Children

“A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to hear children's speech only as a foreign language, or as a lie…. Children have been treated … as congenital fibbers, fakers and fantasisers.” – Beatrix Campbell, British journalist. Do we hear the voices of the […]

Many heard the buzz and outrage over China's now infamous lip singing little girl at the opening ceremony. The 7 year old, Yang Peiyi, had won a national song contest to sing at the Opening Ceremonies, was replaced by 9 year old Lin Miaoke, who was deemed as more attractive, and suitable for the world […]

Yesterday, August 12th, was International Youth Day 2008, this year's theme is; Youth and Climate Change: Time for Action. Climate change is an increasingly growing problem, which affects everyone, especially those who will inherit the mistakes of the past. It is essential that young people across the globe be given a voice in working to combat […]

Russia has long seen itself as the designated protector of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, however the relative quite cease-fire was broken last Thursday as Russian troops once again asserted their might and hold on the region, catching innocent civilians in the wake. It is estimated that some 100,000 people have been displaced since the […]

Yesterday, August 9, 2008 marked the first International Day of the World's Indigenous People, The first event of its kind to take place, thanks to the landmark adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly in September 2007. The convention and the event seeks to promote the culture and […]

Some 2 million people die each year of AIDS, and around 33 million people around the world are infected with HIV.  A shortage of healthcare providers, access to treatment facilities, high cost and often unavailability of ARVs , and a lack of adequate education, has lead the disease's spread to continue climb.  Therefore the HIV/AIDS epidemic of […]

"Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything."  – Giacomo Leopardi (1798,1837), Italian poet and philosopher, from Zibaldone Scelto. It is true that as we grow our eye's seem to change, we seem to lose the wide and open vision that we had in childhood.  Our eye's no longer see everything with hopefulness, […]

This week, 1-7 August 2008, is World Breastfeeding Week In conjunction with the Olympics next August, WBW 2008 calls for greater support for mothers in achieving the gold standard of infant feeding: breastfeeding exclusively for six months, and providing appropriate complementary foods with continued breastfeeding for up to two years or beyond. As every country […]

In April in the post, Girls In Yemen Forced to Marry Too Young, an introduction to the abuses committed against girls who are forced into marriage too early, including highlighting the hindrance that child marriage is placing on the country's development. According to a recent study by Sana University, researchers found the average age of […]

“In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. It corresponds to the call-and-response pattern in human communication and is found in many traditions.” Last night just outside DC in […]

“I implore you to see with a child's eyes, to hear with a child's ears, and to feel with a child's heart.” – Antonio Novello, Doctor (1944- ) In order for us to see the world, and see it clearly one must see it from the view of a child. The perceived innocence of a […]

A child in prison surely sounds like a superfluous statement, for unquestionably children do not belong in prison. The word prison is often synonymous with adult, yet sadly around the globe there are some 1 million children languishing in prisons, and most of these are not some special child prison or version of juvenile detention, […]