The right of all children to receive a free and quality education is contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child approved by the United Nations Assembly. However, according to UNICEF data, 61 million children in the Primary stage and 60 million in the Secondary stage cannot go to school.
Poverty, labor exploitation, social discrimination, natural disasters or distance interfere with the schooling of millions of children around the world, complicating easy access to education and sometimes even preventing it. But despite the difficulties, attending school is the dream of many children who, with their stories, they offer us great lessons of overcoming, struggle and commitment every day.
The stories we share below have moved us by the involvement and courage of its small protagonists. Children who do not stop the weather, kilometers away or the particular conditions of their lives. Children who, despite everything, they fight every day to attend school to carve a better future.
Taking care of his brother in class
In these days the story of Justin, a seven-year-old boy from the Philippines who goes to school with his one-year-old brother, which should be taken care of.
In their country, there are many children who cannot go to school because they have to stay at home taking care of their little siblings while their parents work. But Justin doesn't want to go through the same thing.
He wants to go to class and learn, and since his grandmother must work on a farm and there is no one who can take care of his little brother, Justin decides to take him with him and take notes while holding him on his knees.
Neither ice nor snow slow him down
Another story that has gone viral in recent weeks is that of Wang Fuman, a boy who lives in a rural area of China and who must travel daily 4.5 kilometers at nine degrees below zero.
The eight-year-old boy arrives every day with the skin of the cheeks cut by the cold, the cracked and frozen hands, and a layer of ice on his head. In spite of everything, and the crudeness of the photographs taken by his teacher, the boy never misses school.
A long way on foot, by bus and by train
Karina lives in a small town in Russia and today finally, with 14 years of age, she knows what it is like to go to school comfortably and quickly, thanks to a train that picks her up in her small town and leaves her at her school.
But this usual gesture for many children has taken ten years to reach the small town where Karina resides, since she was four years old He has spent more than three hours a day going to school.
Her grandmother accompanied her on this journey in which other neighboring children of the town were joining. First they had to walk more than a kilometer a day, then take a bus and then a long-distance train that left them at school. Day after day, round trip, for more than a decade.
Luckily, now Karina and other neighboring children will not encounter so many difficulties to exercise their right to learn.
Climbing dangerous mountains
A few years ago we learned the shocking story of a group of children and their parents from a small mountain village located in the Chinese province of Sichuan, which They must walk 4km daily to get to school.
But unfortunately they cannot do it on a properly paved road and without danger, and daily, carrying their backpacks and without losing their smile, they travel along dangerous and steep paths, climb mountains and save uneven terrain with rudimentary stairs made of rattan.
Four hours of walking in the sun or rain
A group of children from Hornaditas, a small Argentine village, have a very difficult time attending school every morning. Daily they must walk 8 km along a dirt path where the dust of the road, the scorching sun or the cold and the luvia are his travel companions.
When their parents see them move away, their heart becomes a knot and for more than a year they have been demanding from the local government that the school build a shelter where children can stay from Monday to Thursday, to avoid their daily return path and all the dangers that entails.
Swimming across a river
And for ten years, in the Argentine province of Misiones, children have had serious difficulties getting to school, because their children 2km of daily walk also added having to swim across a river.
In the rainy season, the flow grew and only older children dared to pass it through the difficulties and dangers that it entailed. In addition, they arrived at school muddy and the little ones had to change their clothes and wash themselves before starting their classes.
Luckily, just over a year ago, the authorities decided to build a bridge that the little ones received with great joy because now their way to school is more bearable.
- In Babies and More Children's Rights, Children, Education
