Children

 Every child is a miracle indeed, and our biggest failure to our children is that we fail to tell them, and show them how much of a miracle they are.  Each child is unique and they each have something special and life changing to offer the world.  We must instill in them that they truly have the power to make a difference, that they are the ones that can change the future.

The UN has launched a US$3.8-billion appeal to provide emergency aid to 25 million people next year as they struggle to survive conflict, climate-related disasters and other humanitarian crises. “We live in a world of unprecedented prosperity. But despite this, millions of people continue to endure crises where the essentials of existence - clean water, life-saving drugs, and emergency shelter among others - are denied them and where insecurity is a part of everyday life,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in a forward to the 2008 Humanitarian Appeal, launched at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva on 10 December.

SOMALIA: Aid appeal broadened to cope with massive displacement - The conflict in Somalia has only continued this year, as a result leaving massive displacement, with an estimated 600,000 fleeing Mogadishu, many of which risk death to reach Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Children are facing extreme suffering after years of suffering. “An estimated 83,000 children [excluding those in displaced families] are moderately or severely malnourished in south/central Somalia. These children are at increased risk of death in a country where, already, one in 12 children will die before his or her first birthday and one in seven will die before reaching the age of five,” humanitarian agencies said.

Myanmar deaths higher than U.N. estimate: The death toll following the uprising in Burma has left the a question of the true number lives lost. Posing as tourist a group of Buddhists entered the country in the wake of the September monk-led uprising to research and document the reality of the causalities. Their numbers, at at least 70, appear more than double of the UN’s estimated death toll of 31.

In the past weeks eyes and ears in Sudan, haven’t been on Darfur, but on a British Teacher who was imprisoned over a blasphemous teddy bear. The bear was part of a primary class project and the out lash arose over the children choice of a name, Mohammad. The act by the teacher was seen as a direct insult to Muslims everywhere, despite many who believed it was a silly or innocent mistake. Crowds in Khartoum called for Gillian Gibbons execution, as uproar over the toy’s insult to Islam ensued. Thankfully for Gibbons, she was pardoned by President Bashir and released on December 6th, while many Muslims and non-Muslims alike waited in anticipation for her save return to the UK. “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone and I am sorry if I caused any distress. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends but I am very sorry that I will be unable to return to Sudan and work in Unity High School as the teacher of 2X.”, stated Gibbons after her pardon (Teddy bear teacher leaves Sudan after pardon).

Anti-polio campaign targets four million children in Yemen, as a three-day national anti-polio campaign began on 15 December in to ensure the complete eradication of the disease. Spearheaded by Yemen’s Ministry of Health - with support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and USAID - the immunization drive is targeting just over four million children aged five and under.

In Pakistan the eradication of Polio has been a high priority throughout the year, and now the government’s in a further drive to eradicate polio. From December 11th-13th, approximately 14 million children under the age of five, where immunized in 44 high-risk districts, including Swat, where anti-immunization efforts have been met with opposition. The vaccination drive was the joint effort of of the government of Pakistan, WHO and UNICEF.

In South Africa the rules are simple no registration, no benefits and this includes benefits such as child support. UNICEF estimates that only half of the countries children’s births have been registered, which will prohibit many from receiving benefits as a birth certificate is required to obtain an identity document. However a new outreach program is underway, using schools to reach tens of thousands of rural South Africans get grants and benefit services.

According to a new report, The Yemen Poverty Assessment, which was released on 3 December, poverty is severely effecting the children of Yemen. The report which was jointly prepared by the government of Yemen, the World Bank, and UN Development Program (UNDP), reveled that some 30 percent of children aged 2-5 severely stunted. “According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), child malnutrition rates in Yemen are amongst the highest in the world, with infant and under-five mortality rates estimated at 76 and 102 per 1,000 live births, respectively.”

UN launches regional human rights office, The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) signed an agreement with the Senegalese government on 3 December to set up a regional office in the capital, Dakar. The office which will be the UN’s fourth African regional office in Africa is expected to open in early 2008, and on top of the agenda are issues of human trafficking and violence against women and girls.

Despite years of improvement since the drought of 2005 in Malawi malnutrition is still a threat to the countries children. Inadequate healthcare and food security are largely to blame, as some 39,000 are still being treated for malnutrition and related illnesses. “The scale of the malnutrition problem in Malawi is clearly very large and, given its consequences for economic development and child survival, calls for immediate and large-scale action,” said Aida Girma, UNICEF Resident Representative.

