I, again, am honoured to be posting about the youth in my community. Many times throughout the year I see these students in action, promoting positive change within their school communities all the way to being part of global movements.

For this post I needed some help from the free the children website to get background information on this particular day.

In 1989, the world was introduced to a forum to give a voice to children around the world, called The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This November marks the twenty-first anniversary of the CRC. But even after twenty one years, we must ask ourselves, are the rights of children around the world being upheld? Are their voices being heard?

Today, over one billion children live in poverty; many of whom struggle to overcome hunger, child labour, discrimination and lack of education. Their rights are not being upheld. Their voices are not being heard.

The Vow of Silence is Free The Children’s annual fundraising and awareness-raising campaign that engages tens of thousands of participants to stand up for children whose rights are not being upheld.

From Toronto to Mexico City, London to San Francisco, Beijing to Jakarta, Vancouver to Sydney and back, on November 19th 2010, young people will go silent for 24 hours in solidarity with children who are being silenced by poverty and exploitation. For Vow participants, being silent can mean refraining from speaking. It can also mean not using e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or text messaging. It can even mean not using hand gestures, note writing or any communication at all.  You can determine your level of silence based on what you’re comfortable with. (free the children, iamsilent.com)

For more information visit iamsilent.com

One of my good friends from Howick called me up and asked me to come out for the afternoon and do some fun photos for them! I couldn’t turn her down. I had a great afternoon, and give these students so much credit for making the vow.  In the future I would love to take part myself this year it was not doable, but I believe in the cause. Although it was a little weird to be the only one talking it allowed me to explain what we were doing and how things were going to go!

Below are a few of the photos I did. Many students had their own ideas for poses but I needed to give them a few, which became challenging as there about 50 students between the two classes… Each student at Howick got to edit their own photo so I am excited to see what they come up with!

I would like to thank my good friend Mr. Hammer, and his teacher partner Mrs.Hutchison for letting me come in and work with your students. They really showed the true meaning behind “Be the Change You Want To See In The World”

Enjoy!

-N