CHILDREN AND ENVIRONMENT
FOREWORD
AFEYD:Association for Environment and Youth Development is a structure of young people that works for the welfare of worldwide person through advocacy, campaigns and actions in environmental education, health, economic,information ...
so that everyone go towards a healthy environment and sustainable development.
Childen and Environment is a category of information, awareness about the environmental situation with children.
I / - INTRODUCTION
Our planet will host a number of children above it has far known and this figure will never equaled.So what will our obligations towards these children, our children and grandchildren? Will we leave them on a planet that can satisfy their needs? Or will we leave them on a planet endangered by the perverse effects of environmental degradation? Note that the environemental degradation kills children, kills the poorest among the poor: children in the third world countries.The environmental degradation also affects countries whose agricultural sector is already law, destroyes arable lands,weakens food production and causes malnutrition among children, kills babies, pollutes water, infects slums and contaminates the food of children.
-Air pollution hits children hardest, causing infections of the airways, which annually kills more than 4,2 million children under 5 years.
-Toxic chemicals, heavy metals, radiation and poisons have more severe consequences on children, whether in rich or poor countries,causing each year many deaths due to the cancers or birth defects and causing the birth-dead children in industrialized countries and in developing countries.
-All the world's children suffer from air pollution and climate change due to the perforation of ozone layer and to the changes of environment of our planet unless we: NGOs, civil society, government ... sensitize the world to deploy the necessary efforts to reverse the environmental degradation.
II /-ACT IN RESPECTING THE PRESENT AND FUTURE
The problem of environmental degradation primarily affects the children.Because the children of today and of tomorrow will inherit the land and their future is in our hands.The children are too often victims of pollution because their young bodies are much weaker than those of adults to the poisons that we saturate the atmosphere and to the toxic materials which we sow the land.Any effort aimed at saving the planet must include to:
-stop the environmental degradation
-the reduction of the rates of nationality because the problem of environmental degradation is largely complicated by the problem of overpopulation.
The projects implemented by AFEYD and other NGOs have demonstrated that parents decide to have fewer children when they are assured that their children will live, but unfortunately some 14 million children under 5 years die each year in developing countries of environmental pollution, malnutrition or have contracted common diseases of the lack of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. Three million children suffer from serious handicaps . But some 10 million deaths can now be avoided without excessive spending through breastfeeding,oral rehydration therapy (ORT), improved food preservation, vaccination and obviously through better management environment. Indeed, the carnage that takes place each year is mainly the result of our inability to manage our environment.
III /-CHILDREN: FACTOR OF PROGRESS
Children are differents from adults.They have boundless energy and opened spirit.They can play important role in promoting positive changes especially in the field of pretrial and improving the environment.
* Who is child?:
-According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Population Division (UNPD), people aged under 15.
-The Convention of Child Rights calls "child" every human being below 18 years old.
Both children and the environment are the future. Unfortunately, the outlook for children suffering a slowdown in some areas: health, education, nutrition, agriculture ...
The environmental resources are deteriorating following the activities undertaken by the adults The children feel more strongly the effects of environmental degradation, they are more fragile and more susceptible to pressure than adults, susceptible to disease and malnutrition and less resistant to environmental degradation.The Convention of Child Rights gives the children rights, that is to say giving to the children what they are entitled to receive and not making them charity.The Convention states:
-Every child has the inherent right to life and to the development
-Every child should enjoy of the better health,must have the right of education, must be well treated ...
The Convention continues:
-reducing malnutrition for children
-combatting malnutrition, disease, thanks to readily available technical means.
-providing nutritious foods and drinking safe water due to the dangers and risks of environmental degradation. The world's children also participate in programs to save the planet led by young people who have taken the lead in campaigns for healthy environment and sustainable development: the planting of trees, fruits, grains, cleaning of residential places ...
