Articles labeled: Africa

Apparently forcing children into servitude is big business in Senegal, Africa. One school actually forces their children to beg in the streets for hours and hours each day. If they don’t bring in enough money, they are beaten. Count your blessings for what you have, folks.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli’s life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam’s holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

You know, it would be easy to make fun of Uganda’s nutty beliefs, if we didn’t have our own number of kooks in our own country (a previously very viable presidential candidate that thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old comes to mind). Not to mention sometimes we wonder if our own kids are possessed by demons as well, especially after they have eaten a couple cupcakes…

The New Vision said that authorities at Sir Tito Winyi Primary School in the western district Hoima described the “hysterical” students as suffering from a demonic attack.

“The situation is bad. About 100 pupils are totally mad. They are chasing everybody including teachers and fellow pupils, throwing stones, banging doors and windows,” the paper quoted headmaster Vincent Kitende as saying.

Kitende said that a similar incident took place at the school late last year, affecting more than 200 students that time, according to the paper.

Finally some heartwarming news for once. Vanessa Anderson, a 15-year-old from Maple Valley, Washington, isn’t content with texting her friends and hanging out on MySpace all day. Instead, she’s on a mission to take a trip to Ghana, West Africa, along with a 40-foot cargo container filled with medical supplies, reading materials, and more:

Dream big, he told her. Don’t just think about taking a suitcase full of school supplies or children’s vitamins. Think about taking a cargo container full of supplies, one that could be used — when emptied — for a classroom or a clinic.

Vanessa took his words to heart.

She’s now spearheading an effort to raise $16,000 by the end of this month to buy the container and cover the cost of shipping it to Ghana.

It will go to Bamboi, a place that is just now getting electricity and where residents walk long distances for water.

For Vanessa and others making the trip, it’s more than just a faraway place in a strange land.

There’s a personal connection.

Nana Kwaku Dapaah II, a member of the church who lives in Maple Valley with his wife and the youngest of his two sons, is from that area. Dapaah, an immigrant who travels to Ghana several times each year, is paramount chief of the Mo tribe, about 100,000 people who live in northwest Ghana. Living and working in the United States allow him to take opportunities to his people that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Anyone interested in donating to this worth cause can send a check to Real Missions, P.O. Box 1511, Maple Valley, WA 98038.

ST. LOUIS: Researchers may have a simple way to help feed thousands of starving children in Africa: peanut butter.

In a U.S. professor’s study, nearly 3,000 malnourished children were treated with an enriched peanut-butter mixture. Of those, 89 percent of the severely malnourished children and 85 percent of the moderately malnourished children recovered.