It was so hard to pick just one stressor that affected me as a child, I had so
many. The one that I picked was and still is the hardest for me to understand. Racism
I’m a person of a mult-race background. As I child I was not accepted by any
race, they all made fun of me and called me a “mutt”. I compensated for that
stressor by withdrawing into myself and not trying to make friends, instead I
put all my energy into reading and my school work. Even now I sometimes have a
problem with racism as an adult. I politely state that I’ don’t speak Spanish
or when asked what race I am I will reply “I’m a bag of Skittles” which gets me
a lot of laughs.
I have chosen Africa and the stressors that children there face. One of the major stressors that affects these children is hunger. “Chronic malnutrition remains widespread in Africa, and the target of a 50 per cent reduction of malnutrition in children under five is far out of reach. Fully one in three Africans is malnourished and, despite improvements in some countries, the absolute number of hungry children rose during the decade. Statistics on low birth weight reveal that an estimated one in eight African babies -- some 3.1 million infants -- is born underweight each year.” (Africa Renewal) What is being done to improve this? According to the Millennium Development Goals: they have improved cooking stoves, access to energy, nets to help fishermen, and the continued request for support from other countries to support the donation of food to the people of Africa.
References:
Chenieka,
ReplyDeleteMy kids are also multi-racial and part of a multi-ethnic family. They have been fortunate to grow up in a more diverse community. We were a military family and the military is made up of many racially blended families. However, my family still had to deal with odd questions and ignorance. Society is changing, but man it's slow.