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Qax- Attra Rwakajara's blog
African Child
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Dear colleagues!
RE: AFRICAN CHILD DAY.
It is not a day known to most folks, save for those working at the fore front of child welfare, but it’s the day of the African child on June 16th. The Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity.
This day is a commemoration of hundreds of young boys and girls who were killed in Soweto, South Africa, when thousands of black school children took to the streets in 1976, in a march to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Children were short down when they matched more than half a mile long, and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand were injured. This day is also a commemoration of the courage of all those who marched.
In Uganda and many parts of Africa, it will be a day like any other. Very few children rights organisations organize minor cerebrations in consideration with the funds at hand or will probably put up a notice or send out e- fliers to staff as a reminder of what is happening elsewhere, despite there being a good proportion of African children with in this massively diverse city.
You would have thought that in Kampala, things would be different, but going by the past, it might be another missed opportunity for our children. You would think that both the authorities and the public would use the day to mark a new beginning for the children. A new start where everyone would reflect on their attitude, their perception of what our children are worth and those working directing with the children, an opportunity to evaluate and possibly rethink their practice. You would have thought that these children’s lives would be celebrated by a top class befitting occasion since Uganda is re-known for its all sorts of symbolic days but alas this will be another cause of regret.
In the past, what we have seen has not only been the failure to honour the day, but also the lack of publicity about its existence. We are a nation that needs no legislation for any day of the year to be declared a national occasion. We have seen the chogms day precede our fundamental national programmes including the reorganization of our national exams for the sake of a two days meeting in Kampala hundreds of miles away from Kanungu sec school where an s4 chap was due to sit his olevels. That is after having struggled valiantly to make it up to year 4. We ‘ve seen the days when our military might is flaunted to the opposition, the freedom fighters day, the women’s day, and all sorts of occasions. It’s time therefore we let this day of the child touch all our emotions and give it the respect it deserves.
The day of the child could be marked by doing very little things that matter to the children which we the grownups take for granted. Things like a little more respect to every child on the day, a bit more safety, reassurance and security, sleeping in dormitories with their matron a long side, a day’s leave from the front line for child soldiers and a break from unpaid hard labour, food for those on streets, leave from the rapists, access to a day’s free medical treatment, and a break from abusive carers. The list is endless. It’s things that do not cost us a thing but which we find too hard to sacrifice. And that is a pity.
It’s the acts that need no more than a revaluation of our conscience. It’s things that will not be of huge financial cost to the government at least not what we would need to parade out katushas and buying the katushas (weaponry) on the one of many events. It is my humble argument here that we do not need the government to do our jobs respectfully and accountably, nor do we need any government mechanism for you and I to rethink our conscience and be more passionate and humane.
If you a surveyor, you do require the government machinery (flogging) to construct safe buildings for our children (read collapsing schools). The picture is so grim for our children, and the injustice they suffer is insurmountable. I will not want to dare anyone but if you would agree a 30 minute challenge walk across Kampala alone, you would see hundreds of children with their bellies out (naked), children selling bags to survive, others scavenging in the rubbish bins, children medicating themselves because they cannot afford to see a doctor and in the country side the scenes would include children who cannot study because they are hungry. Its the evils that we have all caused. Any one would become infuriated and wish they could transform our children’s lives in an instant.
So who is the problem? The problem is every one of us. The problem is that individual, that community and those institutions that preside over failing systems. Its starts at an individual level, where a pharmacist sells expired drugs to main children, or that heartless rapist whose motive we can never understand. The person who fails to execute his role accountably, the teacher who fails to show up for lessons after a drunken night and then that carer who thinks that his 7 year old son is old enough to fend for himself.
At a community level, it is the way we value our children. ‘Our children who are supposed to be heard and not seen’, those parents who do not want to earn living and choose to force their prepubescent daughters to marry so they can get bride price. We forget that our children are gifts, our angels from God, and are our foundation and future nations.
At an institutional level it includes you the gender minister who has not implemented a single section of the 1996 children statute to-date. The money was spent and a copycat of the UK children Act 1989 was Xeroxed nearly page by page to enact the 1996 statute. Why is it not fully implemented any way? Is it because children do not count politically? Because they are not a force, because they do not vote, or because they can not hold the government at ransom, and they can not threaten the centre? Why do children’s needs always score less on the government agenda? The reality of living conditions of millions of children makes an ugly reading.
Let us start a new campaign. On the day when we remember the little souls that perished in cold blood 32 years ago, let everyone do something that will put a smile of their faces where ever they are. We can do this by doing something to change the lives of the living. Let us forget all those declarations (UN something, EU something, African something including the famous OAU declaration ‘Africa fit for children’) that have not meant anything to lives of the ordinary child. Let us be human. Lets us do the acts that are within our limits but can put a smile to a child under your care or a child next door. Let us give great importance to the day of the African child.
I salute all the persons and organisations and individuals that are doing their best to give a better face to an African child.
You and I have a role to play for an African child. May God bless you.


June 16, 2008 | 5:52 AM Comments  0 comments

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