Almost a hundred children are growing happily in Shalom. An average of five new children arrive every year into care at Shalom for various reasons. These include physical and sexual abuse at home, parents addicted to drugs and alcohol, death of both parents, and abandonment due to poverty, gender, disability or illness. Some of the children have been rescued from sex trafficking and forced labor.
Abandonment: Children born to unwed mothers in Tanzania are often subject to brutal abandonment. Some are left by the side of the road, buried in the jungle or tossed away like waste. Unplanned children are the first to fall victim to cruel abandonment and superstitious ritual, such as leaving newborns in the jungle for animals, burying children alive and dumping them at trash sites.
HIV/AIDS: Remains one of the greatest threats in Tanzania, with over 400 new infections every day. Due largely to the AIDS epidemic, the orphan population in Tanzania is staggering.
Poverty: It is estimated that more than a third of households live below the basic needs’ poverty line, earning less than $1 a day, being children at higher risk of abandonment.
