6 OPPRESSIVE BARRIERS THAT PREVENT SLUM KIDS FROM GROWING AS THEY SHOULD

• Caste and social divides

It’s hard to comprehend, but there is a way of thinking in this part of the world that devalues a person simply by where they were born. Some people believe children from low castes are truly worth less than other kids. That it’s in their nature. This belief makes it okay to mistreat, neglect, and abuse. It makes it easy not to care. It makes it hard to motivate and inspire change across the culture.

• Lack of opportunity

So many people have few job options other than pulling rickshaws, sweeping, housekeeping, laying bricks – jobs with low wages and high physical demands. Many poor people with kids in India work their fingers to the bone and their bodies to exhaustion, but they just can’t make enough to give their kids a future. And their kids are destined for the same life as them – at best.

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• Diseases

India’s kids face many diseases for which treatments exist, but that are unaffordable or unattainable to the lower classes. These diseases, like tuberculosis and thalassemia, rob kids of their chance at a better future.

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• Social complacency

There is a strong social bent toward simply accepting the status quo. This is the way things are. It’s a pervasive attitude that resists change for no practical reason, and because all the solutions seem too hard.

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• Malnutrition

There are reams of studies documenting the long term damage from childhood hunger and malnutrition. Slower intellectual growth. Inadequate physical development. Weaker immune systems. The lack of good quality food for keeps India’s kids from becoming who they were meant to be.

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• Poor sanitation

India’s slums are breeding grounds for water borne diseases like cholera and diarrhea. Also, the high heats and dense crowds of people make it too easy for diseases to spread through the air. The best health care in the world doesn’t help if people live in conditions that breed contagious diseases.