Coping strategies adopted by children in child headed households towards the Covid 19 lockdown in Sikuda Sub County in Busia District

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the coping strategies adopted by children in child headed households during the COVID 19 lockdown in Sikuda Sub County in Busia District. An explanatory design was used to obtain in-depth information on the coping strategies adopted by children in child headed households during the COVID 19 lockdown in Sikuda Sub County in Busia District. This study was conducted amongst 12 children and 3 key informants for instance the CDO of Sikuda sub county, LC3 and the LC1 of Sikuda sub county. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The study revealed that most children in child headed households in Sikuda Sub County most of them faced a lot of challenges among which some experienced life changing situations like early parenthood, loss of guardians, hunger, extreme poverty, homelessness, malnutrition, decline in literacy, separation to mention a few it is sad to note that most children coped up negatively towards the COVID 19 lockdown in that most of them; the major problem was to get access to something to eat so as to survive not forgetting that almost all of them were unemployed without clear permanent places of work. However, some of the employed positive strategies for instance engaging in farming from where they were able to grab something to eat as well as also earn income to cater for other needs for instance clothes, sugar and so many others. In addition to this, some adopted by opening up small scale businesses that would best suit the measures of the COVID 19 lockdown