Adolescents, the age of growth
Serendipity Healthcare Foundation
Women, Children, Communities, Water, Sanitation, Girls
Today is World Children day and aside from all the top issues, priorities on the international development agenda, young children and adolescents come last especially in terms of development budgets and policies. World population has young children and adolescents between the ages of 0 – 19 comprising of more than 3% of its total population.
It becomes imperative that policies and resources are devoted to children in the first decade of their lives and thus investment in Health, Nutrition, Basic Education and protection should be a top priority for all stakeholders. However, over the years there has been a significant improvement in the investment of the first decade in the lives of children but there must be a continuous responsibility to ensure that there is support for children as they grow.
These can only be achieved by an investiture and implementation of the convention of the rights of the child and convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women which the girl child under the age of 18 must encompass, Secondly the reduction of under-five mortality, elimination of gender gaps in primary school enrollment such as equal access to primary schools, safe water, routine immunizations and medications, Thirdly equal access to basic infrastructure can accelerate the fight against poverty, socio – economic disparities and gender discrimination when there is a continuous investment of resources in children in adolescent age as these could manifest during this period as children who are poor or marginalized are less likely to make the transition to secondary education and more likely to experience such protection abuses as child marriage, early sex, violence and domestic labor – especially if they happen to be girls. Denying adolescents their rights to quality education, health care, protection and participation perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation that does not allow them to reach their full potential.
We thus implore all stakeholders to work together with us so that we can harness the potential of this rising generation of young children and adolescents so that they can reach their full potential through investment in more resources, strategic planning and political will to protect their rights and care.
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Young Children and Adolescent age are the formative years that will shape the way our world will be in future thus we need to invest more so that we have a better world.
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