NEWSBITES
FOR KIDZÔ APRIL 25 2004
Rural
India Shining: Children of a Happier God
Children
join overseas study boom :Japan, Australia
Students
pick through trash looking for recyclable items :USA
KIDS
AND ANIMALS / ENVIRONMENT
Students
get a 'bird's-eye view' - USA
Underprivileged
children to become filmmakers: India
Children
of Sept. 11 victims visit wax museum: USA
Socceroos
share skills with remote area children:Australia
News for Kidz Site Map Earlier NewsBites
Rural
APRIL 24, 2004
This is meant to highlight
the remarkable development that I have seen in the remote areas of rural
optimism for the future of
our country.
Recently, I spent several
days campaigning with my father in remote parts of Hazaribagh
constituency in Jharkhand.
This is arguably one of the
most backward and underdeveloped parts of
corner of
and I saw vast
swathes of it under construction with a good six inches concrete slab covering
the top. Much has been
written about the
construction of the Golden Quadrilateral but to experience it first hand is a
telling reminder of the time
lost in the decades
before such a construction programme was finally
undertaken. As an Indian, one asks oneself why
such a thing could not
have happened 10 or 20 years ago; the benefits would have been countless.
Secondly, in almost every
village we went, we would immediately be surrounded by a gaggle of children.
Not children
with dirty unkempt
hair, runny noses and dressed in rags. But kids that were neat and clean and in
a number of cases
wearing tidy school
uniforms and, most importantly, who had an expectant and hopeful look on their
faces. A look
which seemed to imply
that they realised that better things were in store
for them. Make no mistake about it, these
were poor kids. But
kids that you could see getting education and becoming part of
Kids who looked like they
could justify the population bulge in the age group of less than 25 years, and
who would
soon move into the
productive age group. You could see an on-the-ground exposition of the Indian
demographic that
has given rise to
Goldman Sachs’ optimistic long-term outlook for
can sustain an over 5
per cent real growth rate over the next 50 years.
The thing that surprised me
more than the road building programme was what I saw
in almost every largish village —
and that was a pucca pink building in reasonable condition with the words
‘‘Pradhan Mantri
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’’
stenciled boldly on the
wall. Such an education initiative, which appears to be functioning well at the
grassroots level, is
in some ways more
important than the hard infrastructure development going on. This abhiyan provides free primary
education to village
children. It has a local teacher who is paid a salary of Rs
1,000 a month and appears to be running
well in the villages.
This soft infrastructure development will eventually lead to today’s
children becoming employable
and productive youth
in years to come.
However, the reality
remains, and there is no getting away from it, a majority of these villages
still do not have access
to electricity,
basic clean drinking water or healthcare of any sort. More than 50 years after
our
number of our countrymen
are still living, literally, in the dark ages and while there is hope for the
future, much remains
to be done and we
have only yet embarked on the journey.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040420wob2.htm
Children
join overseas study boom :
Michiko Hirai / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
About 10 months ago, Marin
Kondo enrolled in a public primary school on the outskirts of
a new school year
started last month, the 8-year-old girl found the English used for third
graders much more difficult
than that used at the
second grade level, but she has already got used to school life and is making
more and more
friends.
Kondo came to
Japanese
primary school-age children studying in
At a school she previously
attended in
asked questions as soon
as they occurred to her. In addition, the girl had difficulty at remaining
seated at her desk to
listen to the teachers.
Her mother, Fumiko, said it was
child to study abroad
at such an early age. "We could have made Marin remain silent during
classes if we'd instructed
her to do so,"
the mother said. "However, I thought that would end in spoiling her active
and cheerful personality."
Many younger Japanese
children spend more than a year studying in
basis for several
weeks. In Kondo's case, the girl obtained a student visa, while her mother
entered the country on a
student guardian visa--a
new option in addition to an already popular one under which mothers obtain
student visas of
their own and accompany
their children to their study overseas.
There are no statistics
available on the exact number of Japanese primary school students studying in
Why are
antipodean governments have
implemented policies to encourage foreign nationals to come and study. Also,
the small
time zone difference
between
family members back home
in
But many parents say they
wound up below the equator by a process of elimination after listening to those
who have
gone before them. For
these parents, the
attacks.
