TE X T & PHOTOS: BRIT T-MARIE KL ANG
Shankolla is a presiding officer, but of course she is allowed to vote too.
Global Vote at desert school that It’s the end of March 2011. The students at Ragho Mengwar School in the Thar Desert in Pakistan have been looking forward to their Global Vote Day for weeks. They celebrate the day with a party where they eat rice and then dance and play games. Before the children go home they all get tea and biscuits. In September, the rain is pouring in the desert. Many children become homeless when their families’ mud houses collapse. The rain keeps on falling, and the desert floods. When their school collapses, the children are devastated. Their families now have to borrow money to survive, and the children risk becoming debt slaves.
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Voting queue
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he atmosphere is full of expectation. Some girls paint the final brushstrokes on the ballot box, made from a big empty can. Students flick through copies of The Globe, discussing it in small groups. Everyone is wearing their finest clothes, with their hair combed. Some former students, who have quit school, come to visit. They have been kept informed over the last couple of weeks and they know they’re allowed to join in and vote as long as they have found out about the candidates. The gathering begins with the students jointly telling
the stories of this year’s candidates and why they have been nominated. The prize candidates are heroes and the children have spent the last few weeks discussing their work. Wants to be a hero
“I dream about becoming a hero too,” says Anil. “I want to fight for everyone in our area to be able to go to school. If their parents don’t let them, we should at least try to teach them to read, write and count. I feel so sad when I think about children who don’t go to school. We have children who work in carpet factories in our village and
the next village. That’s so wrong.” “The Globe is so exciting. It teaches us about children who have big problems, but also about the many people who fight for children’s rights. We learn so much from The Globe. Now we know how they deal with problems in Bangladesh. We have heard that the same problems exist in Pakistan and if those things happen here we’ll have to fight too. We can vote for whatever we want, that’s our right,” says Anita in Year 7. “It’s a special day when we get to vote. We learn about heroes who work for others. We’re going to do that too. I like everything in The Globe.
Anita