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These photos highlight the importance of education and peace in emergencies, and focus on the current emergency in the DRC. Thursday 20th November marks the 19th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the launch of Rewrite the Future's Nobel initiative. Education as we know is a universal right: children have the right to primary education and education should help them learn to live peacefully.
Kate Holt/ Save the Children
Recent resurgence of conflict in eastern
Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) between
the Congolese army and rebel forces led
by General Laurent Nkunda, has caused a
major new wave of population
displacement in a region that has seen
nearly constant turmoil in the past ten
years.
Up to 300,000 internally displaced
persons are flooding into existing camps
or staying with families, in churches or
schools. Approximately half of the
displaced are said to be children.
REF:
Save the Children
Children, caught in this conflict are
calling out for peace.
As international mediators continue to
seek an end to the fighting, children in
a school in Beni district of
northeastern DRC presented to us their
paper doves, showing their perceptions
of war and their hopes for peace. To
some of these children who have only
known the terrors of conflict, education
offers them an escape from the violence.
Katungu Guylaine aged 14, is a pupil in
the accelerated learning class at
primary school Kasanga Tuha, where many
displaced children attend. She was
displaced from the area of Bunia. She
lives with her parents in a community
which is traumatised by the endless war
in DRC.
That is why she has drawn a firing gun
on her dove of peace.
REF:
Kate Holt/ Save the Children
As many as 10,000 newly displaced
families may have reached Goma / Kibati
or will be reaching it in the coming
days. Up to 300,000 people have been
displaced internally.
REF:
Benedict Kurzen/ Save the Children
Known recruitment of children has taken
place in Singa in Rutshuru, and children
in Masisi have been forced to carry
weapons and ammunition.
Save the Children is caring for several
children who have escaped from armed
groups. There is a clear need for child
protection and to enable children to
continue their education.
Save the Children has been made aware of
an increasing number of cases of armed
groups recruiting children from schools.
REF:
Kate Holt/ Save the Children
Before the most recent upsurge in
violence an estimated 3,000 children
were being held by armed groups. That
number is now expected to soar.
There has been an explosion in the
number of children being recruited since
the latest violence began and the
attacks on schoolchildren are a
disturbing development," said Ishbel
Matheson, Save the Children spokesperson
in eastern DRC.
"One child told me that they are scared
to go back to school for fear of being
attacked. For these children, getting an
education is their only hope for the
future. If they can't go to school they
lose that hope."
Save the Children is calling for all
groups to end the recruitment of
children in line with January's Goma
Peace Agreement.
Save the Children has been working in
DRC since 1994 and is running one of the
world's largest programmes to
reintegrate child soldiers into their
communities. In the last year the
charity has helped 2200 children out of
armed groups and reunited most of them
with their families.
Many of these children will now be at
risk of being re-recruited into the
fighting.
REF:
Save the Children
Kavugho Kaseso, aged 13, is a pupil at
the accelerated learning programme at
Mukulya primary school in Beni.
She is an orphan and lives with her
grandparents who are only alive thanks
to the help of neighbours.
She hopes that one day the war will end
in DRC and that all children in her
country will have access to education.
The conflict in DRC has a terrible
history of targeting children. Boys are
forced to fight and girls are taken as ‘
wives' by soldiers.
REF:
Save the Children
Muimbi Muyumba, a 14 year-old boy,
attends the 6th grade at the Dilunga
Primary School.
He is the oldest of six children in the
family. His father is a farmer.
He says, "We want peace to go to school;
because of the war teachers are not paid,
traders cannot bring goods back and
forth, companies are closing. We want
peace."
REF:
Matti Bernitz
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates call for
education to build peace.
As children create messages of peace
from DRC, today over 30 Nobel Peace
Prize winners have come together in a
first-ever joint statement calling for
urgent action to implement quality
education and build peace in conflict-
affected countries.
The Nobel Laureates, including President
Jimmy Carter, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, and Aung San Suu Kyi, urge
world leaders to pay more attention to
the educational needs of more the 37
million children who live in fragile
states and are unable to go to school.
REF:
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