Obviously, by giving primary
school-age children a chance to study in English-speaking countries, their
parents mainly
aim at helping them
become bilingual. But there are some hidden pitfalls in what seems the shortest
way to that goal.
Takato Nakanishi, for
example, went back to
year of studying at a
primary school in
primary school in
Nakanishi had adapted to
his Australian school so well his stay was extended from the initial plan of
six months.
However, his mother,
Hiroko, said she decided to have her son come back home in time for
so that he could
smoothly catch up with the nation's education system.
"My son has enjoyed
considerable improvements in his English skills," the mother said.
"Japanese today should be
brought up to become
bilingual."
The boy, however, also
shows some signs that made her a little anxious.
"Asobu no. Osoto de game suru no. Boku,
mosugu teacher to bye-bye suru
no. (I play. I play games outside. I will
soon say good-bye to
my teacher.)" This was how Nakanishi talked about his school life before
heading back to
He could not help mixing in
some English words while speaking his mother tongue.
"Because my son was
studying in
acquiring his mother-tongue
skills," the mother said. "It is probably also because I've been
speaking to him in English."
Ideally, overseas study
sets children on the road to bilingualism, but it also carries the risk of
making children
"semilingual," lacking adequate skill in either
language and unable to think about abstract matters.
Education industry booming
For
Profit, of course, is not
the only reason the two countries are willing to host a lot of foreign
students. Judith Richardson,
principal of
thanks to the presence
of many Japanese residents in the school's neighborhoods.
"Knowledge of Japanese
culture--I think it's very interesting," she said. Learning Japanese
culture can help Australian
children become more aware
of their own connections to the wider world, she added.
http://rdu.news14.com/content/headlines/?ArID=46242&SecID=2
Students pick through trash looking for
recyclable items
:
4/20/2004
By: News 14
Tuesday was Earth Day so
some students at
During the Tucker Beach
Trash Out event, students looked for recyclable and re-usable items.
Participants said it's the
least they can do to
help preserve the environment.
"The students are also
interviewing people as they're walking by and people are pretty
interested,” Recycling
Coordinator Lindsay Killian
said. “If you ask them if they want to get in and pick through it they're
kind of like ‘no, I have
to go.’"
giveaways for students and
visitors.
http://www.theindependent.com/stories/042304/new_raptors23.shtml
KIDS
AND ANIMALS /
ENVIRONMENT
Students
get a 'bird's-eye view' -
Rescued raptors visit
museum to help students learn of their importance to the environment
By Gretchen Fowler
Thursday morning, but that
doesn't mean they didn't learn.
"Your teachers are
fooling you, because you're going to get an education here just like in the
school room," Tom Tolen
said before the
students got a "bird's-eye view" of Zephyr, Grasshopper, Braveheart and Sundance.
Tolen, along with other
Raptor Recovery
on the birds of prey
common to
A ferruginous hawk named Braveheart sits calmly watching the audience during Raptor
Recovery Nebraska9s
presentation.
Independent/Barrett
Stinson
Katelyn Fitzke, 8, of Hastings (left) is transformed into a bald
eagle by Barb Tebbel Thursday morning during a
presentation by Raptor
Recovery
Hastings and Oconto were on
hand for the show.
Independent/Barrett Stinson
The kids were visibly more
excited to see Zephyr, an American kestrel falcon nicknamed "sparrow
hawk," than he was
to see them. Zephyr
flapped his wings, pierced the air with an angry squawk and kept an eye on the
students at all
times.
"He believes that he
is a person, or we are birds, one of the two," volunteer Vickie Orr said
as she tried to calm the bird
down.
Orr explained that Zephyr
was around people more than birds when he was young, meaning that he's now
"imprinted,"
or attached to
humans.
Zephyr's favorite handler,
Barb Tebbel, made an attempt to calm the bird down
and explained to the students what the
flap was all about.
"He thinks he's one of
us, and he's mad right now, and he's letting you know about it," Tebbel said.
Tebbel told the students
never to take a bird out of its nest or away from its family and, using a much
quieter bird as an
example, said injured
raptors should be turned over to Raptor Recovery
Grasshopper, a hawk that
was shot during pheasant season, flapped its right wing, revealing that the
left had been
amputated. Orr talked about
the dangers raptors face in the wild and said the birds have enough problems
without
people shooting at them,
too.
