By Volunteer Suyog Ingle, FHI Nagpur
The unforeseeable COVID-19 pandemic has left not only our country, but the whole world stranded as this deadly contagious disease has spread in almost every corner of the world!
It has already affected the world in several aspects. It has taken the lives of innocent people; crumbled economies, especially, those of developing countries like ours; left countless employees unemployed, pushed families to misery, caused racism amongst people and has adversely affected many other things which are collectively hostile for the livelihood of society.
With these implications, it is undoubtedly going to affect the future of underprivileged children in a detrimental way, which could be as follows:
1. Most importantly, parents of these underprivileged children won’t necessarily be educated enough to protect and pass on authentic information regarding this disease to their children; which in turn can endanger the health of children and consequently, could result in the loss of life.
2. As daily wage migrant labourers are the worst-hit community due to this pandemic, they won’t be able to feed their children adequately which could lead to the malnutrition of their children, creating hurdles in the proper growth of these underprivileged children in the future.
3. As these children have witnessed racism in several areas, this could imprint bad sentiments on their mind and could affect their personality while growing up as a sensible and responsible citizen in the future.
4. As ignorance is high in slum/rural areas like Dharavi, the underprivileged children in such places might have to face the unbearable loss of a parent which could affect them mentally for a longer time in the future.
5. In a worst-case scenario, as this pandemic has pushed many families to the brink of poverty, this could compel them to stop the schooling of their children while having the children opt for earning livelihood along with their parents.
Presuming the implications of this pandemic on the future of underprivileged children, the intervention of government is most needed in order to mitigate these harsh implications through introducing new schemes which focus on good health and livelihood of these children or through collaboration with different NGOs that work for the betterment of the underprivileged children.
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