Empower them to succeed don’t stereotype them to fail

Dear friends

We need to empower the young people to succeed. This week I spoke with people about our blog and how we are working on helping children. As I spoke to them I asked them a question what comes to mind when you think of children in 3rd world countries.

Words such as malnutrition, child labor, sex slaves, poverty, were the words that people used to describe what came to the mind of those I spoke with.

I then went on to ask them what they thought was going to become of these kids when they grew up.

The answers were an eye opener for me and the people around me. They came up with professions like day labors, prostitution, drug and alcohol addict and gang bangers were the one that stood out.

We tend to stereotype people. I remember a college of mine and I were talking about politics in the Indian sub continent. He made a statement that makes me feel sick in my stomach. He said “if any think happened to the Indian sub continent where would we in America get our sports ball and mitts made.”

This kind of a statement makes me sick.

The founding fathers thought differently. In the Declaration of independence it states

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ( Declaration of independence)

By this statement I understzand that every one is created equal. There is no difference between a child born on the greatest nation on gods green earth and a child orphaned when they lost one or both parents to AIDS,

We should also not doom a child’s future in a country stricken by poverty just because of his surroundings.

We should empower them to succeed them not stereotype them as a failure based on some thing that is not in their control.

As an adult I am stereotyped but I can overcome it. To a child we are just programming him to have low self esteem in the future and programming to fail.