Afghanistan+children

=**Numbers at a Glance**= [], 2009 Save the Children, 4-30-09.
 * One Afghan child in five dies, often of a preventable cause before her or his fifth birthday
 * 85% of women give birth at home with untrained attendants
 * 30% of healthcare facilities are without female health professionals: doctors, nurses and midwives
 * 100,000 teachers are needed in Afghanistan, including some 48,000 new women teachers, if there is to be an essential increase in girls' enrollment and retention in school
 * Only one female teacher in three has the required education; some 27,000 current teachers will need support to increase their knowledge and teaching skills
 * The vast majority of rural parents do not understand child development. According to a recent Save the Children survey, only 19% of mothers believe play is useful to promote learning and only 4% believe that it readies a child for school; no fathers understood that play helped their children's cognitive development.



= Children in Afghanistan =  According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children Report, Afghanistan has the fourth worst record in under five child mortality, the infant mortality rate being 152 per 1,000 live births.

According to a survey conducted by the UNHCR in 1997, there are an estimated 35,000 street children in Kabul alone. More than 250,000 children are reported dying every year of malnutrition alone in Afghanistan. Every three hours or so, a child is blown up as a result of more than ten million landmines planted all over Afghanistan. In a group of refugee children, after being asked to raise their hands if any of them have had their parents killed by the Taliban, seven out of 10 raised their hand to show they had lost a parent. A recent United Nations Children's Fund report says that 72 percent of Afghan children have lost a relative in the last four years of fighting.

[],4-30-09

=__The Kite Runner__=

In the book we are currently reading called __The Kite Runner__ gives us a good idea of how good and bad Afghanistan really is. Amir and Hassan show us how two life styles are. Hassan is a servant and lives in a shack. Where on the other hand Amir lives his childhood not knowing what it is like to not live without money. Hassan and his father serve Amir and Baba. It wasn't until later in Amir's life that he realizes how bad it can be. When he ventures back to get Sohrab (Hassan's son). Amir visits an orphanage that Sohrab could be at. It is run down and the children their barely eat. They have no money to support the orphanage. So the young children turn to selling themselves to survive. This tears my heart apart to even imagine this. But i am sure their are kids over their today that attempt the same things to get by day to day. This shows me how much we take everything for granted.