“To feel high”; “to be able to sleep outside”; “to get happiness”; “to feel warm during the cold, especially at night”; “to not feel so hungry”; “to forget my problems”; “when someone does something wrong to me to have no fear and fight”; “to relieve stress and anxiety”; “to have courage to rob someone”; “because my friends influenced me”
Asking street children in Eldoret the question, “Why do you use?” these are several of the more common responses I get. Their drug of choice? Huffing glue. And although I haven’t fully completed the analysis, of 50 street children I’ve interviewed, I would say only about 5 said they don’t use glue. Nearly all started using glue immediately when they came to the streets, and most use every day, all day. They buy the glue from cobblers or small supply shops in town, and a whole days worth of glue costs 20 shillings at most (about 30 cents). Street children may lack obvious material needs and basic human rights – food, clothing, shelter, education, and health care – but their addiction to glue makes the seemingly simple provision of these lacking needs very difficult. In my mind, and the mind of many others I’ve talked to here, drug use among street children represents the single biggest barrier to finding lasting solutions.
Here’s a verse from a great artist on a great album that says some very poignant and relevant things about drug addiction.
“He said, nobody else ever loved him / that’s why he get high enough to go touch the heaven’s above him / vividly remembers every pipe every needle that stuck him / every alley he ever slept in every purse that he snuck in / every level of hell he’s been to and the one that he’s stuck in / the one he can’t escape, even though it’s of his own construction / maybe you can’t relate, maybe you one of those that just doesn’t / maybe he doesn’t care, loves to allow these demons to come in with No… Intruder… Alert”
-lupe fiasco (Intruder Alert, from The Cool)
In one of my MBA classes, my professor asserted that the lack of institutions (both formal such as healthcare/gov’t agencies and informal) in many African countries is the primary reason why the cycle of poverty continues. Do you agree with this assessment or does drug use and women’s rights, for example, pose a larger roadblock to poverty elimination?
Tim, in a weird sick twisted away, I love your blog and especially the story of the street kids which you showed me on my last day in Eldoret. It was a powerful experience that I have shared with others. Thank you for that. I wish you the best buddy and hope to catch up with you in NYC sometime.
trav… i totally get what your prof is saying, and true in many ways. however, and i mean this simply and honestly, i’ll always feel that people are more important than buildings. i.e., human resources, human capacities, human capital, whatever you want to call it, will always be more important than number of hospitals or schools or government agencies or businesses, simply because “infrastructure” is meaningless without the thread of human beings making that infrastructure work for the people. i’m not trying to be pedantic here, i just think it is a simple point that is often overlooked. therefore, yes, i would say women’s rights for example, is so fundamentally important that all the infrastructure in the world won’t do any good without these basic human rights, such as gender equality, being granted first. look for example at Kerala state in India, trumpeted as one of the greatest successes in global health (which i align so closely w/ poverty reduction it’s hard to disentangle the two). Kerala invested in education and women’s empowerment, and despite low levels of income, improved the health of its population to rival that of some developed countries. have they completely lifted themselves out of poverty? No. however, if you believe education and good health are the fundamental inputs or stepping stones to “reach the ladder of economic growth” (to borrow from sachs), then it becomes these human investments, that may or may not involve infrastructure, that are most fundamental at breaking the cycle of poverty.
Hello
I just wanted to stop by and tell you thank you for caring for orphans. As I have read through your blogs on children I am encouraged that I am not alone in this fight to help orphaned and abandoned children. I am the Director of Public Relations for a non-profit organization called World Orphans. We build church based orphan homes all over the world and our mission is simple E3 to reach each church…each child…each community. I would love for you to take a look at our website and let me know if you have any questions. (www.worldorphans.com) thank you again for your heart and words that you have written. I hope you will have a glorious blessed day!
Jenna M. Howard
-Director of Public Relations
http://www.Worldorphans.org
Jennah@worldorphans.org
http://www.JennaMarieHoward.com