Impacts on early emotional development

The region I chose is East Asia and Pacific, as I have been to some of the countries in this area. I am in China, so I feel I need to know more about the situation in this area. I have been to Cambodia with my husband to visit an orphanage, and the situation is bad. When we were there, there were 80 children in the orphanage aging from 10 months to 17 years old. Most of them were waiting for people from other countries to adopt them, and some of them gave up the hope. We went there, because one of our colleagues has adopted two children from that orphanage. We went there to travel and to buy them some stationaries. They do not have enough resources to support their study, and they were extremely to see the stationaries that we brought with us. On the way to the hotel, we saw many people walking and resting on the streets, sometimes, people will approach to us to ask us if we want to adopt their child. I feel really bad about that.

From the website, I have learned that the health care is one of the biggest challenges in the region. As there is a large population of poverty in this area, most countries do not have enough money to give free immunization to people who cannot afford them. Many children in this region still die of diarrhea and pneumonia. Those two are still the top two killers on the list, even though they are easily prevented and treated today. The other challenge that I have found is about inequity. Most countries in this region still have a very conservative way to look at boys and girls. Most orphans are girls, and girls still do not have equal rights as boys do at home in many countries here. This inequity prevents children from having the equal rights to be educated to create their own futures. Poverty is another challenge for the children in this area. They barely have enough food to keep them away from starving, let alone having some food with nutrition that they need every day. It is not healthy for their development.

All the challenges that I listed above can have the impact on children’s development. They will not have a chance to know what the world looks like, as they do not have the access to it. They do not have the chance to change their future, as they cannot go to school or have enough educational resources for them to use and learn. They do not have health care when they need to be protected from the diseases. Their parents will even talk about adoption right in front of children, it will hurt children’s feelings. They cannot feel loved or safe from their homes. It will not help them grow to be the resilient people.

I do think no matter how hard it is for parents, they have the responsibility to take care of their children. No one can be better than parents in a child’s life. Children in the orphanage  that we went to have smilies, but I still can see sadness in their eyes. They want to be loved; they want to have visitors to make them feel they are visible to the world; they want to have the same rights as other children to be educated to be able to change their futures. All those needs are the basic ones, but only visiting them cannot help them. We need the whole society and the world to work together to make certain children can all access to education, so they at least have a chance to change their lives in the future.
Reference
UNICEF (2011). Retrieved from:http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html