Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 13, 1993                   TAG: 9310150389
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: NELSON HARRIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAKING KNOWN THE CRISES OF CHILDREN

While the Children's Sabbath seeks to highlight the urgency of problems such as poverty, lack of adequate health care and homelessness, the purpose will be to focus on developing positive solutions and on our moral and collective responsibility to respond.

The reasons for having such an emphasis are obvious. In our country, a child drops out of school every 12 seconds of the school day, and some 2.7 million are reported as abused or neglected each year. In America, one of the world's wealthiest regions, a child dies every 53 minutes from poverty; every three hours a child is murdered. Worldwide, a child dies every 2.4 seconds from malnutrition and preventable disease.

Due to these staggering statistics, thousands of churches and synagogues across our nation and some congregations in the Roanoke Valley will participate in Children's Sabbath.

Why does the Roanoke Valley need to observe Children's Sabbath? Here are a few good reasons:

Half of the children in Roanoke city schools come from economically disadvantaged homes. This disadvantaged rate has more than tripled in the past seven years.

The Roanoke Valley lacks sufficient overnight and long-term psychiatric beds for children under age 13 who are in need of such vital service. Should a child need such care, most likely he or she will be sent to Staunton or Richmond, placing an additional burden upon the child and his or her family or guardians who want and need to be with them.

More than 60 percent of Roanoke's children below the age of 6 live in homes with incomes below poverty level.

Roanoke city has the highest teen-pregnancy rate for 15- to 19-year-olds in Virginia. During the past 20 years, Roanoke's teen-pregnancy rate has continued to climb, while the state's rate has plateaued.

Of those families who used the Council of Community Services in the valley two years ago, some 53 percent were unable to afford and did not have health insurance; 50 percent could not afford dental care; and 40 percent did not have enough money to buy needed prescription medicine.

An estimated 4,000 children from birth to age 6 in the valley do not have access to comprehensive health care. One effort aimed at addressing this concern, the Comprehensive Health Investment Project, has a waiting list of more than 800 children. CHIP estimates that some 4,800 children are in need of its services. Furthermore, 30 percent of Roanoke's children under age 2 are not properly immunized.

In 1991, the nightly average of persons sleeping in the valley's homeless and transitional-living shelters was 215, many of them children.

These are a few of the reasons why some 30 congregations in the Roanoke Valley will observe this year's Children's Sabbath.

It's the hope of participants that Roanoke's religious community will lift a united and stronger voice of concern for the children and their families, producing a renewed dedication to action and advocacy.

Our resolve is to forge a new ethic in our valley and nation that ensures no child is left behind.

\ Nelson Harris is a member of the Roanoke School Board and president of the local Baptist Ministers' Conference.