OUR DREAMS 3

In the world, 35,000 children die of malnutrition everyday. In the past 10 years, wars took the lives of two million children, four million children became disabled by weapons, and twelve million children lost their home. Most of these occurred in developing countries in Asia and Africa.

Even today, too many children, 100 million to 200 million children, are spending their childhoods in battlefields, on streets, at whorehouses, or in sweatshops. Many children are forced to work 10 to 16 hours a day with little meal, little rest, and little pay (or without any pay). These children’s health conditions are in serious danger, for example, chronic undernourishment, lack of sleep, harmful chemical agent, pesticide, contact with dangerous machines, skin disease, AIDS, etc. Poverty, illiteracy, low societal expectation, etc. are passed from parents to children, and this becomes a vicious circle.

UNICEF ACTION POLICY
On the basis of the basic philosophy of “all people equally have the right to live”, UNICEF considers “what has to be done for people in developing countries to help them become independent?” and practices various assistance activities with a particular emphasis on women and children. UNICEF believes that these assistances should be equally offered to people who really need it, regardless of their races, ideologies, beliefs, ages and gender.
From this standpoint, UNICEF keeps on assisting those developing countries by not only supplying goods but also teaching technologies, advancing educations and fostering industries, so as to help them finally become independent.

(Cited from UNICEF information)
UNICEF information : http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index.html

As a Canadian living in Japan, I spend a lot of my time giving lectures on human rights and education, while dealing on an everyday basis with prejudice against foreigners. After one of my lectures, a Japanese mother spoke to me in these words:
“I am not racist. I treat each and every person with respect, and ask my children to do the same. Why should I to do more than that ?”
It goes without saying that the vast majority of Japanese people are not racists. But how many of them are actively opposing and fighting discrimination ? I myself believe that a society indifferent and passive towards racism is in fact encouraging it.


(Joel Assogba, Speaker on human rights and discrimination issues –
extract from the morning edition of the Asahi Shinbun, 2009/6/25)