Children Act 2004

The Role and Functions of Family in Ishmael Beah’s Life Ishmael Beah’s memoir entitled A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) tells the tale of a child soldier from Sierra Leone. After his family dies when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) invaded their village, Beah’s last resort is to become part of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces as child soldier. With his ability to execute the prisoners of war, Beah becomes a child lieutenant. However, this position leads to further trouble…

corruption, it is purity. One of the things that come to mind when you think of innocence is children. Children are unaware of the horrors of the world and they are still pure in mind and spirit. As kids in America we were very lucky to be able to have our innocence for as long as we can. However, in countries like Sierra Leone they are not given a choice, they lose their innocence at a very young age. Children in Sierra Leone and other areas around the world can be as little as 5 and have…

Child Soldiers were once just like other children: friendly, joyous, and unaware of the dangers of the world. That is until they were exposed to the outside world, where they lost their true selves. For example, one child soldier described how he was under his commanders control. “....I had three [injections]. After these injections and eating the rice mixed with powder, I would turn like a motor vehicle, I could do anything for my masters. I perceived our enemies like they were dogs and all…

away to perform along with his brother and friends when rebels attack his village. During all this chaos, confusion and ambiguity of war, all of them are left to wander from village to village in search of food and shelter and along the way commit to acts they had never thought of doing so otherwise. The book explores around a lot of different themes throughout the reading and for this paper I will talk about the methods of child recruitment, the role as child soldiers and lastly the…

In the novel A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, we are given a glimpse into the life of a child that is trying to make his way in life during a time of war. While Beah does lose his family, home and childhood, he also loses his sense of safety and belonging. During the war, people from different villages continue to flee from the rebels that are constantly conquering villages, slaughtering the villagers like cattle. As the villages are broken down and conquered, boys are taken from their…

reading is A Long Way Gone by Ishmales Beah. The quote I have chosen comes at an early part in the book when the author is explaining the physical and mental condition of the adult refugees that had come from war-torn areas. “The adults among these children from the war zones would be lost in their thoughts during conversations with the elders of my town. Apart from their fatigue and malnourishment, it was evident they had seen something that we would refuse to accept if they told us all of it…

For my public policy, I decided to focus on Head Start. The Head Start Act is a Federal act. It was last reauthorized in December 2007. This act provides funding for private and public non-profit agencies, as well as compensation for educators, research and evaluation of program models, and monitoring activities. The purpose of Head Start programs are to prepare young children (birth to five years) for school. There are four main areas of focus- education, health, parent involvement, and social…

What is war really like? Is it just like how the movies and tv shows portray it to be? A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, give us as the reader an in depth, real life experience into what being in the midst of a war is really like.This nonfiction novel tells the story of Ishmael Beah. Ishmael used to live a normal life in Sierra Leone, until one day while he is away a rebellion force attacks his home town. Ishmael 's life is completely turned upside down, He must survive on his own. Scavenging for…

his thoughts and feelings with his nurse Esther. He realizes, “[Surviving the war, or any war that he is apart of] were just things that made [him] feel [he] was immune from death” (159). Beah recognizes that being apart of the war was not about his act of courage, instead it allowed him to feel superior. He begins to acknowledge the fact that fighting in the war did not enhance his bravery, but rather served as a false sense of beating his own death. Further in the novel, Beah is reminded by…

Eventually his army started to fade because of lack of support and previous war damage before. At this point he starts to kidnap children and placing them in his army. Children were so much easier for him to reach. So, we would burn down villages and round up the children and force them to kill their families if they didn’t join also. The women he kept as sex slaves to keep producing an army, nurses, cook and for religious practices. The government eventually found out about what was going on…