Birthday Wishes
Wednesday 20 May 2009
Today is Save the Children’s 90th Birthday and we are celebrating with Save the Children Norway staff altogether in the Harare office. It is also the 20th birthday (not to the day) of the UNCRC. Luckily for me, I had the chance to also celebrate the birthday with children rather than just with Save the Children staff…
This morning, Rachel (the Zimbabwe country director) and I went to a school in Harare to send aloft 35 Save the Children balloons with a class of 9-11 year olds. The class have been working on children’s rights all term and each of them had written a personal message to read aloud as they launched their helium-filled balloon into the sky. All of the messages were about a rights-respecting world of the future: ‘I hope that all children can be protected from harm’, ‘I wish that all children can be healthy and go to school’….. As it was an international school, many of the children gave their messages in other languages: Shona, Swahili, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Croatian….. Smaller children from the Early Childhood Development Centre next to the school watched the balloons float up into the clouds from their swings and climbing frames in the playground.
It felt right to watch children launch their hopes and vision for children’s rights into the sunny, blue Zimbabwean sky on Save the Children’s birthday.
Tags: 90th anniversary, Zimbabwe
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