Global Citizen

We have a population of roughly 7 billion plus, but we only have 1 earth that we all have to share.  Unfortunately, not everybody cares or is in a position to help preserve and better our earth. The small population that do care, and are involved in the world’s problems are called global citizens. These people strive for a green sustainable earth. This means that everything that we do while we inhabit this planet is in a cycle that always replenishes the resources that we are using. An example of this would just be with cars. Majority of the cars that we drive run on fossil fuels (gasoline) these cars emit carbon dioxide into our atmosphere which literally eats through it and makes it thinner. Instead of these traditional cars we all should be driving electric cars because of how much better they are for the environment.  We can get our energy to run these cars from sustainable things such as solar power, wind power, or hydroelectricity whereas gas just gets burnt up. Even doing small things like buying fair trade products helps out. This even connects with child labour in Brazil. A lot of places in the world get their sugar from Brazil but the factory and farms that make and grow the sugar may be using child labour. So if you just took the time to buy sugar with a fair trade seal on it you would be helping kids from all the way across the world. Global citizens are really important in our world and we defiantly need more of them.      

     

Non Government Organization

The Abrinq Foundation: 

         
           There are millions of NGOs (Non-government organizations) that are focused on child labour all over the world, The Abrinq Foundation is one of the few that focus majority of their time and money in Brazil. The Abrinq Foundation was founded in 1990, their mission has always been "to promote the protection of the rights and citizenship of children.".

            Abrinq focuses on the industrial side of things in Brazil.  In 2005 they took the idea of Fair Trade and used it on the manufacturers of sugar, steel, shoes etc. in Brazil. They would go into different factories for an inspection and see the whole process of how things were being made and depending on the result, they would allow the company to put the Abrinq seal on their products; which told the citizens that no child labour was used in the making of the product. The Abrinq Foundation didn't stop there they strongly encouraged the companies that they worked with to do a check on all of their suppliers so that the whole chain that the product was going through to be made had no child labour involved.

             In 2010 they partnered up with Save The Children and ever since then they have shifted away from the industrial problems and started to focus more on three specific things health, protection, and education. They state that even though there is a lot of work still to be done they feel like they are making progress on the issue. You can read more about the Abrinq Foundation and donate to help with the cause on their site http://fundabrinq.org.br/index.php


 

Mission Statment, Topic Explantion & History

My childhood so far has been pretty "normal", or what most people consider "normal". I go to a normal school, live with my normal parents, and always have food to eat. Some say this is just what everybody has and that it is pretty normal. The truth of the fact is, millions of kids all over the world get raised not even knowing their parents and having to work long hours, that pay little to no money. Majority of these children have unsafe jobs where they get verbally harassed by their bosses or even physically and sexually assaulted. We have to stop ignoring this issue and take action so that one day every child in the world can grow up in a safe and loving environment.

My blog is going to be focusing on child labour in Brazil. I’m making this blog to raise awareness of child labour in general and in Brazil. I am hoping that I can make a change for the better in this world no matter how small. Child labour is when children are forced to work crazy hours in unsafe environments for either no pay or very little pay. I’m going to be covering many subtopics such as the history, the meaning of being a global citizen, people and things making the issue worse, the people involved, and many more. There are many misconceptions of what child labour is and to be honest we will never know the full extent of the horrors that these kids go through each and every day. Some people think it’s just kids having to sweep things or clean the dishes but in reality these kids are getting taken away from their parent to do jobs meant for adults and are even at the risk of getting sexually harassed. These kids get deprived of their educations and childhood and a lot of the time they might even lose their lives…

 Child labour in Brazil goes back all the way to the 1600's, the oldest reported child labour was when the people of Brazil were sailing towards the land of Santa Cruz. Back then, 9 years old was the age for when boys were allowed to work and 15 was the age for females to get married. About 22% of the people who were working on that ship were anywhere between 9-15 years old. Jumping a little bit in time into the 1800's, the Paraguay war was going on and the navy was recruiting children as young as age 9, training them to fight and use weapons. They would end up shipping these kids to war. It is estimated that during that period of time there was at least 1470 minors enlisted in the navy. At around the same time as this was going on, Brazil had slavery. The children of the slaves would usually either be sold to a different owner away from their parents or made to do jobs that were above their physical ability. A hundred years later Brazil became industrialized and like a lot of other countries, greedy factory owners would find any way to save themselves money. In this case minors were not protected by law which meant that they could pay them really low wages and get away with it. So that's exactly what they did and that brings us to the present.