why we need to invest in today’s children

Are today’s children better off than young people who were raised say 20 years ago? The answer, most likely, will be a “Yes” regardless of who you ask.
Some of the answers this newspaper gathered around included, so many children are going to school today; the number of children parks have increased; many children are exposed to the internet; children rights NGOs have also trebled, and actually that most children today are more enlightened than yesterday.
In fact, when you come to Kampala for a day, the outlook is generally positive. In the mornings and evenings almost all children can be seen clad in fitting uniforms pacing to schools. Others, being dropped off to and from the schools by parents in all makes of sports utility vehicles.
But not for every child
Stick around for a few days, and you will see something else. A good number of children are actually not going to school, street children and the likes, others actively engaged in business-vending scrap and plastic or even selling merchandise, to mention but a few.
Last year’s census results put children numbers at 56 per cent (about 20 million) from the 34.9 million total population.
But according to the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (Unicef), eight million children are living in undesirable situations — with no access to education, health care, right to participation and are generally marginalised
Poverty, a “disease”, as it is frequently referred to, has further weakened their protective environment, led to more abuses and exploitation, says Unicef which means poverty carried forward into their future if the status quo remains.
The situation is worse in the Karamoja and West Nile regions of Uganda according to the organisation’s surveys. But in Kampala, the capital, and its numerous shantytowns alike, the situation isn’t any better.
It is a completely different world in Soweto zone, a slum in Namuwongo, a stone’s throw away from the city centre. The place defines the poverty spectacle, even when most of its inhabitants are actually engaged in production, especially in the informal sector.
But Soweto too has classes. There is the Industrial view, for the rich poor and the Go-down (for the very poor).
Soweto Go-down is the worst news possible for any human life; punctuated by extremely poor sanitation, garbage disposal, drainage, and a strong stench that welcomes you to every corner you turn to.
One girl’s story
Fourteen-year-old Mwajuma Asali lives here. She dropped out of a Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) funded School last year, just in Primary Two after her mother lost her waitress job, when KCCA authorities razed a restaurant where she worked in the ongoing gleam of uplifting the city’s look.
Her mother, 32-year-old Fatuma Sana, did not have other options either. She has six other children-all girls- to fend for. Mwajuma’s eldest sister at 17 just got “married” off last month because there were no alternatives—no money to keep her in school or relatives or organisations to turn to for support.
Sana says, “It was painful thing to agree to, But she was too old anyway that we couldn’t live together under one roof.” The nuclear family—seven children, mother and father--puts up in a single decrepit room barely 100 metres from the Nakivubo Channel. Close by is a big mound of rubbish that is carried from the rest of Kampala when it rains heavily.
We drop by in the morning after the previous overnight heavy downpour to see for ourselves —the flooding, squalor, stink, garbage, which contains both human and animal waste-flowing in and out of their “house”.
Whilst this is common sight, one cannot help to imagine what it is like for a child growing up here?
As Mwajuma’s mother cleans a place for us to sit on the neighbour’s raised veranda while my photojournalist colleague clicks away the shutter-release button on his camera for the moments. Some brazen neighbour, in his mid-twenties I guessed, is crouching in the drainage channel answering a nature’s call.
Words disappear from all of us. But while I and my colleague find this strange, the prying children tell us “to stop overlooking because this is common here.” In fact they pay more attention to my pen and notebook than the guy posting letters in the open.
Mwajuma’s mother says this is a place her daughters will always call home—in case KCCA doesn’t ever unload terror here, razing down the slum. Her other daughters of school going age do not go to school either after all they cannot even afford two meals every day. Lunch/Supper is eaten at once—5pm-as a standard practice to balance digestion between the 24 hours.
So what is the future like for Sana’s children? I could only imagine the odds.

