Children and School
Child labor is normal
Children in Kiribati usually have to help a lot around the house. They work in agriculture or help with fishing. Schooling is free in Kiribati and there is a compulsory school encyclopedia. Children should go to school until the age of 15.
93 out of 100 children go to school in Kiribati. The number of people who cannot read and write is 6 in 100. After primary school, there are secondary schools, of which there are 13 on the islands. Most schools are not funded by the state but by the churches. That means that the churches pay money for the schools.
Bad chances after school
But the chances of children and especially young people after school are usually poor. Often they cannot find training or work. As a country in Oceania defined by ebizdir, Kiribati is very isolated. There are few contacts with the outside world and if the children want a better education and, above all, a job later, they actually have to leave their island.
Many move to the main island of Tarawa
Many families move to the main island, which is called Tarawa, and there to the capital South Tarawa, because they hope that their children will have better educational opportunities here. But this creates the problem that the city is way too crowded and everyone comes together in one place. And there isn’t that much space on the elongated but extremely narrow islands.
Problems
The garbage problem
Kiribati with its long sandy beaches, coconut trees and few cars seems to be an oasis of calm and relaxation. But that is wrong, because the island state has to struggle with a number of problems.
One of them is the waste that is not disposed of. As long as people lived primarily on vegetables and fruits, that was little. If there was waste, it could easily be disposed of on the compost. Coconut shells served as cups or banana leaves as plates. The residents were able to get rid of both without any problems.
Nowadays people buy a lot of products wrapped in plastic. Then there are the tin cans and glass bottles. But where do you put all that garbage? Garbage piles up in and on the streets and on the beach. Wrecked cars line the paths. Batteries, tin cans, roofs made of corrugated iron, computers and cell phones – everything that we ourselves have to dispose of every day is lying around where there is no garbage disposal.
Often there are no toilets and people do their business on the beach. This is how diseases are transmitted. The sewage disposal is also bad, sometimes there is none at all.
Climate change is already clearly noticeable today
The traces of climate change can be felt in Kiribati. The erosion destroys the beaches and stronger storms do the rest. The already small land area is swallowed up by the sea. There are predictions that the islands will disappear by the middle or end of the century. We do not know whether this will really happen. But we can already see the consequences of climate change very clearly. Water is scarce, and there is often only a few hours of water a day. The drinking water is becoming too salty because the reefs die off, which could offer protection from the sea. Something urgently needs to be done here!
The fish stay out
Kiribati is grappling with environmental problems. Since licenses for fishing have been sold in some cases and many foreign ships and even large fleets are now fishing off the coast of Kiribati, the locals often fail to find fish. The sea has already been fished empty with the large fishing nets.
Eating in Kiribati
The food is simple and unfortunately makes you fat now
Eating in the islands of Kiribati is pretty simple. For a long time people lived from what nature gave them. But that wasn’t too much. The soils are barren and the increasing salinity means that less and less can be cultivated. The most important foods include various types of fish, lobster and sea worms. These are marinated in a vinegar sauce and then fried or dried. Children especially like to eat these.
Fruits of the breadfruit tree
The fruits of the breadfruit tree are important foods. Then there are coconuts, the milk of which the residents of Kiribati drink and process into oil or a greasy cream. Many people are introducing foods today, but many of them are quite unhealthy. Flour, sugar, rice, but also cheap and usually very fatty canned meat are part of it.
This creates problems for the islanders, who are now often overweight. Incidentally, many residents of the South Sea islands now have this problem. Even children are often too fat. You eat too many sweets. Candy canes and sweets of all kinds are among the imported foods.
There are now garden projects so that people can learn to grow more vegetables and healthy fruit in their gardens again.
