April 18, I and many others at St. Vital School took a vow of silence for one day in order to raise awareness for children who are silenced in the world.
Our silence was intended to be their voice. In the course of classroom assignments, we discussed the many ways children are silenced due to issues such as abuse, suicide, bullying, racism, lack of access to clean water, health care or education, homelessness, living in war-torn areas that can lead to forced child soldiers, food security and child slave labour.
Daily announcements were made over the course of a couple of weeks leading up to the day of action making students aware of some circumstances and conditions where the rights of children are violated.
Posters supporting these announcements were designed and placed around the school each day leading up to the 18th event. Although not everyone in the school participated and it was difficult for those who were to remain silent for an entire day, we did raised $1,000 in pledges that were evenly split between the local Boys and Girls Club and our ongoing support of San Miguel Ecuador's school through the Adopt-A -Village program with Free the Children.
"We Are Silent" is a Free the Children campaign initially started for the purpose of drawing attention to facts such as that 215 million children are forced to work in poverty ridden countries making it so they cannot attend school, that one in every three children in developing countries are malnourished, and that one billion do not have access to food, water, education, or health care.
The campaign additionally gives a voice to children facing issues relevant to Canadian children such as racism, bullying, abuse and poverty. It's a very powerful campaign. Every year, tens of thousands of people stand up for children who are being silenced.
While we attempted to be silent for one day we were taking this action along with other concerned young people around the world also raising awareness and funds for children without a voice. Every participant has their own personal reason for why they are being silent. I am passionate about issues around forms of abuse so I'm being silent for all the abused children.
We posted a large paper near the office of the school and invited all participants to complete the sentence "My silence today gives a voice to a child who " Students had the opportunity to write why they were being silent. Some of the reasons posted were: for kids being bullied, rape victims, suicide victims, family members with addictions, racism, children in poverty, child soldiers, children forced into child labour, kidnappings, children not having clean drinking water, untreated illness, and children forced into unhealthy unsafe life styles.
As a Grade 8 student, I participated in the creating of a mural displayed along with the April 18 event. The mural collaged images and words portraying various reasons and circumstances contributing to children being silenced.
Students in our class searched online for images and words reflecting circumstances contributing to why children are silenced and how rights of children are violated. After we collected the images we puzzled them into a poster-sized mural. We then cut it up into small squares which were photocopied and enlarged. Each square was then individually redrawn in pencil on a blank square of paper. The new versions of each square were finally reconstructed into a larger version of the poster sized mural in order to fill a bulletin board.
If you study the mural carefully, even though some objects do not align perfectly after their artistic translation, you will still see clearly visual references to bullying, suicide, homelessness, access to clean water, health care and education. Some images draw attention to child rights violation issues such as the right to play and the right to not be forced into being a child soldier.
These harsh images are surrounded by softer visual representations of peace and hope. One of my favourite verbal images says, "It shouldn't hurt to be a child." This is the basic premise for our actions as we participated in the Free the Children campaign, We Are Silent.