IV/-THE CHILD IN THE BELLY OF HIS MOTHER
Even before being conceived, the child form gametes is sensitive to the harmful factors of environment, He is far from being fully protect.The environment in which a pregnant woman is exposed has a significant effect on the development of embryonic and ftus.Many mothers do deliberately expose the fetus to the substances that may be very harmful which include:
-Pollution-choice:the poisons substances most responsible for fetal lesions are not always or industrial and agriculture pollutants.The alcohol is responsible for a number of congenital malformations and lack of weight at the birth .The cigarette smoke exposes the fetus to high oxide carbon,cadmium, nicotine all of which can cross the women placenta.Les smoke give birth to children who are generally smaller than those of non smoker.Plus the mother smokes, the greater the effects on children are feeling.The risk of perinatal death increases with the number of cigarettes smoked tobacco smoke.The tobacco smoke is a pollutant that acts significantly within houses.When a pregnant woman smokes and drinks, the effects get worse.
-fuels from biomass: Materials cooking, heating water or house.The wood, crop residues, manure ... These pollutants can affect pregnant women who spend much time at home, or in the kitchen before the fire, especially women in rural areas.
-HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) causes AIDS, which kills people of all ages but is a growing threat to newborns and infants.
-ionizing radiations: the children before and after birth are sensitive to the ionizing radiations by irradiation at great doses that kill cells, causing organ damage and cause rapid dead. At low doses, they cause a chain reaction wrong known that can cause cancer or genetic legions.
V /-INFANTS, YOUNG CHILDREN AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The relationship between children and the environment is not a static or passive, it is a complex and continuous interaction between various categories.The social environment that accommodates the child at birth influences power over his chances of survival during his childhood.The physical environment of the newborn has certain dangers that may take him to the death such as lack of physical maturity, congenital malformations, genetic deficiency ...
-Malnutrition: This is the most serious problem for the health of children in developing countries.The malnutrition generally does not kill immediately, but weakens the body and infections allow malnutrition.The best protection for infants against malnutrition and infections is the breast milk.The breastfeeding protects children against malnutrition during the first months of his life. The breast milk contains antibodies that increase the resistance of child to infection.
-The poor state of environment in rural areas and in the marginal zone of overpeople promotes the spread of contagious diseases and other diseases,e.g: diarrheal diseases contracted at the base of untreated water and foods not covered or unprotected ,malaria by poor drainage of stagnant water, irrigation systems are poorly designed, inefficient use of pesticides.In many rural areas, children have not access to drinking water in developing countries.
-Infants and chemicals toxic products: they are sensitive to chemicals toxic products found in water and in food.They have risks when they are exposed to chemicals toxic products or to other pollutants, such as: nitrate...
-The pollution inside houses: To the infants whose parents smoke we can record twice more the cases of pneumonia and bronchitis than to the infants whose parents don't smoke.The infants and young children are also exposed to the smoke from burning firewood and agricultural residues in rural areas from developing countries.
-Pollution outside the houses: infants and young children are exposed to the different types of air pollutants:smoke of vehicles and factories ...
There are also the effects of plumb, cadmium which are heavy metals very dangerous for children health
VI/-CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSES
A/-CHALLENGES: A growing concern has emerged regarding the challenges facing the field of ecology: the global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation of tropical areas, loss of genetic resources ,desertification and degradation of lands.These challenges are related to each other and inextricably affect everyone, regardless of age. They threatens developing countries and industrialized but affect most severely the poorest people living in the poorest countries, those who depend directly on ecologic ressources.The following topics are to examined: impact of climate on health, water and waste, forests ...
B/-SUCCESS: The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) plan for children and the environment:
-protect the environment, promote development and child health are goals that do not exclude them. It will complement each other because the environmental benefits of all that is done to children's property and vice versa
1/-To satisfy basic needs of children:
-in Nutrition, health care, housing and education. The increase in life expectancy, reduction of malnutrition.Access to safety drinking water ... The actions that save our children : Maternal health, oral rehydration, immunization, breast-feeding.
2/-Sensibilization to environment and education: the home, community and school are three main spheres of education for the environment. The child's education begins at home and in his quarter.To the child, the perception of the environment grows at home and received education in kindergartens, the primary, temple, church and all the years of schooling organizations.
3/-How to create a healthy and sustainable environment :we must give the chance to each child to participate in the struggle against the environmental degradation in educating each child the importance of taking care of environment, to take part of young people groups for activities like tree planting, cleaning up places, really get involved in the environmental life everywhere he will be so that living conditions of every person are improving in order to leave world rich, beautiful planet in biodiversity , in air ... for our children, grandchildren and for generations to come.
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For every young person: a healthy environment and sustainable
