Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

     On UNICEF website www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_childpoverty.html, I was able to access UNICEF’s Global Study on child poverty and disparities.  This led me to the Child Poverty Blog.  Once I got on the webpage I clicked on the child poverty report for Namibia.  While reading the report I gained insight on the high level of poverty among children that lived in Namibia.  According to the report, 1 out of 3 children living in Namibia live in poor households.  The households may consist of one or more adults that stay home to take care of their young children or an elderly family member. The rate of poverty also increase when no one is working in the household, a female caregiver of the children has only primary education or no education at all.  Poverty also exists in the households of Namibia when there is a lack of money to take care of everyone. Due to the low income children grow up with lasting impacts such as low birth, higher death rates, stunted growth and poor outcomes in education.  There are also concerns with children’s well-being.  In Namibia children have less access to help meet their basic needs such as medical care and receiving an education.                                                               

     I also gained insight about the immediate need to address the poverty concerns in Namibia.  There was an assessment done using the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2009/10  to provide “the evidence on the extent of child poverty, the children who are most likely to be poor and the impacts the social grants have on reducing child poverty” (“Child poverty in Namibia: A child-centered analysis of the NHIES 2009/10,” 2012, p. 4). According to the assessment, another level of poverty resulted in a large majority of children in the household not having access to some material goods.  Some of those goods are cell phones or telephones, vehicles, refrigerators, televisions, stoves that are gas or electric and bicycles.                                             

     Finally, I learned that social grants play a role in reducing poverty levels in Namibia.  According to the assessment report, one of the grants that has supported a large number of children in poverty is the old age pension support.  The old age pension supports individuals over the age of 60.  There are also child maintenance grants that are for children under 18 years old.  The grant extends to 21 years old if the child attend college.  In order to be eligible for the grant the household has to fall in a certain level of poverty.  Implementing the social grants in Namibia have shown some improvements to decrease the number of children growing up in poverty.  “If the household would not receive any grants, the poverty rate among them would be 61.9 percent rather than the 38.9 percent currently experienced in household receiving grants” (“Child poverty in Namibia: A child-centered analysis of the NHIES 2009/10,” 2012, p. 18).