Education

A smiling child holding a worn soccer ball and a small water bottle while standing in a dusty schoolyard, with a school building and other children playing in the background.

Africa’s Orphans Are Not a Statistic: Why Protection, Healthcare, and Education Must Come First

Growing up across Gabon, Cameroon, Congo and South Africa, I heard a simple truth repeated in different accents and languages: education is the way forward. Health matters. Community matters. And children, always, must be protected. Yet for too many children across Africa today, a single event can take everything away: a parent’s death, violence and displacement, an untreated illness, or a school fee that cannot be paid. When that happens, children can become invisible, espec

Patrice De Boeck

Mar 54 min read

**Alt text:** A young child sitting at a wooden desk in a classroom, writing in an open notebook with a pencil, symbolising access to education despite poverty.

When Poverty Becomes a Sentence

The law is supposed to protect vulnerable people. Yet in Cameroon, being born into poverty can be a sentence in itself where children are born without rights and face further marginalisation. Whether detained for street vending, denied education because they lack legal documentation, or displaced by conflict, many children are penalised for circumstances beyond their control. Much like crime, poverty becomes something they are punished for. The idea, known as the criminalisat