Building on a forgotten past

Abstract

While appropriate to deal with the health and economic impacts on populations, both locally and globally, it is concerning that we seem to have set aside the hard-won understandings of the benefits of social justice and welfare that lead to greater equity among people and have forgotten those who have fought long and hard to provide support and services in an effort to overcome disadvantage High officials and local community leaders were, in turn, expected to take care of members of their communities Casson (1998, p 16) states ‘[b]oth the government and private individuals tried to alleviate the situation by instituting child-assistance programs’, and goes on to tell of a wealthy woman of Terracina who made a bequest in the memory of her son which provided enough money to support 100 boys and 100 girls until the boys were 16 years of age and the girls 14 years old The Bible indicates concern for children and their well-being with passages referring to the obligations that children have to parents and that parents have to children (Pachuau & Sarathy, 2015), as well as referring to acts of kindness and support that provide examples of Christian behaviour (for instance, the Good Samaritan story)