THE CHILDREN OF LUSAKA

In Zambia, 75 percent of the children fall under the UN definition of poverty which is living on less than $1 a day. Up until 2003, more than 1 100 000 children (under the age of 18) in Zambia had lost one or both of their parents.

There are approximately 300 000 homeless children in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. These children survive on begging, stealing or through prostitution since those are the only options they have. The city offers schooling for children between 6 and 12 years of age but this is hard for most families to afford since uniforms and school material must be paid for by the students. Not seldom, many of the children who cannot afford to go to school are stigmatized by their own society, which often leads to a future consisting of poverty and problems of abuse.