What future for "nobody's" children?

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These infants are beautiful, robust and happy, proud to say 'I belong somewhere'.Souleymanou, Aissata, and Djibrilla are some of the names and identities given to some of the rescued children being taken care of by a local "centre for distressed infants" located in Garoua, North Cameroon. The women who care for these children, work in shifts round the clock,some of them doing so voluntarily. Some of these babies are found in dustbins, others on road sides, while some are deposited ta the doorposts of houses. Many are brought to this centre either starving, malnourished, or in a state of trauma. The loving care and tender affection showered onthese young ones has helped the majority of them to grow up into stabilised adults, with some schooling, while othershave undertaken profitable business ventures .
Some of these children, however, do not recover from the shock they are subjected to at birth. A case in point is little Djamyla, whose head was violently hit on the floor by her biological mother. All efforts to keep her going prooved to be futile. Following periodic shivers observed , she passed on, when she was just three months old. While government structures, N.G.O.'s, and other goodwilled persons are active in salvaging the plight of these young ones, the question remains: why would anyone bring forth children in the first place , if adequate dispositions have not been taken to ensure the child's welfare? Why not drop the infant at an institution where she could be well cared for? This should get one and all thinking on the future we reserve for future generations
Location: Benoue, Cameroun

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