Posted
on June 16, 2016
Today
is the anniversary of something amazing, and something amazingly sad:
In
Soweto, South Africa, on this date in 1976, about 10,000 black school
children held a protest march!
That's
right – ten THOUSAND kids, marching in a column more than half a
mile long!
What
were they protesting?
- Their crummy educations, and
- The fact that they were not allowed to learn about things in their own language.
The
hugeness of this march was amazing! But what the South African police
officers did about this protest was amazingly sad: they shot at the
students, injuring many. One of the students, Hector Pieterson, was
killed; he was just 13 years old.
There
were uprisings and protests for the next two weeks, and more than a
hundred people were killed, and more than a thousand people were
injured. But the images of the violent repression by the South
African police galvanized the world to weigh in, and eventually
apartheid was ended.
Since
1991 this date has been dedicated to the children of Africa.
 |
| Kids in Morocco, above, and South Africa, below |
Of
course, the things that children need are the things that HUMANS
need: clean water and air, plenty of safe food, modern medical care,
including vaccines, protection against mosquitos, stable government,
and peace. Environmental pollution, mosquito-borne diseases, poverty,
war – all are children's issues, but they are all human issues as
well. |
| Education doesn't just mean schools (above), but also includes self-teaching tools like computers and tablets with internet access (below) |
I
would say that “education” is a human issue, too, but most people
think it is particularly a children's issue. Improving education in
Africa seems to be the main thrust of today's events.
Also
on this date:
Plan
ahead:
Check out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for:
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