While more than a billion children around the world will have the opportunity to start a new school year in the coming days, there are another 240 million who will not go to school this year. Some of these children are enrolled in school, but will not attend classes or, in other cases, teachers will not be adequately trained; others will stop going to school too early because they have to work to contribute to the livelihood of their families; still others will be ashamed to learn in the company of children younger than themselves.
Asha, whose name means hope, is a Hindu girl whose family wanted to marry her off at the age of 12 to save her from poverty. Every year 12 million girls in the world are forced to marry adults and drop out of school. Suzan, who is 16 years old, lives in a slum in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. “I was orphaned during Ebola and survive on the street with five other girls.” She pays for a room where they all sleep together, exchange clothes and share the little food they can get. In order to eat, they have to prostitute themselves and suffer abuse.
These are just two examples of children's violated rights, which prevent millions of children from attending school. But there are others: child slavery, forced recruitment, child labour. The response of Salesian missionaries to the violated rights of children is to offer a complete and quality education, so that minors become agents of transformation and change, free people with critical capacity, so that they can become the generation that can put an end to inequalities and injustices, building a better, more just, more attentive and sustainable world.
However, even today, one in ten children in the world is involved in child labour. In total, more than 160 million children in the world work, and are deprived of the opportunity to go to school. "Many children try to combine school and work to help their poor families, without being aware that their rights are being violated," explains a Salesian social worker in Peru.
Edwin, Cristóbal, Moisés, Achilles, Kioranny and Abril are six teenagers living in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic). They live in very poor and dangerous neighbourhoods, work as shoe-shiners, sell fruit, clean houses, cars... "From an early age they were taught that working was not a bad thing, because it formed character, helped the family economy, made them responsible and drove away the possibility of them becoming thieves" explains Karen Montás, Director of the Canillitas program with Don Bosco. "Our task is to attract them first with leisure activities and sports, and then take time away from work to offer it to school."
To raise public awareness of the scourge of child labour and the need to offer quality education to children, Misiones Salesianas has therefore launched the "Dream without chains" campaign, so that there are no limitations on children's dream of going to school. One of the tools of this campaign will be the documentary "Canillitas", which will debut on 21 September. The documentary addresses the daily problems and dreams of the child workers who are the protagonists. Filmed in the Dominican Republic and directed by Raúl de la Fuente (three Goya Awards), the documentary will also travel to five European cities and 12 Spanish cities with three of its protagonists who will offer their testimony on how, thanks to education, it is possible to eradicate child labour.
Source: Misiones Salesianas
