Orphan Problems and Community Concern in Ethiopia

Abstract

Orphaned children are one of the most disadvantaged groups, living in the community with various problems. Orphan problems are universal in nature and the magnitude of problem varies from one geographical location to another. The common problems faced by orphans worldwide are at higher risk of severe malnutrition, high mortality rates, lower levels of school attendance, and increased likelihood of child labour (both paid and unpaid). These children are also more likely to be subjected to abuse, neglect, and exploitation, not to mention the grief of losing their parents. There are over 14 million children living as orphans due to poverty, war, HIV/AIDS and other causes, and as many as 100 million more who are living homeless on the streets. There are different NGOs working for orphans in local, national and international level who provide the children at Orphanage with food, health care, shelter, clothing, education and the personal attention needed for each child's physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. While taking care of these orphan children, they face various challenges and difficulties due to increased HIV rates and increased poverty. There is a problem of the rapidly growing number of orphans and resources are severely limited. The concept of helping out the orphaned children is gradually changing from agency/NGO to community due to extensive community awareness .Now a day the role of community in alleviation of orphan problem is significantly observed in different communities. The main objective of the study is to assess the role of community participation in alleviating the problem of orphan children at “Nefas Mewcha” town 75 km away from Gondar town in Ethiopia. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted for the study and semi -structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data for quantitative data collection and in qualitative method, focus group discussion and key informants and some individual indepth interviews were employed. The study used descriptive statistics for quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative data.