Paulo has 8 children ranging in ages from 14 years to 6 months. Three of them walk 2 hours to school and 2 hours home. He told us that he used to live near the mines, but it wasn’t a safe place for children. He bought the land in the mountains where we visited him, and moved his family there. But he can’t grow enough in his fields to feed them all.
©2011 Amy Conner for World Vision
As we talked, his wife nursed their baby, surrounded by five of her beautiful but shy little ones (the older three were at school).
As we walked away, I couldn’t help wondering when the next baby would come.
In rural communities, we’ve seen a baffling series of contradictions about the value of children. On the one hand, their’s is a close-knit large-family culture. On the other hand, if a cow and a child are both sick, the family will usually seek care for the animal.
Rural Bolivian women believe that their role is to make babies, care for their animals, cook food, and make more babies. Their identity is wrapped up in this. They also have a real need for children to help them work their fields.
©2011 Amy Conner for World Vision
Bolivian men also see children as helpers for the farm. But the extra mouths to feed are an inexpressible strain. Almost all Bolivian children are abused sexually, physically, and verbally. If you were to take a U.S. class of 30 kids and move it to Bolivia, 27 of them will abused and 12 of those are sexually abused (both boys and girls).
Many parents just walk away. They usually go to find better work somewhere else, promising to send money home, but many never return and never send money. They just disappear.
How can you find your identity in child-bearing and then turn around and abandon your children?
It seems obvious to us that if you can’t afford to feed more children, you don’t have more children.
But it isn’t obvious to rural Bolivians.
I don’t know how to help Paulo and his wife. He is so underwater he doesn’t even know what his problems are, or how World Vision can help.
But it takes time. You can’t barge in, point your finger, and say “Stop having babies and here’s how. You can’t have sex with your spouse certain days.”
It’s far more complicated than that. You have to build trust which requires building friendships. You have to open their minds to new ideas through education. Children need to grasp a vision of their future that includes options like higher education, small business ventures, agricultural innovation, and giving back to their communities. Families need to embrace the value of children, the responsibility they have to each child, and their capacity to meet that responsibility.
©2011 Amy Conner for World Vision
World Vision does all of this in the communities within which they work. They also teach nutrition, cleanliness and sanitation, and healthy practices. They have the opportunity to teach about fertility, the reproductive cycle, and why and how to space pregnancies for the health and well-being of the mother.
Because unless they take ownership of their capacity to provide adequate care for the children they have, the cycle of poverty will only continue.
Join World Vision’s work with communities. For just $1 a day or 1/4 of a Starbucks latte, you can help break this cycle of poverty.
This post originally appeared on deepeerstory.com
Read more posts from the Bolivia bloggers team.
Maternal mortality in Bolivia is one of the highest in the world. According to the ENDSA 98 survey, the maternal mortality rate corresponds to 390 per 100,000 liveborn. In rural and indigenous areas the maternal mortality rate is much higher. In certain rural areas of the highlands (altiplano) the maternal mortality rate reaches 887 per 100,000 liveborn (UNICEF november 2001).
http://www.unicef.org/bolivia/children_1538.htm
Though heartbreaking, it does seem like the most logical choice. :/
Great points. When someone stabs someone and you start to speak and are interrupted by a commoner who says, “No, it’s okay, this is a custom of ours.” Will you stand by silently and let them destroy themselves? No. When an ideal is wrong, it is wrong, even when it is hoisted over their heads by one of the 3 Abrahamic religions of the world. If education truly is a means you incorporate into your method of raising them out of poverty, maybe a science course, an economics overview, or a general education in the similarities of world religions would be a great addition. After all, if they aren’t educated in different perspectives and perspectives that give positive results, they will lost without a compass… and as we can see, their moral compasses don’t seem to be pointing them in the right direction thus far. Birth control in the form of condoms is not only more practical than the withdraw or rhythm method, it’s safer and more reliable. No one knows they will choose something if it is never made an option. The church may make a suggestion, but it is up to us to become informed and realize if it is really helpful or not. You want to help them? Help them help themselves.
Thank you Marcia, I was going to say the same thing. For some reason, the religious zealots of the world like to quote the ideas of a man from the middle east every time want to justify their views. Even if they held this view on their own with no assisted indoctrination, it wouldn’t change the fact that this world isn’t put here for humans to just continuously repopulate beyond responsibility. We owe it not just to ourselves, and our children that we do have, but also to the rest of the world and our fellow species. Whiny comments like Ted’s just takes away from helping and tries to attack the method of help. World Vision, though they mention prayer and other religious relics of past human primitive thinking, are at least using their hands to work, not just talk to clouds or type complaints. (Though I wish they wouldn’t mention the talking to clouds bit, but what can ya do?)