Voor het congres in Lagos (Nigeria) op 3 november heb ik volgende tekst samengesteld: die zal gepresenteerd worden door Ola, onze teamleider in Nigeria ! Veel succes met de vertaling !!!

PROJECT:: Message for a Better World

 Dear friends, let me start by reading our message for a better world first:

"Our goal is to build a better and safer world where all children receive a good education and are able to develop their talents to the full so that now and later as adults they can help each other in a spirit of solidarity, trust and mutual respect."

The idea was born in Belgium, in the years 1995 - 1996, when several missing children were found dead. While looking for the missing children Julie  and Melissa we immediately realized that the news should be spread in several languages.  We also  asked the Belgian children to make drawings, poems, pictures, to express their feelings about the missing children and the search to find them . More than 5000 drawings, poems, were sent to us and weorganised expositions . Very sadly,the children were found dead, and suddenly the Belgian children sent us other drawings, expressing anger, fear, sadness, hate.

It really broke our hearts since while looking at those dark pictures, we realized that those are not feelings for children dreaming about a beautiful future.

So Frans Medaer, who is a retired teacher,  wrote a message of hope for all children in the whole world.  Since all people (I mean children, adults, etc) from all nationalities should be able to read and understand his message in their own language, it needed to be translated in as many languages as possible.

At this moment our message is already available in 865 different languages and we are looking for evenmore translations.

The message can be divided in 4 chapters:

 -        Our goal is to build a better and safer world : to build means that children, andadults have to work together; better and safer: if you don‘t live in a safe region, you can‘t go to school, you have no chances to develop yourself. And safe has a lot of meanings !!!

-        Where all children receive a good education and are able to develop their talents to the full : all children, wherever in the world, in all countries . This is the individual part from the message: every child has talents and every child has the right to develop these talents. Adults, organisations, politicians, have to create the opportunities for every child to develop their (or his/her)  talents to the full.

-        So that now and later as adults they can help each other : this is the social dimension from the message. As a child and as an adult you should put your talents in the service of  others. You don’t develop your talents only for your personnal development; you should use your talents to help other people. When we count all these talents and if we help each other, the world would be an ideal place to be!

-         

-        In a spirit of solidarity, trust and mutual respect: we have to work together (solidarity), people from all over the world; we have to trust each other: this is difficult but in asking for translations from the message and in asking for spreading the message we met (through the internet and writing) so many youth and adults: we are working together in this spirit without having met each other in real life: so it’s possible! And at least: in a spirit of mutual respect. Respect is a fundamental base from society.

In December 1998 Frans Medaer wrote the message in 5 languages (Dutch, French, English, German, Latin): this was the start !!! We want peace not war, through good education, children will be able to discover and develop their talents.

We need your help to make this dream come through!