In a time like this where the whole world is in uproar, economies are crashing, businesses are shaking and diverse individual plans are getting cancelled, there is one thing that remains the same.
There is a particular group of people that are still depending on less than a dollar a day, running to find shelter in-front of uncompleted buildings spending their nights in front of kiosks and stores, the mere thought of slums like Sodom and Gomorrah or Kokomba being the best places they could find extra better shelter is more exasperating.
Far from the big city, here in the Eastern region lives five boys, who constantly sleep on the verandah of a market story building, they barely bath once a day and they don’t remember when last they brushed their teeth another said, these boys work as potters at the Nkurakan market.
My fear is that, the world is facing a pandemic, Where the best we have been told can help kill this virus is to frequently wash our hands with soap under running water, use sanitizers, avoid crowded places and wear nose masks, but here lies the fate of children who can’t afford either a square meal a day or a bar soap then to talk of a sanitizer.
These are children who have left home years ago due to several reasons like maltreatments, hunger, poverty among others. Whatever the reason is for them being on the streets, they should not be living there again in these times.
Encountering these boys for the first time, they were in a wild fight about who can go back home during these times, one of the boys ran towards me, shouting I am not an orphan, my mother does not want me at home, she says my father was a useless man and that I should go and figure out life for myself. She doesn’t want to see me anywhere near home, then he burst into tears, after releasing his, I passed him a sanitizer and he applied it on his hands and shirt, my eyes were heavily filled with tears after hearing his story.
Leaving the boys with few pieces of sanitizers and soaps with a bag of sachet water, was an encouragement for them to frequently wash their Hands and take care of themselves.
It is clearly shown how some parents can be be careless and overly irresponsible to neglect their children to live on the streets in these trying times.
Maybe they do not know their children are exposed to a great risk of getting infected by the virus, especially as potters who have no home to return to, in order to take their shower at least, to keep them clean from all the bacteria they must have come into contact with.
This is a wakeup call to parents who evidently know their children are still on the streets amidst the various dangers these children are exposed to, because sadly the truth is that, it is easy for all of these children to contract this virus once, any of them gets it, but the bigger question again is what next, what if these parents don’t want these children with them, will these children still be left wandering on the streets even in these times ? These children are supposed to be the future, they are supposed to be under our care and vigilance.
>>>The writer is the Founder: Girls Can lead and a Student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism
