Abstract
Much of the research on orphan and vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa has focused on their risks and vulnerabilities. This article describes the ‘funds of knowledge’ (Moll and Greenberg, 1990) and means of acquiring new knowledge of children living in child-headed households in Uganda’s Rakai District. Using ethnographic methods, the authors documented the experiences and activities of children in five rural home contexts. They advance the view of children as resourceful, competent, and knowledgeable, highlighting their ability to build on, utilize, and acquire new funds of knowledge while simultaneously recognizing their conditions of extreme adversity. The authors’ aim is to expand and strengthen the current knowledge base on children living in child-headed households by providing a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between children’s risks and capabilities.
Introduction
In this article, we describe the funds of knowledge of children living in child-headed households in Uganda’s Rakai District. Our aim is to expand and strengthen the current knowledge base on children living in child-headed households (see e.g., UNAIDS, UNICEF, and USAID, 2004; UNICEF, 2006). We locate the study within the literature on orphaned and vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa. Although there is a range of perspectives on childhood and constructions of risk and resilience within this literature, the vast majority of studies of child-headed households have tended to emphasize children’s risks and vulnerabilities without fully considering their capabilities (Skovdal et al., 2009). In addition, little is known about how children learn new knowledge in the absence of parents or other adults. Much of the literature on children’s learning in family contexts is based on apprenticeship models (i.e., individual zones of proximal development) whereby less competent members of a group learn vicariously or directly from more competent members, though not necessarily adults (see discussion in Gregory, 2001). Our study contributes to global understandings of children and childhood by advancing the view of children as resourceful, competent, and knowledgeable while simultaneously recognizing their conditions of extreme poverty and adversity. Specifically, we investigate the funds of knowledge of children in child-headed families and document how they are able to draw on their knowledge and learn new knowledge in order to survive on their own. We argue that a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between children’s risks and capabilities is required in addressing their needs.
Perspectives on children’s competencies
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, ‘family’ is broadly conceptualized and includes relatives beyond biological mother, father, and siblings who share in responsibility for the care of children through to adulthood (Oni, 1995). Individuals from the same kinship group are expected to support one another according to well-understood hierarchical relationships involving respect and obedience toward elders (Verhoef, 2005). Despite this widespread acceptance of collective childrearing and fostering, in Uganda, where communities have traditionally relied on extended family structures to care for orphaned children, factors such as size of child-headed family, age and gender of the children, number of losses in the family, and economic status of the caregivers have shifted this traditional responsibility (Chirwa, 2002). The first cases of child-headed households, typically defined as children 17 and under who have lost both parents and are living on their own, were identified in the late 1980s in Uganda’s Rakai District (Foster and Makufa, 1997). Although there are no official numbers, among this district’s population of 470,000, we estimate that children head over 1000 households. These numbers suggest that child-headed families are not a short-term emergency that can be resolved with a one-time injection of resources (Plan Finland, 2005), but rather, a new reality for families and communities operating at the limits of their resources.
Although Uganda has been a continental leader in HIV/AIDS prevention, as prevalence rates have declined, the number of AIDS orphans has risen (Cheney, 2010). The national policy has been to treat AIDS as a medical phenomenon to the detriment of social effects such as orphanhood. It was not until 2004 that Uganda began to respond to this rising issue with a national policy on Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) (see Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, 2004). When non-government organizations (NGOs) attempted to target orphans, the result was unintended consequences that created inequalities in communities and households, disrupted traditional responsibilities of caring for children, and transformed categories of vulnerability.
Dominant discourses in western society typically construct children as vulnerable and passive recipients of adult care and support, downplaying their agentive capabilities (Skovdal et al., 2009). Development practitioners and scholars argue that when children are orphaned in such great numbers, there is a total breakdown in family structures and social support networks. Chirwa (2002) refers to this breakdown as the ‘social rupture’ thesis. Social rupture implies that the family disintegrates in the absence of parents. Others, however, argue that families continue even after parents die (see e.g., Reid, 1993). Mathambo and Gibbs (2008) contend that family needs to be viewed as a fluid set of relationships that must constantly evolve to meet the needs of its members. According to Chirwa (2002), despite social strains such as HIV/AIDS, families and social support systems are able to develop adaptive capabilities to varying degrees of success. Similarly, Skovdal et al. (2009) argue that children need to be viewed as social actors who are able to use their skills and ingenuity to cope with challenging circumstances.
Conceptual perspectives
Funds of knowledge
We locate this study within a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach. The concept is based on a simple premise: ‘People are competent, they have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge’ (González et al., 2005: ix–x). Moll and Greenberg conceptualize funds of knowledge as ‘the essential cultural practices and bodies of knowledge and information that households use to survive, to get ahead, or to thrive’ (1990: 321). González et al. (2005) further argue that a funds of knowledge approach to research, which involves first-hand experience with families, affords a powerful way to represent existing resources, competence, and knowledge. We adopt this approach because of its ability to alter perceptions of marginalized families and communities and in an attempt to understand child-headed households in a more nuanced way that moves beyond a predominant focus on deficits.
Mediated social activity
In focusing on funds of knowledge in child-headed families, we also draw on the Vygotskian notion of mediated social activity as the base unit of analysis (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1981, 1998). Vygotsky observed how children learn knowledge through social interactions with significant people in their lives, particularly parents, but also other adults. Through these interactions, children learn cultural habits of mind, including speech patterns, written language, and other symbolic knowledge through which they derive meaning and construct their own knowledge. The specific knowledge that children gain through interactions represents the shared knowledge of a culture. According to Wertsch (1991), these interactions, or human activities, are shaped by cultural tools that mediate and transform cognitive actions into new patterns of knowing and doing. Activities and cultural tools (e.g., language, numbers, writing, maps) cannot be separated (Cole, 1998; Rogoff, 1995; Wertsch, 1991, 1998) because ‘culture is exteriorized mind; mind is interiorized culture’ (Cole, 1998: 292). Viewing the activities of children living in child-headed households within a mediated action frame provides a window on existing as well as emerging patterns of knowing and doing.
Zone of Proximal Development
Studies examining the various ways in which children acquire knowledge through interactions in informal situations have identified four categories: scaffolding between adult and child, collaborative learning/guided participation, imaginative play, and the role of siblings and peers (Gregory, 2001). Across these studies, Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which has become a widely accepted construct for understanding children’s learning, has typically been conceived within an apprenticeship model where the older, more capable assist the younger, less capable. We find it more helpful to draw on Scribner, who makes the case for a broader understanding of the ZPD as ‘a space in which social processes and cultural resources of all kinds are involved in the child’s construction of her future’ (1990: 92). Similarly, Gregory (2001) advocates for the need to move beyond the metaphors of scaffolding, collaborative learning, and guided participation to explain the reciprocity that might take place between siblings who are close in age as they play and work together. Although children’s learning has been researched across a wide variety of contexts and disciplines, with the exception of Gregory, the unique role of siblings has been largely overlooked. Researching the funds of knowledge of children living in child-headed households provides a rare and unique opportunity to better understand children’s capabilities in difficult circumstances.
Methods
From 2007 to 2009, we carried out research in two phases with children in five families in Uganda’s Rakai District. Three of the families were identified through a humanitarian organization that linked us to two local schools with a high population of children living in child-headed families. A resident ‘boda-boda’ 1 driver familiar with the local context assisted with identifying two additional families. Our team for the first phase of the research consisted of a Canadian professor of education (Maureen), a Ugandan professor of sociology (Doris), and a Ugandan research assistant (Debbie). During this phase, we spent eight months visiting the families, typically for full days twice a month. Luganda (the children’s first language) and English were both used as required during our interactions with the children and local community members. We have maintained contact with the families since 2009.
Following the view that children are the best informants about their own lives and the creators of a culture that they are able to pass on to others (Hardman, 1973), we participated in the children’s daily activities, observed, engaged in conversations, collected life stories, and invited them to draw pictures and take photographs of their social worlds (Banks and Morphy, 1997; Kendrick and Jones, 2008). Our research assistant played a particularly important role in developing rapport and fostering relationships with the children. Given the children’s vulnerabilities and the nature of their living circumstances, in all our interactions we endeavored to demonstrate high levels of sensitivity and took exceptional care to terminate conversations when they became too difficult. We frequently inquired about levels of comfort and sought confirmation that the children wished to continue meeting with us; the children continually expressed a strong interest in meeting with us. At the close of our formal data collection, we continued to check on the welfare of the children.
Analysis in the field began with continuous recording of and reflection on the data. Different sources of data were handled both independently and concurrently, depending on the degree to which data sources supplemented each other. All tape-recorded data were translated and transcribed. Using the children’s daily activities as our base unit of analysis, we initially categorized the data according to domain of activity (e.g., health care, livelihood, family history). We then further analyzed the activities thematically using a constant comparison method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) to identify funds of knowledge and networks of support. Finally, we looked across the themes for overall patterns in how the children drew on their funds of knowledge in the context of their daily lives. As an illustrative example, we draw on our experiences with one family in presenting our argument that children living in child-headed households have the ability to be resourceful in collectively using and acquiring knowledge under conditions of extreme adversity.
Daily challenges
In this section, we identify some of the challenges this family faced in meeting their daily needs. We later elaborate on these challenges in relation to the children’s funds of knowledge. When we first met this family, there were six children living in the household: Ibra (age 12 2 ), Winnie (age 10), Irene (age 8), Manny (age 6), Paul (age 4), and David (age 3). Their father died in 2004, followed by their mother in 2006. Both parents died at home, without medical attention, thus cause of death was not documented.
At the outset of the study, we asked the children about the role of relatives or other adults in providing support for their family. Because the parents had recently relocated to this area of Rakai, the children were already isolated from extended family. We speculate that the relocation was most likely a result of the stigma of living with HIV/AIDS in their home community, and that further stigma associated with the death of their parents made it impossible for them to return to the area where their extended family lived. Addressing the problem of who would care for the youngest child while the older ones attended school forced the children to operate at the limits of their resources. They were faced with the decision to remain in school or drop out to provide care for David. Education took precedence possibly because attending school opened avenues for resources associated with orphan initiatives that would not otherwise be available (see e.g., Cheney, 2010):
. . . didn’t you have relatives to come up and take you people because you are so young? Take me back.
There wasn’t anyone who came to assist us or even check on us after the death of our parents.
They left you in this house?
Yes.
Even that baby?
Yes.
You mean you are the ones who have taken care of him till today or up to where he is? . . . Now, tell me about this young one, where do you leave him when you are going to school?
When we are going to school, we leave the young one in the neighborhood with leftovers to eat at lunchtime then pick him up in the evening when we come back.
Doesn’t he cry?
We have nothing [else] to do. (Interviews, Oct./Nov. 2007)
Health care was also a considerable challenge for these children. They indicated that when they are sick, they ‘go to Bida Clinic because their treatment is free of charge’ (Interviews, Feb. 2008) – though we observed that they were not always aware when the health situation was serious enough to warrant a visit to the clinic, which is several kilometers away: I went to Ibra’s home and found the last born, their baby so sick, wounds all over the head, even flies were around him. On asking them whether they had taken him to hospital, they said no but told me that they had some tablets they were giving him and a tube they were using. I requested them to bring it plus the medicine they were giving him . . . it had already expired. It was used when their parents were still around, so I threw all of it out and took him to the hospital for proper medication. So it’s really a challenge when it comes to health in child headed families. (Debbie’s field notes, June 2008)
Despite the children’s knowledge that medicine may help David when he is sick, choosing to give him medicine that was immediately available, albeit expired, might also have meant that they were not faced with more difficult decisions such as spending limited financial resources when it may not be necessary or making the long journey to the clinic at the cost of other more pressing duties like finding food, repairing the roof of their house, or completing homework. 4 Our research assistant, Debbie, was an important knowledge resource for the children in this situation, as well as in other situations, which we later elaborate on.
To better understand their systems of social support, we asked the two older children (Ibra and Winnie) to construct an eco-map (Interviews, April 2008). At the center of the map, they wrote their names then drew lines connected to rectangular boxes. In each rectangular box, they were asked to write the names of people who support them in any way. The purpose of the activity was to reveal hidden networks of support that may not have been evident in our interviews and observations. It took a considerable period of time before either Ibra or Winnie could think of anyone’s name to write. Winnie finally filled in four boxes with the names of two of her teachers, the father of her friend Annet, whose name she could not recall, and their nearest neighbor (see Figure 1). Ibra’s map, which remained primarily blank, illustrated the children’s isolation from adults in their community.
Winnie’s eco-map
Given this isolation and the trauma of their parents’ death, the children’s emotional well-being was a concern:
Who helps you or who supports you when you are sad? Say you are emotionally down, weak, who helps you to recover from that?
No one.
No one? So, what do you do to recover from that emotional stress or from the sadness?
I just stay around and become strong slowly by slowly. I harden.
Winnie, who supports you when you are sad?
No one. I just keep quiet.
Ok, then, how do you support or comfort each other?
We sit together and discuss about it and get back to normal. (Interviews, Feb. 2008)
The response here indicates to us that although these children see themselves as responsible for their own well-being, they try to maintain some state of ‘normal’ in order to focus on meeting daily challenges such as social support, food security, education, and health care. Drawing on our observations and conversations with the children, in the next section, we outline key examples of how the children were attempting to act on and acquire funds of knowledge in order to address their life challenges.
Funds of knowledge
Establishing priorities – Staying in school
Within days of their mother’s death, and on the advice of their teachers, Winnie and Ibra approached local authorities for permission to continue attending primary school even though they no longer had any means of covering additional costs such as school uniforms, school supplies, or food. As Winnie explained,
When our mother died, we decided to talk to the teachers at school and explain to them that we had lost both parents and that we were the ones looking after ourselves . . . the teachers couldn’t believe it, so they told us to go and get a letter from the LC [Local Council] chairman to confirm what we had said. We went there despite the fact that we were so young, we told him what the teachers had said about giving us a letter to take to them confirming that we had lost our parents. Then the chairman decided to go there himself and explain to the teachers. He did so and explained to them. They decided to leave us study. (Interviews, Oct. 2007)
This negotiation for resources was a first lesson in self-advocacy, a practice that these children have no doubt observed among other members of their community. In response to Uganda’s 2004 OVC policy, NGOs targeting AIDS orphans have historically been an integral part of Uganda’s Rakai District. As Cheney (2010) points out, the discourse associated with securing resources from international and local NGOs often trickles down into the language and practices of local populations. Indeed, it is common for most primary schools in Uganda to have OVC clubs. Children who belong to these clubs may not necessarily be AIDS orphans or even children who wish to stand in solidarity with their classmates, but rather, children who have come to understand that membership in this club may offer benefits from organizations with resources to distribute (Cheney, 2010). Ibra and Winnie were able to act on their funds of knowledge about aid distribution in order to secure their attendance in their local primary school. Integral to this knowledge was most likely the historical relationship between school attendance and access to resources for orphans in this community (e.g., through World Vision). Recent changes in national aid distribution, however, were not yet well understood in the community. Specifically, the civil war that at the time of this study had been taking place in northern Uganda since the early 1980s was much less pronounced and many NGOs such as World Vision were shifting their focus from the Rakai District to the Gulu area to assist with rebuilding communities in the north.
For Winnie, there may have been additional reasons why remaining in school was so important; she was among the top students in her class and although younger, was a year ahead of her brother Ibra. She also took responsibility for addressing the educational needs of her siblings at home, a role that had been her mother’s. Stored in a plastic bag under her parents’ bed, she would sparingly distribute their limited school supplies when needed. As she explained, she also took responsibility for assisting her siblings with their homework:
What about homework? Do you support or help each other with it?
Yes.
How do you do it?
One who is a class higher than the other helps out the one who is in a lower class for instance. I do help Ibra because I have already learnt what he is studying and others of course and the young ones too. (Interviews, April 2008)
Through the support she provided, Winnie tried to ensure that her siblings met the expectations of school staff and local authorities. School attendance not only assisted with securing resources for her family on a very practical level, it also provided a routine and a community of belonging. Athanasopoulus (2009) and Maqoka and Dreyer (2007) found that children in child-headed households often seek out school as a place of belonging and community. Many identify teachers as their only source of consistent adult contact. Similarly, we argue that school also provided an ‘official’ life for these children – it was a place where their attendance was documented and where their absence had a consequence. Roalkvam (2005) has written about the invisibility of children living in child-headed households, observing that they often live unofficial lives that go unnoticed by those around them.
Food security
Following the death of their parents, food security was a considerable struggle. Although they were left a small piece of land where they went every Saturday to dig for wild yams and other root vegetables, these were always in short supply. They had a few coffee plants as well; the children would sell the beans to buy necessities such as paraffin, cooking oil, and soap. When they were not able to sell the beans, or when they did not ripen, Ibra would do small jobs in the neighborhood so that he could provide food for his siblings. As Ibra explained: ‘I told younger siblings to dig [in the garden], go and dig for people then at times would tell them to go and dig and then for me, I go to the market and get casual work and we get paraffin (Interviews, November, 2007).’ On rare occasions, their immediate neighbor would provide some food for the children.
Despite the fact that the children were generally able to find food, preparing it was considerably more challenging. Food preparation is typically the domestic responsibility of girls, who are mentored from an early age into this role by female members of their families and communities. For girls like Winnie, however, opportunities for such mentoring were likely limited at best given her mother’s illness and the children’s isolation from extended family. A surprising outcome was that our research assistant, Debbie, became the children’s primary source of knowledge about food preparation. She took on this mentoring role gradually in response to the children’s questions about what to do with yams or cassava. Although an unintended part of the research, the example illustrates how the children were able to mobilize social support from available resources in order to acquire the knowledge they needed to survive. This example also highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of how to provide support to children living in child-headed households. Providing food sources is not sufficient; the children may also need mentoring in preparing and storing food if they are to develop independence in operating their own households.
Peer groups and social support
The relocation from their home area to a new community, coupled with the death of their parents soon after, resulted in limited support from their most immediate neighbors. Peer groups that were formed when they first moved to this new community, however, continued to have an important function in their lives. Part of a Saturday ritual, a small group of neighborhood children would call at the house for Ibra to play football. On one occasion, we observed as a boy carrying a football and a school exercise book arrived at the door (Maureen’s field notes, April 2008). He spoke to us in fluent English, indicating that he enjoyed practicing the language. The group of children accompanying him also carried exercise books. As they waited for Ibra to join them, they turned the outdoor compound into a reading room as they sat under the shade of a large tree leafing through their school notes. When Ibra and his siblings joined them, we asked the others to show us what they were reading. They told us in English they were ‘reviewing’ their notes from school, and with visible pride, regardless of the grades marked in the margins of their books, they showed us their teachers’ notations. Their pride, more than anything, appeared to be about student status in this community. For Ibra, Winnie, Manny, and Paul, we also see the importance of student status as inextricably linked to children’s need to be visible, ‘legitimate’ members of their communities.
When we put digital cameras and drawing tools in the hands of this young family and asked them to document what was most important to them, school materials and friends were among the most common images collected. The relationships the children had with neighboring children had a very positive influence. Although the other children were not from the same school, nor were they from child-headed families, there was an obvious camaraderie among the children, with demonstrations of kindness and playfulness. For Ibra and Winnie, reading exercise books together in a group provided additional support with new concepts and knowledge, as well as English language proficiency, a requirement in their current grade placements. Playing football reinforced these friendship bonds. We speculate that contact with this peer group may also have provided some access to adult forms of knowledge and resources that were not readily available elsewhere in their community. Many children growing up in child-headed households experience discrimination in their communities because they are afforded neither the societal privilege of an adult nor that of a child (UNICEF, 2001). For example, Ibra explained that one of his friend’s fathers helped him repair the leaking roof in their house. We view the school community and the neighborhood children as a critical means for this young family to learn and practice new knowledge and to develop positive social identities in their community (see e.g., Skovdal et al., 2009). Contact with their peer group, including occasional access to the adult knowledge and resources that belonged to that group, provided a network of support necessary for their survival.
Family relationships and new ways to communicate
An important component of data collection was to provide an opportunity for these children to focus on some positive aspect of their lives. This involved asking them to use drawing to respond to the question ‘What makes you happy?’ (Interviews, April 2008). In addition to providing a window on what was most important to these children, this activity illuminated the nature of the unique knowledge exchange between Manny (6) and his younger brother Paul (4). Paul was in his first year of school. Manny, who was hearing impaired, had limited prior opportunities to develop his oral language and relied considerably on his younger brother to guide him through daily activities and help him understand the world around him. During the drawing activity, Manny managed to follow his brother’s lead from his position on the opposite side of the room. Their drawings bear a striking resemblance (see Figures 2 and 3); both include a bed, chair, children, a baby sleeping on a mat, and a sun. The drawings capture what is happening in the immediate moment as we gather together in one small room in the house. These images are symbolic of family, and in this context, its continuity.
Paul’s drawing
Manny’s drawing
Although Manny’s observations of his younger brother Paul provided one way for him to navigate his immediate social world, new domestic and family responsibilities meant that everyone must make a contribution with no one member relying too much on the others. Because work routines and family relationships depend on communication among all members of the family, Winnie initiated the use of sign language with Manny, something she had observed with an elderly man in her local community:
How many signs have you taught him so far that he can also do?
Sending him for a saucepan from the house, food, knife, salt or plates and washing. You show him how to do it and he does it.
Is that all you have taught him to do?
No, also sweeping.
Approximately, how many do you think you have taught him?
I think like 20.
OK, how did you come to know that he needed to be communicated to using signs and when did you start doing so?
We saw it from some mute guy who used to stay in the neighborhood, they would do for him signs and times touch on things for him to understand because he wasn’t talking.
And so, how did you come to know or think that this one too was a mute?
We couldn’t understand what he was saying or talking and so decided to start using signs. (Interviews, April 2008)
Although none of the children knew sign language, each sibling was able to contribute to Manny’s signing vocabulary by observing interactions with the deaf man in their community. Their invention of signs for objects and actions in their immediate environment showed considerable ingenuity in working together to meet the needs of their family. We see the children’s learning of new knowledge here within a collective Zone of Proximal Development whereby their knowledge is pooled in order to meet Manny’s communication needs, but also the needs of the family as a unit.
Continuity of family
The children had a small collection of family photos that they kept in a white envelope in a box under what had been their parents’ bed. The photos showed signs of wear, smudged with red soil from layers of fingerprints. Winnie told us they often looked through these photos as a way to remember their family history:
How do you remember or record your family history? How do you remember all that? Is it through storytelling? Do you have photos or other things?
OK, when we go to the neighbor, we see the things they are doing, so we come back and tell ourselves stories . . .
What helps you remember all that you told me the other time about your family history?
OK, some things we see from people.
And you remember?
Yes. For instance when we see people doing what daddy and mummy used to do, we remember them.
We remember by seeing the photos. (Interviews, April 2008)
We watched as the children meticulously looked through the photographs in the envelope, co-constructing their family history as each contributed a portion of a narrative by identifying people, experiences, and memories evoked by the images. Without parents to tell them stories of their birth and childhood, and stories of family origin, the children collectively tried to recall the past.
Family rituals were also a means of maintaining family practices and history; these rituals were an important aspect of sharing new knowledge. Many families in this area spend time together in the late evening telling stories, singing, and talking when homework and domestic chores are finished. Ibra used song as a way to bring his siblings together and share school information:
I learn how to beat the drum and play the xylophone and get a song from it.
