Our Future Our children

Today I attended a session called “The Essential: Food, Water, Women and Justice”. It happens as a panel of activists who care deeply about the topic and a UNEP representative.

It was a very interesting topic because being young development practitioners I have so much more to learn and when it comes to the topic of food and water that’s something that I know I need to learn more about. This was the reason why I went in not expecting much but to learn from the experts in the field. I can say that it was interesting hearing what the NGOs are doing at the local level and how that look like at the level of organization such as United Nations (UN).

There was many things being said at the session that was very important, however one thing that I took away which I felt powerful and is a great reminder to me is this quote by Rev. Marta Benavides: "I don't want to save the children because I don't want to put children in a position to be save." I couldn’t agree more with this quote. I feel that we offend forget that it is us, as adult who put them in boxes. We are the one putting children in situation, setting them up and not allowing them to grow up with the mentality that they can do anything if they want to. Despite the fact that we say children are our future we are only putting them in a position where it doe not demonstrate that but the idea that we will save them at the end of the day.

Do not get me wrong, as adult it is our responsibilities to make sure all children are safe and protected. However, if we allow our self to be in position that set up the standard or institutions which send the message that no matter what we will save the children than it does not allow for growth and changes to happen.

Therefore, as Margret Mead would reminder to us all, “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”

Written by: Pa Kong Lee