Henry Meyers, Green Acres School 8th grader -- remarks at KIDS JUST LIKE YOU film premiere at Edmund Burke School, May 23, 2006
After returning from Zambia to the United States when I was 9, I found it very difficult to explain how hard life is for many of the kids there and, at the same time, to help my friends and classmates understand how friendly, kind, and normal children who have nothing – no parents or shelter, no certain support when they are sick or hungry – can be. I love the idea of giving libraries to these children. I love it for a few reasons. First, since libraries are something that everyone here in the U.S. is familiar with – in fact, we take them for granted – it is easy to imagine a kid sitting in a warm, comfortable room, reading a book. The image builds a bridge between the street kids in Africa and all of us here. It is an image that helps us to understand that we are, in some basic sense, the same. Second, the libraries will give these kids the opportunity to read, or improve their reading enough to earn a spot in a secondary school, and break the chain that binds them to the street, poverty, and a short, hard, life. Third, and last, it gives me a way to contribute to making the world a better place – and allows me to understand how my actions are directly helping others.