While searching for heartbreaking Santa letters and inspirational stories of the season, I came across this story which will touch you no matter who you are, or what you call God.

At certain age kids realize that Santa is someone for the wee one’s and they are too old to write him for gifts and dreams, so who do you write when Santa is not the one to grant your wishes anymore? Well one teacher in Boston, though he’d have his students write God. While it was politically appropriate for the students to write God, as Jonathan Mihal teaches a Religion class, the results of these 8th graders letters still shocked their teacher. Kids around 12 years old tend to be pretty ’stuff’ centered, or one tends to think so, but these children did not waste their ink writing to God for ’stuff’. The results where much more heartbreaking;

“…Why does there have to be so much killing?
Why do young girls get raped and hurt when they did nothing to deserve that?
Why, God, why?””
(S. End students write heart-breaking letters to God)

Everyday we are all left with so many questions, so many beginning with “why”, and so often the answers never come. I surely do not have them, but I do know as long as we question things, as long as our children are questioning things, then we are on the right track to begin to change things.

My questions to God would have to be; ‘Why do children have to die of disease, why must children starve, why do we allow children to fight the wars of their fathers, why do we rape and abuse children for the sake of greed and twisted carnal desires…?’ Will God come back to me with an answer, probably not. I know by asking and by putting forth the questions to you, we can together work to make sure in the future children no longer have to ask why to such questions.

Following the Grinch letters from Santa, I wanted to find some of the good stories and letters to Santa, and I know there is more good than bad out there. Here is one letter I came across that was quite heartwarming and heartbraking;

Millions of children send letters of hope and joy to Santa every year, and every year they sit in joyful anticipation of getting a response from the big guy in the red suit himself. This year Canadian children got a shock as Santa’s letters came from the North Pole and where less than joyful…they where just plain obscene. A total of 15 letters have been discovered thus far, all as shocking as the last. One 10 year old boy’s letter’s PS said: “Your mom s**** d**** and your Dad is gay.” (Canada Post “heartbroken” over naughty Santa letters).

Santa, Christmas, and any holiday alike is the one time I expect to write of nothing other than hope and joy, but alas one bad egg had to go and ruin it for all of us. The Canadian post office has shut down their Santa operations, until further notice, leaving hopeful boys and girls without one piece of Christmas Joy. Lets hope Santa’s other helpers can manage to put a smile on their bright faces despite the lack of return letters from Santa.

This so called “rouge elf”, is more like a Grinch to me! The Canadian police are now on the hunt for the Grinch, lets hope he is caught and punished accordingly. However is there anyway one can truly pay for ruining Christmas?

Shortage of electricity plagues many countries, especially in the developing world. However the efforts being made to electrify the continent of Africa fall considerably short of the need. Most would stand in awe at this immense task and wait in anticipation for something to be done. However that was not what one young man in Malawi decided to do, taking action into his own hands, William Kamkwamba, now 20 was only 14 when he began his quest to bring power to his village, after finding a photograph of a windmill. William then set about the task of trying to build one for his own family.

“At first, we were laughing at him,” says Agnes Kamkwamba, his mother. “We thought he was doing something useless.”

William has also built a windmill for the local primary school, and then used it as a learning example to teach an informal windmill-building course. A Young Tinkerer Builds a Windmill, Electrifying a Nation; While the creation of a few windmills has surely changed William and his families lives, it is only a small step in electrifying a nation. William is now working to further his education, and plans to continue building his windmills. William is an inspiration to his village, to his family and to all the young people across the globe that dream of a better future.

Learn More About William and his Windmill:
William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog
TED Speakers- William Kamkwamba
My Hero Community Hero: William Kmakwmba
Malawi Youth Builds Windmill to Power Village
Homemade Windmill in Malawi

The effect of the Taliban, and extremism is being heavily felt in the …..region of Pakistan, and concern for girls is gowning. It is clear that the ‘Talibanisation’ of all the children is in effect, school attendence rates are low for both boys and girls, however girls are substantially lower than that of their male counterparts. The reach of the Taliban on girls in Pakistan is growing as threats to schools, womens NGO’s have continued to increase in the past few years.