Re-imagining the children’s future
And “It’s easy if you try” like John Lennon put it in his October 1971 best-selling classic single Imagine, a song that Unicef chose for an ongoing campaign to draw attention to the plight of children living in such macabre tableau.
The UN body says if you do not invest in the children’s present, the future is bleak.
The campaign—the global sing-along to Lennon’s Imagine, a song acclaimed world-over as an anthem for peace and hope, was launched last year in November to raise money and create awareness, about pretty much what everyone knows; that children have a right to education, play, participation, health, basic needs, especially in the world as it becomes hot and cold.
“Imagine all the people. Living life in peace. Imagine no possessions. No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man,” the song goes in the various lines.
But whilst it presupposes a perfect world, not even in the science fiction of Gotham City, Unicef, says the song’s lyrics rhyme with everyone in the world and wants everyone to imagine the environment they would want to see children grow.
Officials in Kampala say the status of children’s rights has steadily improved but a lot more efforts are still required for the eight million children.
The campaign running until November commenced started last year in the days leading to the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Convention of Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly in New York. The Children rights convention was adopted by the UN in 1989.
And a number of Unicef’s goodwill ambassadors, from sports stars, music icons, actors and likes from several countries were have participated in the campaign. Names like Angelique Kidjo, Adam Levine, David Beckham, Jackie Chan, Kat Perry, Craig David, the list is long.
All one is required to do is record their own version of the song using the #IMAGINE” app which can be downloaded via any android phone. All the recordings of the song by the celebrities and public alike will then be mixed by the French superstar disc jockey, David Guetta, for a final collaboration dubbed the “Million voices song.”
Unicef’s chief of communication, Jaya Murthy, says the song is simply a reminder that despite the notable progresses made, many children are still facing huge challenges. “What we know is that there are still many children out there whose fundamental rights are yet to be realised.

Why Imagine?
It was not easy picking a song, he added, that resonates well with the world. “But we felt Imagine is an iconic song that represents peace and hope.”
The song was written by Lennon, formerly part of the iconic music group The Beatles and was co-produced by his wife Yoko Ono. It became an instant hit upon its release. However, it gained renewed attention after Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980.
The campaign, Murthy explained, is also in line with the ongoing UN agenda of transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which centrally focuses on vulnerable groups and those living in hard-to-reach areas.
In July last year Unicef launched a campaign #InvestinrealUgchildren which rhymes with the #Imagine campaign, and to which Murthy said: “Our message is, if you don’t invest in today’s children the vision 2040 will be compromised. So the idea is to stimulate emotion and call for action.”
Lennon’s widow, Ono, gave the UN rights to use the song in the campaign that looks at the next 25 years.
The campaign in Uganda
In Uganda, Unicef assembled local artistes that include Navio, Benon Mugumbya, Lilian Mbabazi, Irene Ntale and Mun G to record a version of the song in a bid to give the campaign a local touch under #RelimagineUg.
Murthy, further, admitted that Unicef is cognizant of the urban-rural digital divide, which makes awareness of the campaign difficult but said “those are structural challenges we have no control over.”
But, nonetheless, he noted, “The SDGs are all about reaching out to people like this-with no access to technology nor a clue about rights.” The campaign also seeks to highlight the plight of vulnerable groups like mothers, who contribute extensively to the cognitive and social development of a child.
The million voices song will feature all recording of the song but with different versions at every click and will be available for digital download.
Besides the global sing-alongs, Unicef says participants are also donating and proceeds will be used for their programmes on healthcare, clean water, sanitation, education and emergency relief.
So will the campaign change anything for Mwanjuma in Soweto and other places alike? To quote the song, “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one”
As we concluded our conversation with her mother, maybe it was just a coincidence or even not because of the campaign; but a Good Samaritan, Evas Arije from the Children at Risk Network (CRANE), a Baptist church based organisation bent on training school dropout girls below the age of seventeen in practical skills like catering, was already waiting to pick her up.
But while she was lucky to find a helping hand, her siblings will remain seated at home basking in despair.