Day of the African Child

The Day of the African Child… here is the history from the UNICEF website:

The Day of the African Child is celebrated on June 16 in recognition of the day when, in 1976, thousands of black school children in Soweto, South Africa, took to the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.

It’s truly a solemn day in many ways, but most countries use it to highlight some children’s issue each year and then to celebrate the future. HOPE decided to have their celebration on Saturday rather than the 16th so children would be out of school and able to participate. Weeks of planning predated the celebration… 1,000 children from all the HOPE Kids Clubs in Dandora were expected! The Day was held at the Ronald Ngara school yard – a huge field … mostly dirt & dust, a few small areas of grass, and no shade… but plenty of space for all the children…. Activities were everywhere – foot races, football matches (soccer), egg races, singing, dancing, drama & poetry. A thousand dusty children, most in school uniforms… curiously, many wearing sweaters despite the heat & scorching sun. I watched many of the “performances” – songs were fabulous… some were native songs and included sounds (squeals, clicks and cries) that I know my vocal cords couldn’t begin to make!… the poetry and drama was also very well done – so expressive (I think that the soft, Kenyan voices and personalities seem to come alive at such times!)… but the topics were painful (AIDS, orphanhood, abuse and exploitation).

A few issues made for some challenges for the day – the PA system did not work… so communication across the masses was difficult. In another one of those odd juxtapositions of life in Kenya, a man pulling a wooden cart arrived and loaded up all the non-functioning PA equipment (big speakers, microphones, etc) onto the wooden cart and walked away, pulling his load…No Rent-a-Center trucks here!

The bigger issue was food… an Indian company from downtown Nairobi had agreed to donate rice, bread and drinks for the 1,000 children – for lunch. They called late morning to say they had no way to transport the food to Dandora, so wouldn’t be bringing it. Makena and Velma moved quickly to Plan B… and scoured all the little kiosks in Dandora until they had purchased 1,000 small bags of milk and an equal number of biscuits, rolls, and “cakes”. This, for the children, seemed to be the most exciting part of the day. Minor confusion initially (since there was no PA system to communicate the plan), but relatively quickly the Kids Clubs were all seated by groups (the green gingham uniforms here, the blue & white over there, the pink and gray along the fence…) and the then the patrons of each group picked up the milk and bread for their respective groups. The final issue arose when it became clear that there were a number of extra children (like hundreds), not in Kids Clubs, who had come for the celebrations and also needed to be fed. The milk supply appeared to be exhausted (at least within reasonable walking distance)… so the other children got sodas and slices of bread from regular loaves. The scope of this day can only be communicated with pictures – of which I took many!! I think the most poignant picture I’ll keep mentally is the one with a mass of children from one Kids Club sitting on the ground, happily eating their bread & drinking milk from the bags… adjacent to the non-club kids, also sitting on the ground, patiently watching others eat & wondering if they were going to get anything, since they were not part of the “invited” – I was so glad that HOPE’s heart was big enough to accommodate all the children.