The biggest target appears to be girls’ schools have been a particular target, as numerous bombings have occurred, and contestant threats are coming in about school uniforms. More and more girls, even the youngest, are now seen in full Burqa’s. The threats are not just forcing girls to cover-up, but decreasing attendence and closing schools. As fears of bombings increased, many schools where closed temporarily, after they received letters warning teachers and pupils to wear ‘burqas’.

“We received a threatening letter, and asked the students and their parents to cooperate and wear the ‘burqa’ for the safety of the 800 pupils at the school,” Aftab Bibi, the vice-principal of the school, told IRIN. The unsigned letter, which the school authorities said had been handed over to police, warned the school could face “serious consequences” if the ‘burqa’ was not made “compulsory” for pupils ( Extremists target schoolgirls in north).

The failure of the the regional government to act has caused considerable concern, and it has become apparent that those who have stood in protest of ‘Talibanisation’ and stood for girls rights are quickly loosing their foothold. With little backing and protection, parents and teachers are left to live in fear.

In the Swat region Schoolteacher Ibrahim, stated that “law and order was deteriorating with each passing day…women already lagged behind in education and the terrorists’ activities would adversely affect the future of the children and the area”(Attendance at Swat girls’ schools plummets after bombing, threats).

Here is a list of some of the recorded bombings this year on schools:

December 8: A girls’ school was damaged in a bomb blast in Ahmed Shah village near the provincial capital Peshawar. Teachers and students of the Government Girls Middle School had received several warning letters asking them to start wearing the veil.

November 26: A bomb exploded in the Government Girls Primary School in the village of Sher Bahadur near the provincial capital Peshawar, destroying the main gate, windows, doors and boundary wall of the school. However, no loss of life or injuries was reported.

November 20: A locally-manufactured bomb exploded near the gate of a girls’ high school in Shawa Tehsil Adenzai. The bomb exploded about half an hour before the school was to open. No casualty was reported.

November 14: A bomb planted near a girls’ primary school in Adina, some 18km west of Swabi, exploded, damaging its boundary wall and windows.

September 29: Buildings of two girls’ schools in the Kabal area of Swat district were damaged by a bomb blast. Militants, who have been targeting women’s educational institutions for a couple of weeks, had planted an explosive device in the Government Girls’ High School, near the Kabal police station, which exploded, damaging part of the building and the wall of the adjacent Government Girls’ Primary School.

June 5: A bomb was lobbed into a private school in the Hayatabad locality of Peshawar. However no loss of life or property was reported

-(Bomb blasts in the North West Frontier Province - 2007)

Organizations working in the area:

Swat Kohistan Education Program (SKEP)
Pakistan Village Development Program (PVDP)

Please find some of the past few weeks news headlines and summaries, related to children:

TACKLING TEENAGE PREGNANCY: UK Women to Get Pill without Prescription - The UK has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe, and a steadily rising abortion rate, and the government is looking at a new scheme which will allow one to get birth control pills without a prescription, and they are considering letting underage girls onto the scheme. The government also announced that it was looking into making early-stage terminations available in doctors’ offices.

Schoolboy killed in rare Indian school shooting - While school shootings seem to have almost become a phenomenon in the US, in India the thought was seen as absurd, until the unthinkable happened and two boys took turns shooting a fellow classmate to death.

African human traffic is catalyst for child abuse - “There are very few institutions ready to help them … there is no psychological support for these children. Their families do not understand, and sweep it under the carpet,” said Plan’s Serigne Mor Mbaye, who worked on the pilot research program in Togo.

LESOTHO: A desire to learn stifled by hunger - Children crowd into school rooms full of ambition, but soon hunger overcomes them and their concentration fades. Drought has left the country with high levels of food insecurity, and it is the children who are paying the heaviest price. The country has a high level of AIDS orphans, and those children are far worse as their guardians leave feeding them to last, if at all. While aid agencies have begun some feeding schemes, they have yet to begin for secondary school students.

IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned- Children in war torn Iraq have disproportanatly suffered has the war and instablitiy continues, with around 1.6 million children under 12 years old are now homeless according to the country’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Many due to poverty and violence, however a large portion of children are left as they are sick, and families are abandoning them as they cannot care for them. “The problem is even more serious among new-born babies and there are many cases of children aged 1-12 abandoned,” said Mayada Marouf, a spokesperson for KCA. “Most of them have a life-threatening disease and their families cannot afford treatment.” Many children are not completely abandoned but left with relatives who can bare not to turn them away, and soon find themselves with a house full of children they cannot adequately care for.

DRC: “The blood keeps flowing” -The children of the Congo continue to suffer in large scale numbers as violence continues to tear the country apart. Hunger and disease are taking countless numbers of children, parents are left in fear both from violence and that their children will starve to death. According to MSF’s nutrition center see 40 cases a day - mainly children younger than five, who have been surviving on a diet of sorghum wheat, cassava and maize, which lack the nutrients they need. Additionally the nutrition center runs a ambulatory feeding program, for 1,200 vulnerable children in the district. Save the Children also runs a feeding center for the sickest of the children, children like 8 year old Sekabamdu Utamuleza, who after three weeks of treatment has failed to improve. The aid agencies working in the region are over burdened, and there is not enough medical staff to care for all the needy children.

Imagine you are a 15 year old girl, and suddenly you find your self surrounded by 34 men, and for 26 days all of them treat you as a an object. You spend your days in fear of rape and beatings, you scream and cry but it makes no difference at all. Soon you begin to give and and beg for food, submitting your body out of hunger. This is not a horror movie, not is this the fictional character in a film about an isolated rouge town, this is the true story of a Brazilian teenager who was thrown into prison, alone with nothing but men, over a petty crime. Her protectors, the police and guards, only aided in the anarchy that was to befall her for almost a month.

While the imprisonment of the 15 year old girl was clearly illegal, and it has brought considerable concern to the region where, on the borders of the Brazilian Amazon lawlessness reigns, and has done so throughout history. The frightening fact in this case, is the number of people who could have ended this child suffering, but yet did nothing, and many only added to her suffering. Ms. Soares, the girls lawyer, said;

“Several officials were aware of what was happening, and at worst they were complicit in it. It’s a very serious situation.”

“The police are rarely convicted under a 1997 law against torture, because of an “institutionalizing of torture” under Brazil’s military dictatorship and more than 300 years of slavery, said Paulo Vanucchi, Brazil’s human rights minister.” (Rape of Girl, 15, Exposes Abuses in Brazil Prison System)

This is not an isolated case, as the abusive detainment of children in Brazil is not a new occurrence, Human Rights Watch has continually investigated abuses in juvenile detention centers, such as can be found in the report, CRUEL CONFINEMENT: Abuses Against Detained Children in Northern Brazil (2003). However this case also highlights the sever violations of women in the penal system, and the lack of adequate accommodation, support, and protection.

Taken from RFK’s, “Day of Affirmation” address at the University of Capetown, South Africa on 6 June 6, 1966, reading this always reminds me that their really is power in one. Just think of all those who have walked the path of action, and what they have managed to accomplish as an individual; Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, the Dalai Lama, Aung San Su Kyi, Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others. People are as powerful as they want to be, and if you stand with courage, do the right thing in a time of difficulty, and don’t give into the masses, you too can make a difference. I have said it countless times before that we can make a difference, even if a small one, and I can sleep well tonight if only one person reads this and is incited to act in some way at all.

One never knows the power of a smile to change a mans life, the enormity of a kind word to shape the future of a child, the everlasting effect of an act of thoughtfulness. One does not always see the effects of his actions, but they can have an endless effect. Imagine if you see someone on the bus and you strike up the most simplistic of conversation, complementing them in some way, you leave thinking nothing of it, but that person had only been thinking their life was worthless until you stepped into their life…you have now changed their fate. I found the following poem, which I though was quite fitting;

Making A Difference
by: Unknown

If each grain of sand were to say:
One grain does not make a mountain,
There would be no land.

If each drop of water were to say:
One drop does not make an ocean,
There would be no sea.

If each note of music were to say:
Each note does not make a symphony,
There would be no melody.

If each word were to say:
One word does not make a library,
There would be no book.

If each brick were to say:
One brick does not make a wall,
There would be no house.

If each seed were to say:
One seed does not make a field,
There would be no harvest.

If each of us were to say:
One person does not make the difference,
There would never be love and peace on earth.

You and I do make the difference,
Begin today and make the difference.