Children today need education to regain hope for the future

By Michael Manirakiza

Some say life is bittersweet, but I know one thing for certain: life is precious. It is precious because you only live once and you must try make it to wherever you want to go.

I was born in Burundi, a beautiful country located in central Africa. I was blessed in many ways, one of which was a family that could provide me education in a country where more than 400,000 children are in child-headed households. These are households supported by either teenagers or young adults who don’t have parents present in their lives.

It is hard to imagine the daily lives of some of those children because poverty doesn’t allow them to attend school. My family’s community work started in Rwanda where we helped elders living in remote rural communities with food supply and clothing. The lessons I took from my family’s charity work when I was young became instilled in my thoughts. Although we left Rwanda for Canada in 1999, it felt as if my mind remained in Rwanda, even after 10 years. My youth days and the beautiful landscape where never far away from my mind.

Children across the globe are born everyday and when they enter in this world, what matters most is where they are born. If they are born in a Third World country, they have a greater chance of getting killed by a civil war or a rebel retaliation against the government - but they have an even higher chance of never receiving a fair chance at the education that here in Canada many take for granted. We can easily blame the country’s president for not doing enough, but sometimes the problems are rooted deep in the country’s history. For example, the child-headed households wouldn’t be as numerous if it wasn’t for the 1994 genocide.

I believe that youths have an abundance of energy at their disposal, which they can use to reach across to others and help in anyway they can. That energy can help spark hope in the hearts and minds of those children across continents. We need to open the eyes of youth in Western and European countries of the situation in countries where very few children receive adequate, if any, education. I also have recognize some youths who have taken action already and to name a few, my friend Daniel Francavilla the founder of ACCESS Charity and other youths who do tremendous deeds.

In a final reflections, we need to mobilize as the youth to take part in the movement to provide some form of contribution to helping vulnerable children get education, whether it be speaking up like on the Speak Up for Change Blog, fundraising or spending sometime with youth in schools to talk about what is happening globally, because more than ever, children today need a minimum level of education to be able to lead a comfortable life and youth can help youth!

Michael Manirakiza is the program coordinator of the youth-founded non-profit organization Greenhope For Children. You can contact him through his email here.