When I was in Sydney recently I had the great pleasure of visiting Bondi Beach Public School and speaking to the children there about Nepal and the work of the Foundation. I was honestly blown away by the response I had from the kids there as I was inundated with questions of a very high calibre from kids of all ages from year 2 right up to year 6. What really impressed me was that these kids had clearly done some research on Nepal and they had their own ideas and opinions and more than that, they really wanted answers to things that came out of this research.
One boy in year 3 asked a question that has been playing on my mind ever since. He asked, "do the kids in Nepal have skateboards?" to which I replied, "a few very lucky ones do but generally no, they don't". He immediately responded, "why not? I think all kids should be able to have skateboards if they want them". Well, I can't argue with that!
This questioning and this view of the world really struck me. I mean, this boy has a point. For kids everything can be so black and white. I attempted to give some basic explanation of the way some countries in the world are poorer than others and that in some countries people can only afford basic survival items such as food, shelter etc but this somehow seemed inadequate. To this boy that explanation meant nothing. If only we could all keep this level of innocence and pragmatism as the responsibilities and pressures of adulthood gradually consume our lives. Imagine how different the world could be. The fact is it is not fair that so many in the world have to fight so hard for things that many of us take for granted. And children like this boy are right to question this. I hope kids continue to challenge the status quo in situations like this because it is the only way that things will really begin to change.
I really hope that as kids question the world in this way they will also learn to appreciate their own lives more. There is so much being put forward in the media and contemporary literature, music etc about finding happiness and step one has to be realising that we should be grateful for what we have. The fact is if you are reading this blog, chances are you are already "better off" than probably two thirds of this world, and that would be a conservative estimate. It is a beautiful thing when you see kids realise how lucky they are - we can learn a lot from them.
So thanks to the amazing kids at Bondi Beach Public School, I really learned a lot from my visit!
