A World Fit for Children

Each and every child on our planet deserves to enjoy the same rights - from birth and on into adulthood - no matter where they are born, who their parents are, what abilities or limitations they live with. They have the first call on our resources. They each have the right to a family and an identity, to love and care, to safe warm homes and places to play, to protection from harm, to education for life in a peaceful world, to health and health care.

Above all it is their voices that should guide decision making in our world.

Data and statistics are things I deal with every day, and there is a certain detachment from reality and individuals when using concepts like mortality rates and intentional assault. It can be overwhelming to constantly think of the individual griefs and pains and losses that the numbers represent. But some things go straight to the heart. A routine report on causes of death shows that WAR is one of the major causes of death for CHILDREN in our world. Not for soldiers, not for Presidents or Prime Ministers or bankers or bureaucrats. But for CHILDREN it is up there in the top 20 causes of death in both high and middle-low income countries.

I couldn't and cannot detach from that.

The movie Kandahar is backed by scientific enquiry that confirms that children and women are at increased risk of serious injury from instruments of war. And confirms the absolute evil that cluster bombs are manufactured to be ATTRACTIVE to children.

I agree with Brian McLaren's analysis that these problems are underpinned by a malfunctioning security system, that invests in destruction and not in life. I need to participate in a deep shift so that everything WILL change. This new YouTube video of Brian's is just brilliant for Bloggers Unite day. Let us all be atheists to forces that kill so many of our precious children, let us not detach from any one of the ten million who die unnecessarily each year, let us unite to persuade investment in things that matter and not things that destroy.

My baby steps involve checking the origin of products like coffee and chocolate, investing in sustainable aid and development approaches, working to persuade my local congregation to work in partnership projects and not to ship masses of 'stuff' to 'the poor' in charity-based initiatives and proselytising operations.

And above all to listen to our children. Their wisdom can guide us to create a world that is fit for them. "We want a world fit for children, because a world fit for us is a world fit for everyone." (Do read this whole link if you have time. It is wisdom we need to hear).