The Situation of Children Who Lost Their Parents: The Case of Addis-Ketema Sub-City, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This research aims to understand the situation of children who lost their parents in
Addis-Ketema sub-city, Wereda 09, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A qualitative research method, case
study, is used in order to accomplish the research objective. The data collection instruments
were in-depth interview, and observation supplemented with field note. Empirical data is
collected from a total of eighteen respondents of which eight of them are children, who are
between 13 to 18 years of age, the other eight are guardians of the children and two key
informants, who have an expert knowledge about bereaved children. The major findings of the
study illuminate that, single/double parental death negatively affects the well-being of children.
Some of the drawbacks of parental death include; psychological, educational, health, and
economical challenges. The study results show that child grief response differs from one child to
the other but the commonly showed grief responses are crying, shocks, frighten, denial,
hopelessness, sensitivity, isolation, anger, feeling of accusation, attitudinal change towards
death, acceptance and emotional fluctuations. Finally the upshots of the study show that, afier
the death of one or both parents the specific roles and responsibilities will be switched to the
living parent and children are forced to carry out domestic house work, engage themselves in
casual jobs, tutoring and fully managing their younger siblings. In conclusion, when children
lose one or both parents they experience simultaneous changes and the bearings in their lives.
Therefore, the study findings had an implication for social work education, policy frame works,
future researches and intervention.
Key words: Parental death, children, guardians/single parent, Addis-Ketema sub-city
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Keywords
Parental death, children, guardians/single parent