by Harold Vance
26,000 children under the age of 5 died yesterday. 26,000 more are dying today. And over 26,000 more will die tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. These are mostly children who are dying of something as easily preventable as diarrhea, pneumonia, or vitamin A deficiency; things that could be prevented by pennies for each human life.
I just returned from a weekend in Washington DC, where I attended a conference on working for global justice and child survival, hosted collaboratively by Student Coalition for Child Survival and Student Global AIDS Campaign members from across the country. These statistics and many others are startling. Saturday and Sunday were filled with informative sessions on child survival, AIDS, and fair trade. We spent much of the day on Monday, March 31 lobbying representatives in Congress to sign on as co-sponsors and support the U.S. Commitment to Global Child Survival Act of 2007.
Some of us also toured the Holocaust Museum. Though I know that what the museum represents is a very different situation from the current travesty of impoverished children dying across the globe—mainly in that the Holocaust showed absolute intentional evil in the hearts of men and that the issue of child survival is more relatively unknown and unrecognized by people, and is not, for the most part, intentionally a means of genocide. Yet there are a number of similarities in the basic situations; one key similarity being that we people with the ability to do so are taking far too long to respond to such a horrible situation as these thousands upon thousands of children under the age of five dying every day, just as it took bystanders far too long to take action during the Holocaust.
Please, I urge you to take an action for the benefit of our fellow brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, across the globe. Educate yourself on this situation, and on this bill (to obtain information on both of these topics and to view an updated list of what representatives and senators have already signed on as co-sponsors, please visit http://www.child-survival.org/PublicPolicy/gcsa.cfm). Be a voice for those who have no voice. Call your Senator and/or Congressperson and urge them to sign onto this important bill, or thank them if they are already supporting the bill. Do this because it’s something that’s in your heart, not just because I asked you to.
Be the voice that needs to be heard.
In Great Love,
Harold.
