Walking for Working Kids
Yes, school can be a drag sometime. But what if you had to work for a living – just like your parents? What if you had to get up early in the morning, go do a job for eight hours (or more) and then come home to do chores?
That’s life for millions of kids around the world these days.
And some kids in Illinois want that to change. They’re students at McCracken Middle School in Skokie, Ill.
And they say all kids deserve a chance at a better life. And they’re not just talking the talk. They’re walking the walk.
Last month, approximately 250 McCracken students held a walkathon to call attention to the issue of child labor – kids forced to work.
According to the Pioneer Press newspaper, the kids call themselves A.C.T. – Aiding Children Together.
“We think that children should have the right to a good education, so that when they mature, they will be able to have a good life,” they said in a letter to the Pioneer Press.
The kids in A.C.T. are doing more than just walking. They’re also doing research.
According to Pioneer Press reporter Mike Isaacs, the McCracken kids found that more than 200 million other kids around the world are currently working for a living – including 158 million between the ages of five and 14.
That’s right – kids as young as five are forced to work to help their families make ends meet. Some are even loaned out as virtual slaves to other families.
“Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides on a farm or working with dangerous machinery,” McCracken student Luc Walkington said.
“I would hate it if I were being forced to work like that at my age,” fellow McCracken student Silvia Burian said in an interview with the Pioneer Press.
Silvia also pointed out that there are now more than 300,000 kids around the world who’ve been forced into the military – child soldiers.
“These children are often brainwashed and forced to fight,” she said. “They are forced to beat their own friends who try to escape.”
The kids in A.C.T. are doing more than just walking and talking. They’ve reportedly written President Obama, to express their concerns to him directly.
McCracken student Sophie Steger pointed out that the United States is one of only two countries in the entire world that has not signed onto the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child document. The other country is Somalia – a country torn apart by terrorism and civil war.
“We hope that one day the United States will sign the Convention as all children should have … basic rights,” Sophie said, according to the Pioneer Press.
McCracken seventh grader Danilo Ranger reportedly came up with the idea for the walkathon. According to the Pioneer Press, he also designed special t-shirts for it.
“I just thought it would be a good idea,” he told Isaacs, “because we were looking for a way to help.”
“We are planning to solve these problems by doing events like the walkathon,” the McCracken kids said, in their letter to the Pioneer Press. “This event (might) even help stop the use of child soldiers and child labor once and for all.”