Raptor Recovery volunteers
used the rescued birds they had with them on Thursday to show the kids the
differences
in the birds' sizes.
They talked about what each bird eats, how it catches its prey and the
characteristics that make
each raptor different.
One student, 8-year-old Katelyn Fitzke of
The students were asked to
guess the bird's identity based on the information Tolen
shared -- and sitting anxiously
with their hands in
the air, waited to give the answer.
"No offense to
her," Tolen said as a pair of
glasses with bulging eyes were placed on Katelyn's
head, "but this bird's
eyes are bigger than
its brain."
It didn't take long for the
students to figure out that the bird was a bald eagle. They began firing off
questions and
continued to do so,
curiously and enthusiastically, throughout the program.
Marcy Burr, director of
education at the
at the museum. It's
something that's done each April and something the museum hopes to continue.
"It has been
well-received by the local schools," Burr said of the program. "This
in an opportunity for the children not
only to see mounted
specimens but live ones as well, and that's something that fits in with our
mission."
http://www.glamsham.com/movies/scoops/04/apr/26zonsta.asp
Underprivileged
children to become filmmakers:
By IANS
A group of underprivileged
children will come together to narrate images of a world free of poverty and
misery - thanks
to a project that
seeks to turn them into filmmakers.
Zonsta Creation and
Entertainment Production Services are scouting for children living in the
city's slums who want to
relate their tales of
pain and deprivation.
"The films made by the
kids will be screened at a children's film festival in
also get a chance to
travel to
The company has already
short-listed a few children and is scouting for more.
"Some of these had run
away from their homes due to child abuse or alcoholic fathers and have settled
on Mumbai's
streets," she said.
"We have got them
excited to work on their respective stories and make their own films," she
added.
The company is also working
on a programme titled "Mys..tery history...a journey to create One World, Our
World" in
an attempt to bring
together people on a single platform of love, bonding and peace, through
children of the World.
This series will be shot in
20 different countries, she added.
The first episode has been
shot in
of broadcasters at
the World Summit for Media for Children.
Children
of Sept. 11 victims visit wax museum:
By DEEPTI HAJELA
Associated Press Writer
April 22, 2004
But a group of children who
lost parents on Sept. 11 got to see a special part of Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum on
Tuesday, getting a glimpse
into the workshop where the figures are made.
The museum was just one of
many workplaces that opened their doors, on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work
Day,
to 180 children who are dealing with the loss of a parent because of the
attacks.
Through the efforts of the
group Tuesday's Children, a range of businesses, from the theater organization
Blue Man
Group Productions to Viacom,
played host to the youngsters. Other sites included the Daniel Libeskind Studio, The
New York Times,
and Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro's
office.
Chris Burke, who founded
Tuesday's Children after losing his brother on Sept. 11, said arranging for the
kids to have
someplace to go on this day
was a way to let them experience the same things other kids do.
"If it wasn't for
this, our kids would be sitting in class, looking at empty seats," Burke
said. "They've seen enough
emptiness in their
lives."
Some children came with
their surviving parent, or an adult friend.
Dolores Sullivan, of
Their father, Lt.
Christopher P. Sullivan, was among the firefighters killed in the attack.
"I think this is a
great program," she said as her sons dipped their hands in warm wax to
make casts. "They don't have
the opportunity to go
to work with their dad."
Nancy Yambem
brought 7-year-old Santi all the way from Beacon,
N.Y., in
Jupiter, had worked in
Windows on the World.
"This gives him a
wonderful view of what can actually be out in the world, job-wise," she
said.
Tuesday's Children: http://www.tuesdayschildren.org
Take Our Daughters and Sons
to Work: http://www.daughtersandsonstowork.org
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/s1092482.htm
Socceroos
share skills with remote area children:
Children in Boulia and Dajarra, in western
Coach Frank Farina and a
number of Socceroo players have been travelling across north-west
Mr Farina says it is
vital young people in regional areas get the same opportunities as city youth,
and he says it is also a chance to scout for talent.
"You know, the game
doesn't get out this way too often and for us to be pushing it I think it's
very important. We always talk about grassroots and growing the game, and the
regional areas are just as important as the city areas," he said.
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