Africa and Its Children
On Sunday, 21 November 2004, the Boston Globe began a three day series of articles entitled Africa and Its Children.
Globe reporter John Donnelly and photographer Dominic Chavez spent several weeks in Uganda, Nigeria, and Swaziland interviewing and photographing the lives of three children.
- 21 November 2004 - Odongo Ambrose of Lira, Uganda, was kidnapped and forced to become a rebel soldier.
- 22 November 2004 - Bidemi Ademibo of Kuramo Village in Lagos, Nigeria, is part of a band of children who scrounge for food and cannot afford school.
- 23 November 2004 - Thandeka Motsa of Sibovo, Swaziland, became sole caretaker for her brother and sister after their parents died of AIDS.
The stories provide a glimpse into the lives of children trying to survive in a world of human tragedy. The Western world is reluctantly looking at the realities of life in Africa - in Darfur, Sudan, because of the crisis there, and the Ivory Coast because westerners were attacked. Is the Western world under the false impression that once Apartheid ended in South Africa all evil was eradicated from the African continent? The evil has continued for decades, and will not stop unless the Western world intervenes and faces the realities of the children, the future and hope of Africa.