OK. Go ahead and sing for us one that you use to communicate to others.
Tusana tukomye buli kive ekisibye mukenenya wetunakuza Uganda nyafe okugenda mu maso… Kyaba nga kyasonyi nabuswavu mu je kinana omuntu
We ought to stop or end the practice that is leading to the increase of HIV/AIDS so as our dear mother country Uganda can go ahead. It was a shaming in the 1980s one to know that there is a killer disease that finishes people . . . [To prevent myself from getting or acquiring the killer disease HIV/AIDS.]
When we sing at school, we come back home and when we are through with our housework, we start singing. (Interviews, February 2008)
Ibra was repeating a song he and Winnie learned at school. Music and singing helped reaffirm relationships and bonds. The song, with its message about how to prevent HIV/AIDS, may also have provided a way to pass on important health care knowledge to the younger members of the family (Barz, 2006).
Conclusions
The children in this illustrative example demonstrate a strong ability to cope and to remain together as a family. They demonstrated the ability to use and acquire knowledge across a wide range of communicative practices and domains. Researchers such as Donald and Clacherty (2005) and Germann (2006) have reported on the practical survival and management skills of children in child-headed families, their sense of independence, strength to cope with stress, ability to make important decisions and to work hard, and their social networking skills. Similarly, Skovdal et al. (2009) argue that the survival of children in child-headed households depends on their ability to mobilize social support, engage in income generating activities, and construct positive social identities – in other words, their ability to cope requires opportunities to both participate in their community and negotiate support from it. Ibra, Winnie, and their siblings were able to build on existing funds of knowledge and learn new knowledge to foster relationships in their community and within their family unit, and to claim some agency in determining their futures.
In general, children’s ability to acquire knowledge and operate as a family has not been well documented. For Ibra, Winnie, Irene, Manny, Paul, and David, new knowledge was often learned within a collective Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) whereby no one member of the family necessarily had the expertise to mentor or apprentice the younger members. Within this collective ZPD, social processes and cultural tools were used to construct and act on new knowledge. The siblings worked together, each one contributing what they had at their disposal (e.g., experience, skills, resources). Their strong desire to survive, develop positive social identities, become contributing members of their community, and remain together as a family forced them to invest in new practices, relationships, and knowledge. Bringing a more nuanced understanding to the resilience, skills, knowledge, and abilities of children living in adverse and diverse conditions may open new possibilities for understanding how best to provide support to orphaned and vulnerable children. The most important consideration in this understanding is that although they are often able to demonstrate remarkable resourcefulness, what remains their greatest challenge is poverty, an issue that needs to be more systematically addressed in research and policy.
In relation to this consideration, our aim in this article has been to expand and strengthen the current knowledge base on children living in child-headed households by providing a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between children’s risks and capabilities. Although Uganda’s new strategic plan for orphan and vulnerable children (Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, 2011) articulates the need to strengthen and support the capacity of child-headed families (e.g., through skills training), we believe there needs to be much fuller recognition and understanding of children’s unique household competencies to ensure that meaningful financial, material, and human resources are made accessible to them. In the case of Ibra and his siblings, these resources might include financial support for a small business such as coffee growing; a local mentor grandmother, mother or aunt to help teach food gathering and preparation skills;5 regular contact with community health care workers who can share vital health care knowledge; and some provision for childcare. Although Uganda now has in place both a policy and strategic plan for orphan and vulnerable children, we contend that how these are enacted in practice warrants careful consideration. Despite our consistent and ongoing efforts to find in-country resources to ‘strengthen and support’ the capacity of Ibra’s household (as well as the households of other families we worked with) we met with only limited success. We cannot help but wonder how difficult the process of securing support and resources might be for children who do not have advocates.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the contributions of our research assistant, Debbie Mwebe.
Funding
We wish to acknowledge the financial support of the University of British Columbia Humanities and Social Science (HSS) Research Fund (F07-0033).