Hello again, Runner!
We know it has been a long journey during our Run4aChild Challenges, but you can’t give up now! We are almost at the end of the Asha Challenge, a shorter summer challenge in which we decided we would run for Indian children.
As we know, the whole world was affect by the Covid-19 pandemic and India has been one of the most affected countries. That is why we are here and that is why we will help Caritas India.
Children in India are the most affected part of society, since they are harmless human beings and totally dependent on their families. Due to the current circumstances, kids in India are being forced to grow up before they were supposed to, having to leave school and a chance to learn behind.
So, today we brought you 6 motives to run, since we have 6 days left to go. A motive per day to keep you motivated and to remind you of our purpose and mission:
1 – India has an estimated one hundred thousand or more street children in each of the following cities: New Dehli, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
2 – Environmental health problems such as pollution-related diseases, challenges with a water supply, and sanitation in India are difficult to fix and greatly affect children.
3 – Many children in India miss vaccination and consequently acquire infectious diseases that vaccines could have prevented.
4 – Children often begin working at an early age. Boys take care of animals and work in the fields. Girls collect water, grind and thresh grain and work around the house. Parents favor boys for various reasons. In the north, a boy’s value in agricultural endeavours is higher than a girl’s, and after marriage, a boy continues to live with his parents, ideally supporting them in their old age.
5 – Thousands of Indian children have lost their parents during the pandemic and face the risk of neglect and exploitation. The pandemic unmasked the invisible vulnerability of children and has exposed children towards worse forms of exploitation such as child labor, trafficking, child marriage and learning loss due to school closures.
6 – Just by doing exercise, you can give these children Asha (hope), make a difference and put a smile on their faces. This should be a good enough reason to RUN!
Our mission during this challenge is to help Caritas to continue their charity work in India. They have been organizing Covid-19 awareness activities in the villages including: house visits and sharing correct information on Covid, distributing IEC materials, health care information dissemination via telecommunication, helping the community to register for vaccination and organizing vaccination drives. Caritas India is also currently working towards the establishment and strengthening of the Child Protection System and the elimination of Child Labor in all forms in collaboration with partners and the government. Furthermore, Caritas India has also created school gardens to help nourish the children and their families. This initiative has not only helped the nutritional requirement of the children during normal times but also provided food security during the lockdowns.
We hope you learned a little bit more about Indian children’s problems and difficulties so that you can continue to help us and keep motivated throughout this challenge and future challenges.
Only 6 days left! Keep running!
Run4aChild Team