Today: Observance of Universal Day of the Child
The Universal Day of the Child, held today [Nov 18], is an annual, international celebration in which countries recognize the day when the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989).
The public is invited to the Reading of the Proclamation, by the Minister of Youth, Families, Sports and Community Development Glenn Blakeney on today at 10 am on the Steps of City Hall. The reading of the Proclamation will be followed by a selection of songs performed by students from nursery, pre-schools and primary schools.
A special private ceremony, honouring students who have been nominated for Young Citizen Awards, will be held later at 1pm at the Hamilton Princess. Young Citizen Awards are given to students in the public and private schools who demonstrate humanitarian qualities such as compassion, empathy and standing up for the rights of others.
This year’s theme for the U.N. Universal Day Of The Child is A World Fit for Children. In Bermuda we take for granted that every child is entitled to parental love, adequate nutrition and health care, free education, the right to play, protection from mental and physical violence and the ability to develop his/her full physical and mental potential. We have laws which protect children from abuse, neglect and exploitation and a new law has recently been passed to protect children from internet predators.
In many countries of the world the situation for children is dire; over 600 million children live in abject poverty and suffer from poor nutrition and inadequate health care. UNICEF recently published a report in which it identified more than 200 million children under 5 years old who have stunted growth because of under nutrition. 90% of these children live in Asia and Africa; more than 1/3 of the deaths in these countries are as result of under nutrition. The good news is that 31 countries are on track to meet the goal set by world leaders 10 years ago to reduce the number of hungry children in half by 2015.
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