Spreading Awareness About Children's Rights is a MUST

As we all celebrate the National Children’s Month amidst this deadly pandemic, I am glad that most of us are lending their time on spreading awareness about children’s rights considering most of us are pre-occupied on matters that are far more essential on our part. When the world started to fall under this health crisis, all of us were extremely affected, including children like me. How did the pandemic affected the children when all they do was to stay at home, you may ask? Perhaps, let this composition enlighten you about this topic.

On the second week of March last year, schools were shut down in the Philippines. At first, almost all students celebrated, thinking they will have weeks of vacation that will lend them more time to play and sleep. However, the realization started to kick in when classes still did not resume after several months. That is when they knew how bad the situation our country was in. Most children started to get anxious on what will happen when this goes on for years. They started contemplating about what will happen with their education, will they still have the chance to learn? And then, the Department of Education announced the implementation of online classes. This announcement gave hope to some, but gave more anxiety to others. The privileged students celebrated that they will finally have the chance to learn and study again, however, the children who has no means to afford this “new normal” continued to feel anxious on what will happen to them.

Due to the poor governance our country had during the pandemic, the poverty rate skyrocketed causing more children to suffer. With the implementation of online classes, only the privileged were able to enjoy and truly learn something from this mode of learning. Most students only passed their requirements for the sake of compliance, and did not actually learn something from their modalities. That is how ineffective online learning is. Moreover, children that belongs to poor families have no choice but to help their parents earn money to continue surviving. They are forced to prioritize working than learning to afford their daily expenses. And that is truly unfortunate.

“No student shall be left behind”, protested by multiple individuals in our country. I definitely agree. During this National Children’s Month, I hope a lot us finally became aware on how online learning did not give any justice to all of the children in our country. We must start to acknowledge the hardship and suffering the unprivileged children have been going through during this pandemic. We can help protect them by spreading awareness about children’s rights to our fellowmen. In that way, we can unite and find more ways to help those children who are in need, especially during this pandemic.

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About Cagayan De Oro, (n.d.), "RCWC Leads Off Celebration Of 24th National Children’s Month At Kiosko Kagawasan, CDO" Retrieved November 24, 2021 https://aboutcagayandeoro.com/rcwc-national-children-s-month-cdo/