The poor conditions in which a lot of children from developing countries live can provoke many problems in relation to the children’s health and growth. The negative physical and social environments influence children directly because of their impossibility to resist adverse impacts and different diseases.
In his book Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, Conor Grennan discusses the living conditions of the children in Nepal, referring to the situation in the orphanage known as the Little Princes Children’s Home.
Children were brought to the orphanage in spite of the fact that they had families. Thus, the children’s parents intended to protect their children from poverty and civil war by sending them to the orphanage.
Grennan writes the book to reveal the aspects of the poor children’s life in the orphanage in Nepal which is influenced by the risky situation of the civil war in the country, poverty, absence of the parental love, malnutrition, psychological pressure, and unavailability of medical services.
Providing the description of the volunteering experience in the Little Princes Children’s Home, Grennan refers to a lot of examples which are associated with the individuals of children in order to personalize the global problem of the children’s ill state in many developing countries of the world (Grennan, 2010).
It is possible to refer to the global organizations’ tasks to concentrate on the child survival and development in relation to the developing countries. From this point, the book written by Grennan can be discussed as the evidence to illustrate the real situation in the world regarding the children’s physical and emotional development.
Global health is the complex notion which also includes the concept of the child health. In spite of the fact the book does not discuss the heath questions directly, the author refers to the problems of the child health while describing the physical and psychological state of many children living in the orphanage.
The health of children can depend on the social situation within the country (Skolnik, 2012, p. 209-211). Thus, the civil war in Nepal creates conditions for the progress of poverty within the state. As a result, those children who are brought to the Little Princes Children’s Home also suffer from the consequences of the instable social situation.
According to Grennan, child’s malnutrition is typical for Nepal that is why children in the orphanage have poor health and weak immune system (Grennan, 2010).
Moreover, the situation with the medical services in Nepal is also problematic, and a lot of people, including children, have no opportunities to receive the necessary medical treatment. Thus, it is important to analyze Grennan’s book in the context of the global health problems.
The problems which are associated with poverty and resulting in malnutrition, child mortality, lack of the medical services, and negative physical and social environments are typical for children from the Little Princes Children’s Home, and these issues are also correlated with the global health problems (Skolnik, 2012, p. 50-52).
From this point, the book contributes to the understanding of the aspects of global health basing on the concrete examples of children from the orphanage in Nepal.
Grennan’s book is important to demonstrate the real significance of the global health issue related to the child survival and development with references to the concrete territory and concrete problems. It is possible to overcome the global health issues only depending on the idea of the global partnership for the development (Skolnik, 2012).
Grennan’s description of the children’s state can be discussed as the evidence to support the idea of the complex actions in order to cope with a lot of global health problems. Furthermore, the book provides significant evidences to claim the importance of the psychological comfort and parental love for children.
Thus, there are several factors which can contribute to the improvement of the children’s health. These factors are the availability of food, access to the clean water, medical care, and parental care.
Grennan’s book conveys an important message that healthy and happy children should grow in their families. It is a controversial task to speak about the better conditions for children who were taken from their own families and brought to the orphanage.
Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal written by Conor Grennan is also important to re-think the problem of the global heath from the point of ethics and human rights.
All the humans are equal in their right to live in the appropriate conditions and receive the necessary medical treatment (Skolnik, 2012, p. 71-75). Describing the lives of children who are deprived of the basic conditions, the author draws the audience’s attention to the social problem.
Grennan’s book is a significant illustration of the life typical for the developing countries using the example of the orphanage in Nepal.
Although the book is not connected with the problem of the child health directly, the descriptions and discussions presented in the book are important to develop the issue of the child survival and development as one of the global health problems.
References
Grennan, C. (2010). Little princes: One man’s promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Skolnik, R. (2012). Global health 101. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett.