Every child’s hands must hold not the burden of work, but the key to education and dreams.

Yet in this
world where the boundary between resilience and exploitation starts to blur, how can we intervene?

Exposing children to labor at a young age is not a manifestation of resiliency. Manipulating them that
hardwork is the key to liberate them from poverty is nothing but a blatant form of exploitation. My
advocacy revolves around street children and their right towards education because I believe that if we
can’t show compassion to these innocent human beings then we are not capable of showing
compassion to anyone at all. If your heart doesn’t ache when you see children begging for coins so that
they won’t starve to death then you need to open your eyes further and see that these children
deserves as every right as we are receiving today. Poverty only ends when children are stopped being
forced to work at a young age. Poverty only ends when children are given the right to proper education
and equal opportunities.

Hence, Kalyeskwela, a program intended to entice children dwelling or selling in the streets with
colourful learning materials. It consists of story books and mobile blackboards intended to teach
children how to read, and pens and notebooks to teach them how to write and draw.

My vision involves the whole Louisian community, not just the SABH dept. Through the SEAS
department, we could find students majoring in primary education to help us create creative strategies
to capture the attention of these street children and find effective ways to integrate basic education
such as reading and writing. In this way, we could make sure that these children are really learning
something. Through the SEAITE department, they could help create the mobile classroom just like what
Efren Pena florida did. This mobile classroom must be appealing to the eyes of the children and it must
possess all the learning materials cramped efficiently yet creatively in a limited mobile space. The SHAS
department could help us teach the children about basic health information such as hygiene since these
children are susceptible to health hazards. The SABH department could be in charge in the budgeting
and finance area since we’ll need funds in order to make this project feasible. With the guidance of the
CECA coordinators, we shall go hand in hand to create a better future for these children.

We must do everything in our power to help them rid off the burden of exploitation, because the only
weight the children are justified to carry is the weight of their backpacks and their dreams.

I am Meeka Calimag, an advocate for equal and accessible education, standing against child labor, and
working further to help create a better future. Thank you