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ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
Sat May 24, 2014, 12:29 PM May 2014

Neil Gaiman's Journal: Why I am Smiling In This Picture



One of the reasons I'm smiling so widely in this picture is I'd just been talking to the people in Azraq camp who run the child friendly space it was taken in. They were mostly from UNICEF.

They had explained that when the kids arrived in the camp, only the previous week, they didn't talk or make noise. They were subdued. When they drew pictures, the pictures were of explosions, of severed body parts, of weapons and dead people.

The camp had only been open two weeks. The kids I saw and spoke to were kids – noisy, happy, curious, hilarious, and they showed us their drawings, of butterflies and children and mountains and animals and hearts.

That's what I'm smiling about. That room full of noisy kids was the best place in the world.

I spoke to some of these children, who told me about their lives in Syria during the troubles, about their escape (“there were rocks in the desert, and we had to turn on the headlights to see, but when they turned on the headlights of the car people would shoot at us, and my parents were frightened, but I wasn't...”). For some of them it had been three years since they last went to school.


http://journal.neilgaiman.com
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Neil Gaiman's Journal: Why I am Smiling In This Picture (Original Post) ismnotwasm May 2014 OP
I really enjoy his books, and no surprise he is a humanitarian also lostincalifornia May 2014 #1
pssst.... Stryst May 2014 #2
K&R McCamy Taylor May 2014 #3
Thank you. nt littlemissmartypants May 2014 #4

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)
3. K&R
Sat May 24, 2014, 02:55 PM
May 2014

This piece has me thinking... why is it so easy to come together in support of the children who are victims of war abroad and so difficult to come together in support of the children who are victims of cultural and economic war at home? When you deny Mom or Dad a living wage or health care that they need in order to work to feed their kids, you are killing the kids, too But, in the latter case, the kids are invisible. This is true on both sides of the Atlantic. Sure, we give health insurance to the kids and school lunches and have social workers for the kids---but what about the family? You can not take the kids out of the family and expect the kids to do well.

Can we save the children at home, too?

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