Africa 24

Most children in Waterloo are living with their parents or guardians in an un-fit environments.

This has every chances to make them grow poor. They may not grow up good to lift their parents from poverty. The home and the environment children live help determine their future.

Children in decent homes is something that is often talked about by children’s advocates in Sierra Leone.

But children still don’t live up in comfortable environments and are limited in so many facilities – libraries, zoos, playgrounds.

On a gloomy afternoon Wednesday 11th June, 2025 at Grassfied, a set of children were seen playing around along a narrow, stony, dried up channel.

This place is not developed and it is dotted with so many weak houses built by residents of Grassfied, Waterloo.

The teens who are girls between 2 to 13 years lack so many opportunities which their peers in abroad and in other African countries are enjoying.

They lack playgrounds, cinemas, zoos, libraries, garden parks to spend lively time with other friends.

The schools in this Waterloo community in Western Area Rural District are mostly privately run by individuals who bent on fetching more profits than giving quality learning or providing ideal playgrounds for pupils.

Sadly too, the ones run by the government are sort of good benches where children could sit on and write their school lessons.

School benches are still made out of woods. The old wooden benches when broken could not be rapaired so early by teachers.

This is because teachers themselves often complain frequently of low pay and other facilities.

So with homes not decent and with schools lacking good playgrounds, seesaws (swings), zoos, libraries, etc, children are growing up in very hostile environments.

Recently, the United Nations (UN) says “poverty is not just lack of income; it’s a lack of shelter, safety, dignity, choice, health care, food, education, choice, political inclusion.

The post by UN on Twitter (now X) streamed on Whatsapp few days ago has a lot to tell us as people and a nation.

The United Nations’ post has advised that “everyone has the right to live free from poverty and the chance to thrive.”

If we are to go by the above, we are far from working to meet those elements listed.

Our children, really, don’t have chance to thrive.