Of foreign adoptions and the Day of the African Child

Today, its 16th June, a day in which we celebrate the life of an African child. Originating from remembering the massacres of the innocent children in Soweto, South Africa in 1976, we now reflect on the plight of the African child. Indeed we now reflect on the need of the African child to have access to quality education, health, protection against abuse etc. This is because the future of our beautiful African continent lies in the hands of the African child.

Some kids on Chizumulu Island on Lake Malawi in Malawi!

In this post, I would like to share my thoughts of having western 'celebrities' come to Africa to adopt our orphans and vulnerable children. In particular, I would like to refer to a case in which Madonna has been allowed to adopt another child in Malawi. I do not wish to hide that I am one of the many Malawians who are not happy with this decision.

Imagine if all our orphaned children were put up for foreign adoption, what would become of their destiny and indeed the destiny of Africa at large? Obviously as Africans we have our own culture and traditions that can not just simply be ignored for material prosperity in a foreign adopted home. Much as we appreciate that a child needs material care, we can also not ignore the need to protect the African identity of the child. If at all, one is interested in the welfare of African children, the solution is not to just pick one or two kids out of the many thousands of orphaned children out there! What is wrong with helping the kids while the kids are right here in Africa like what Oprah Winfrey does? This idea of 'fishing out a single kid' out of Africa as what Madonna is doing can simply be rated as 'media charity'.

A question then pops up in my mind! Is it that as Africans we have failed to take care of our African children? Maybe we can say so? How? It is very surprising that these kids being put up for foreign adoption are being found in orphanages. If not mistaken, this orpanage syndrome is a new phenomenon across Africa. Why do I say so? Normally, in an African communalistic setting, one is supposed to take care of relatives children as if they are your own children. So even if a parent dies, the relatives of the deceased are supposed to take care of the children. But what do we see now? Relatives quickly send the orphaned children to orphanages. This is why there are so many children in the orphanages now.

Where has our African Umunthu spirit gone? Is this a sign that African cultural values are being eroded? In addition to this, we should go back to our African traditional values that always insist that those who are mature enough are the ones who should get married and have children who they can manage to take care of. Otherwise, we shall keep on having problems of children who lack parental care.

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In support of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative

Many people have had their views on the One Laptop Per Child initiative by Dr Negroponte. I wish to have my take on this.

Firstly, let me say that I am an African and a Malawian in particular. And Malawi is one of the countries in the so-called developing world. I would not say that Malawi is a Third World country because I have problems with the classification of countries as First world etc. I think it is not the intention of this post to air out my reservations on this demeaning classification.

In my opinion, I find no problems in the promotion of the one laptop per child project in developing countries. I know some people object to this initiative because they feel that it is a wrong priority for developing countries. However, I feel that this kind of thinking stems from the fact there is usually a misguided stereotypical blanket classification that all people in developing countries are very poor. I think these opponents forget that there are social classes like high-income, middle-income as well as poor people in developing countries as it is the case with developed countries. However, we cannot deny the fact that a LARGE number of people in developing countries struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis and there is need for social and economic justice to uplift them from abject poverty.

In my opinion, I feel that once a person overlooks the fact that there are also social classes in developing countries, it is very easy to conclude that a laptop per child is not necessary in that case. It is easy to falsely conclude that every child in the developing world is malnourished etc and therefore needs food, clean water, clothing etc. What we forget is that there are some kids (not necessarily from rich families) who definitely deserve immediate access to technological advances like a laptop computer. I for one did all my primary school, secondary school as well as undergraduate degree training in public schools in Malawi and I could have wished that I could have been exposed to technology like computers at a much earlier age. Therefore, we have to realize that denying these deserving kids a chance is perpetuating the already existing digital divide with their counterparts in the West and the rest of the developed world.

So, lets give the deserving kids the laptops and for those who are very underpriviledged, lets give them what they need most ie food, shelter, clothing and most importantly education which I believe is a key to human development. To this end, I therefore strongly support Dr Negroponte's vision.

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