Well, I involved and took my 7 year old to visit our local member of parliament today. Before we went I talked with him about how many children in developing countries get sick and die unnecessarily from easily preventable diseases such as pneumonia (which he had twice as a baby and due to great medical care quickly recovered), malaria, and diarrhoea. We talked about how children who don't have enough to eat are more susceptible to disease and illness. We also talked about how many illnesses are easily prevented by providing access to clean water and immunisations. Our conversation included talking about how mothers are key players to healthy kids and that by keeping mothers healthy and by educating them everyone was healthier. Sam generally has his own comments and observations to make as we talked about these things, as he linked the things in our conversation with things we had already talked about and things he'd learnt doing Kids 4 Kids programs with me.
We went with a couple of people from our community. We wanted to be part of the Micah Challenge voice to let our government know that we want to see global poverty halved by 2015 and especially see more movement by our government by contributing to aid projects targeted specifically on MDGs 4 and 5. Sam understands about sharing, and I wanted him to understand that we are asking the Australian Government to share from our bounty. Sam was in our midst during our discussions around what we would say. He made a card with a "5" on it and helped with the colourful cupcakes I made to highlight the issue of wanting all children to reach their fifth birthday. He might have played with his cars during our discussion time with Martin Ferguson but he was there. Who knows how this kind of action will shape his ideas about the world and the outworkings of his faith. Who knows. I'm glad he was there.
We went with a couple of people from our community. We wanted to be part of the Micah Challenge voice to let our government know that we want to see global poverty halved by 2015 and especially see more movement by our government by contributing to aid projects targeted specifically on MDGs 4 and 5. Sam understands about sharing, and I wanted him to understand that we are asking the Australian Government to share from our bounty. Sam was in our midst during our discussions around what we would say. He made a card with a "5" on it and helped with the colourful cupcakes I made to highlight the issue of wanting all children to reach their fifth birthday. He might have played with his cars during our discussion time with Martin Ferguson but he was there. Who knows how this kind of action will shape his ideas about the world and the outworkings of his faith. Who knows. I'm glad he was there.
I liked Sam being there too. Plus I think even Marttin liked having him there. Thanks again for organising that Kate, it meant a alot to me.
ReplyDeleteHi Kate, Great to hear you are letting your kids experience so much of the world. In Australia we really don't know how lucky we are. I calculated once that if the whole world was on an equal income footing we would each have $7000 US each per man, woman and child per year. That would make us an average Mexican or Lithuanian. We probably wouldn't have a car, or a very poor one, our health care would be very basic, there would be little travel and few luxuries for those of us that have so much. Yet it really puts it into perspective of how far up the poorest people in the world have to come to catch up. Blessings Kylie.
ReplyDeleteI've really noticed how lucky we are, staying in Boston for a conference. We complain about hospital waiting lists, and the level of welfare, and so on, but seeing the number of people who live in poverty here really makes me appreciate just how good our social services are. And that's not even comparing Australia to the poor parts of the world.
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