Update on first White Band Day - June 16

The Day of the African Child Continental team has had several tele-conferences and has been preparing for the upcoming 1st White Band Day - Day Of African Child on June 16th.

Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, was first chosen as an excellent location to host this continental activity but with the elections and the ban on public mobilization a shift was necessary. After deliberations, the team moved the activity to Soweto, South Africa where the day originates.

Hon. Loise Bwambale, from Uganda, who is a member of the Pan African Parliament, is working with the group to make this day a success. She has agreed to be the guest speaker

On ground activities are being coordinated by Ace Khabane from Environmental Justice Network Forum([email protected] Tel: +27114038978, CIVICUS and OXFAM.

Our request goes to all the GCAP organizations based in South Africa to join hands in organizing and coordinating this event. Please let us know which organizations are down there. Being the 1st whiteband day and being a continental event, I believe it should lead in the celebrations.

It would be great to get each African country updates on activities that are being planned on the day of the African Child so that we can share with the bigger GCAP forum, and can also get other countries to know what is happening in each country. The information will also assist us in preparing the final report at the end this day.
Please send your country reports to [email protected] or [email protected].

Please also send Photographs and images of activities.

The team will be posting the country reports and updates to the GCAP/White band and the Millennium Campaign websites. We will also share some guidelines on how to coordinate and organize country events. Please look out for information in the following platforms:

Ø White band Website
Ø Millennium Campaign website
Ø Pambazuka News
Ø GCAP list Serve
Ø OXFAM & Action AID Websites

For more information on what the continental group is planning kindly contact Hellen Tombo
Directly ([email protected]) or [email protected], Tel; 254-020-311196 or 241915 or 254-722-889508 or Ace Kabane or Dr. Abiola +2215698354.

Let us all join hands to make this day a success because the African Children and Youth are our responsibility.

We will keep you updated and please keep us updated on what you are doing.

Hellen Tombo
On Behalf of DAC steering team
Executive Director, Kenya Youth (KYCEP)

Press statement

‘African orphans our collective responsibility’

Youth and children call for debt cancellation, trade justice, increase in quality aid and better governance to respond to the increasing number of orphans

The Day of the African Child White Band Day is a part of The Global Call to Action against Poverty, an alliance of over sixty national coalitions made up of civil society organisations including trade unions, faith based organisations, women and youth associations among others across the world. The aim of the white band day is to create widespread mobilisation of youth and children to demand action and accountability from leaders in their commitments to eliminate poverty and improve human dignity and well-being.

This year's day of the African Child theme is ‘African orphans our collective responsibility.’ At the continental level governments will be lobbied to put in place statutory, developmental and governance interventions to address the plight of children and youth. The theme is also a call to the global community to poverty eradication through debt cancellation, trade justice, increased quality aid and better governance to respond to the increasing number of orphans in the continent. Answering this call is key to opening up space for children and youth to enjoy their basic human rights.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of their citizens, aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity, and promises of debt cancellation have not materialized. Rich countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to tackle unfair trade rules and practices. In Kenya for example, about 32% of the national budget is being used to service debt. This amount is greater than the amount spent on health and education together. Behind these cold statistics of failed promises are lives of real people- youth and children, where most are affected by HIV.

Today, 1 billion children and youth are trapped in abject poverty with 104 million unable to access basic education. Every day more than 800million people (most of the children) go to bed on an empty stomach. HIV/AIDS kills more than 2 million people every year and adds to the league of millions of orphans. 1.4 million people don’t have access to safe water. Hunger is a daily norm other than an exception for many with six million children dying of malnutrition before their fifth birthday every year. In those parts of the world the death of mothers in childbirth and children in infancy is still routine - deaths that could be prevented by the availability of simple healthcare.

Poverty is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a massive scale; it is compounded by the trade injustice that keeps people poor. The Convention on the Rights of the Child like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other national and international statutes protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being, including education, food, clothing, housing, and medical care: rights whose achievement are undermined by inadequate commitment and policies that do not favor the implementation of globally-agreed upon declarations and statutes.

The Global call to action Against Poverty (GCAP) is a global coalition of organisations ranging from grassroots through national and international levels. The campaign objectives include trade justice, debt relief, increased and improved aid and ensuring leaders live up to their promises and commitments on MDGs.

The campaign aims to use the occasions of the G8 Summit, the UN Millennium Assembly and the WTO meeting in Hong Kong- these 3 have been designated the White Band Days when the campaign will be signified by the wearing of a white band.

At a recent meeting in Nairobi to launch the African Chapter, over 70 participants from over 20 African countries unanimously resolved to have an additional and African specific White Band Day. In recognition of the serious impact of poverty on children, this African White Band day, which will be used to kick off the campaign in Africa, has been fixed for the Day of the African child. A day set aside by African heads of states to remember the 1976 massacre of innocent children by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Thousands of black school children took to the streets in a march more than half a mile long, to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot down; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity. The Day also draws attention to the lives of African children today.