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Peace, My Greatest Fantasy
Marking International Poetry Day (21 March 2020), a group of young poets and Voices of Youth contributors write about the power of peace. Their poems are a cry to end violence against children, and a message of support to the children and youth affected by conflict. Fatu Kaba is a 21-year old from Liberia. She is passionate about using entrepreneurship to solve human rights issues such as education, healthcare, women empowerment, poverty, and climate change. She wrote this poem in collaboration with Janetta Konah, a 23 years old Liberian who is passionate about promoting a reading culture in...
Why girls and women should be heard?
Each girl has a voice capable of converting into actions that can transform to the world in a better place. They have the right to be heard! Providing them with education and equal opportunities will make them empowered women who will contribute to the construction of a just, equitable and progressive society.
Letter to my daughter- from a teenage mother
Lebanon's efforts matter
A girl must follow her dreams- Do not affirm stereotypes
Education is not a waste of time for a girl
The real danger of the COVID-19: discrimination
In the last months the world experienced once again something terrible. A dangerous virus took over many countries in the world. Many people have been infected, from young adults to old ones. It affected people deeply, hurting them both physically and emotionally. As much as they tried to defend themselves and ignore their frustration, there was no way they couldn’t think about it. No one would have imagined, it could spread at this speed and intensity in all the countries impacted. No one ever thought that in 2020 something like this could still happen, but it did. We are all at risk...
Is Celebrating International Women's Day Sexist?
Everyone probably thinks I am going to write about how Independent, amazing and strong women are. Well. YES and NO. All of our memories of this event go back to the time where we all huddled together on the dirty and dusty school halls during assembly, listening to a never-ending speech given out by the teacher's pet about famous activists, but we all know that it was all copied and pasted from Wikipedia. The thing about International Women's Day is that the concept of having a day dedicated to women. It is wonderful (don't get me wrong, I love the female activists like Malala and Rosa Parks)...
Coronavirus and the toxic “infodemic”
Meddling Kids Movement: telling the stories of grassroots youth activists
My name is Isabel Hope, I am 17-years-old, and I am the Founder of Meddling Kids Movement. When I was younger the phrases "you're too young to understand" and "children should be seen and not heard" were tossed around a lot. For a long time, I felt like I didn't have a voice in what is going on surrounding my future. Then, sometime amazing happened. It would probably be considered revolutionary. I started seeing kids my age speak about what they were passionate about. These kids were standing up for what they believe in and seeing that inspired me to do the same. That's why I created Meddling...
Silent Sea
I sit by the Silent Sea as the day drowns in the dusk I sit on the land of you and me with a tornado of grief among all of us I listen to the Silent Sea as she begins to weep I listen the mothers' cry with heads on their sons' bare wounded chest I see the Silent Sea as she is turning red at the shore I see my brothers being buried and their corpses bathed in blood I touch the Silent Sea as I feel anger and screams in her silence I touch the war marks on my arm no more giving me pride but only grief I am a victor in the war but a loser here of course the human in me is not letting me breathe...
Let's prioritize education
Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning. By Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of Freedom. People teach and learn at the same time, but what happens if people do not have a place to transmit, receive and share knowledge and opinions? I speak of a place, destined for education and teaching, a place where social interactions between equals are essential, a place in which one learns, thinks, discusses, and grows. Education feeds curious minds, teaches critical thinking and discovers the world around us. Millions of refugee children do not attend...
Why we don’t want TTIP and CETA…
Is it finally time to get rid of the SAT and ACT tests?
I assume that most of you guys already know about the entrance tests for college, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing (ACT). Standardizing tests have ignited a national debate in the last few years, and many parents feel understandably concerned about their children being judged on the basic tests that don’t seem to correlate with actual learning or with successful college and career outcomes. As a senior in high school who has been experiencing high school enough to state this: I strongly believe that standardized tests are unnecessary for students and it...
Harassment
Sexual harassment or harassment in general is a big issue in today’s world. There are many different types of ways people can be harassed. It can be something as simple as looking ata person up and down, catcalling, or something more serious and dangerous like being kidnapped and sexually abused. There are many other ways people can be harassed which are too many to name, and the fact is that there really shouldn't be that many ways. Many people blame victims instead of blaming the attacker, which is always wrong and there should be no excuses for people who attack others in this way...
Free The Children
Child labor is one of the problems in the world that many of us don't see, but know that it's there. There is child labor occurring in many parts of the world and in other countries where we are not there to physically see it. Not seeing, doesn't mean we should just forget about that problem, but instead, we should spread awareness. Child labor is when children are either forced to work or have the need to work in order to help meet ends meet for their families or to make sure that they themselves survive. Like I said before, even if you don’t see child labor happening around you, that doesn’t...
The Importance of Indigenous and Cultural Memory in Post-conflict Colombia
Following the signing of the Colombian Peace Agreement in 2016, the deep impact of the armed conflict on Colombian society has become more evident. This conflict has touched, in particular, the communities which have lived in the territories that have been disputed historically. Indigenous communities have been one of the most affected not only in a physical, economic and social level, but also in terms of their cultural identity. Memory has been a fundamental tool for the construction of historical processes and, as we know, this is not only an individual process, it also has a collective...
Safer Internet Day 2020: Online kindness matters too
People rarely understand the importance that words have. I was only 14 years old the first time I experienced cyber bullying. After being bullied at school for a few years the girls in my class started this rumour that I had talked about them behind their backs, of course what they needed was a reason not to look guilty in front of others. And so they confronted me. And I tried explaining myself but they were clearly not looking for an explanation. When I got home they had opened Facebook group chats where they would continue talking mean things about me even though I would beg them to stop...
Equality in Education
Education is one of the basic needs that any human should possess, irrespective of race, gender, and economic background. Education today, all over the world has become an important scale to measure one's wisdom. Each and every organization considers a common examination or a clearing test as a qualification criterion. Having the exams in common, all the students who gained a high standard of education compete with the average and the bellow average category. It´s very unfair for an organisation to conduct such an unacceptable and biased examination. However, they do not have any other choice...