Understanding How the Other Half Lives

– By Janice Llanes Fabry –

Rye Neck Middle School presented their second annual Human Rights Day for fifth and sixth graders June 4. As this year's guest speaker, Youth Action International Director Kimmie Weeks discussed ways young people can alleviate the suffering of children living in war or poverty. Focusing on “the state of the world's children,” the entire day's activities were meant to create awareness.

“The key here,” said the district's Enrichment Coordinator Valerie Feit, “is looking at the world through a child's eyes. Our kids are realizing that children in other parts of the world are just like us.'”

Middle School teachers Joyce Pezzola and Fran Bonitatibus, along with their fifth and sixth grade teams, prepared their students by addressing global issues and viewing videos about children struggling to survive, “It Takes A Child” and “Jambo Kenya.” Bonitatibus explained to her kids, “Sometimes we need a wake-up call to know there's a world outside of the world we live in. Empathy is key.”

For Human Rights Day, the sixth graders created a mock village to understand how not having clean water impacts communities worldwide. Having learned that children in other parts of the world spend 40 billion hours per year carrying water, each student carried two gallons of water and walked a half-mile to begin to feel what it's like.

“What we have to do is only one third of what the kids in Africa do every day,” observed sixth grader Ryan Baal. “There are so many kids our age there who don't know how unfortunate they are, yet kids here get upset about the small things,” added Matthew Sickles.

In another hands-on activity, fifth graders experienced the contrast between first and third world countries. While a couple of students in each classroom were presented with sandwiches and beverages for lunch, the rest of their classmates were given one saltine cracker and a cup of water.

“Projects like these bridge the gap between those children and us,” said Rebecca Rubin, a ninth grader who helped out with Human Rights Day. She and classmate Ella Cohen started a Rye Neck “Free the Children” chapter last year. Along with high school psychologist Jessie Wallace, they created an informational Power Point on education as a means to eradicate poverty in order to prepare their middle school counterparts for Human Rights Day.

“Human Rights Day is not just about getting facts,” said Cohen. “It's an eye opener because it puts kids in the situation.”

Sixth grader Julia Rubin added, “Human Rights Day makes me feel really lucky. Kids in Africa have so many disadvantages.” Another sixth grader, Claudia Masegosa, who used to live in South Africa, remembers seeing people who had nothing at all. “If you give them just a small contribution, they are so happy,” she said. “They're still the same as us emotionally.”