA
Zambia's Health Minister visited the Seychelles in late June. Minister
Mpamba was accompanied by Dr Silwamba, director general of the Central Board of
Health of Zambia to evaluate the Seychelles health system. Mpamba's visit
follows discussions he held with Seychelles health minister, Jacquelin Dugasse
at World Health Organisation and SADC Health Ministers meetings. The WHO had
actively encouraged African health ministers to visit Seychelles to see how the
Health for All principle and the Primary Health Care approach have been
successfully implemented. In October 1999 health ministers and senior health
officials converged in the Seychelles to attend the 30th Regional Commonwealth
Health Ministers Meeting.
DISABLED URGED TO PARTICIPATE IN POLICY-MAKING
The Southern African Development Community says Africa's disabled must
participate in decision-making processes in their countries... SADC executive
secretary Prega Ramsay says people with disabilities should strive to guide the
process of establishing policy instruments aimed at addressing their
situation... He was addressing the official opening of the strategic workshop
of the Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled in Gaborone..Botswana.. in
September 2000. Ramsay urged the disabled community in Gaborone to actively
participate in discussions revolving around the formulation of legislation and
lobby to secure major commitments of SADC governments to adopt policies and
practices that befit the disabled.. He says they need to work together to come
up with a clear and inclusive strategy that will bring the concerns of the
disabled onto the SADC agenda... Ramsay says this must be done because
disability is a human rights issue, and SADC is committed to the observance and
respect of human rights.
MALARIA CONFERENCE IN RICHARDS BAY
A three-day conference was held in Richard's Bay..South Africa in
September with about 70 delegates from South Africa's malaria regions and other
Southern African countries in attendance... Delegates include doctors,
researchers, malaria control specialists and field workers from South Africa,
Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland, Namibia and Zimbabwe... The conference was
convened to address the surge of malaria cases in the Southern Africa
Development Community region... Malaria is now on the increase with 45 percent
more cases in the region over the past year... Conference delegates will
discuss the impact of malaria on tourism, the role of research into the
disease, management of the epidemic, and the cost of fighting the spread of
malaria... In September 2000 ..a British pharmaceutical company announced that
a malaria vaccine had been developed and that clinical trials would begin soon
in The Gambia.
PAEDIATRIC HIV/AIDS CLINIC LAUNCHED IN BOTSWANA
Botswana President Festus Mogae has announced plans for southern
Africa's first clinic for children with HIV/AIDS. Mogae says the clinic, the
Baylor Children's Clinical Centre for Excellence, is a ten-million dollar
public-private sector partnership. It will attend to the primary and speciality
medical care needs of HIV infected infants and children. He says the
partnership is between the Botswana Ministry of Health, Gaborone's Princess
Marina Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children's Hospital in the
United States and pharmaceutical giant, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Secure the
Future programme. Secure the Future is 100-million dollar commitment to assist
women and children infected with HIV/AIDS in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South
Africa and Swaziland. The project allows doctors and nurses to be trained in
Botswana to manage HIV and its complications in children affected with the
virus.
KELOIDS
Dimanche M came from eastern DRC. He was intentionally burned in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the civil war that has plagued that country.
