The school holidays are nearly here! I can hear kids screaming with joy at the thought of this from miles away! Time to run amok, drive parents crazy, spend time with your best friends, watch endless cartoons and be finally told to “…PLAY OUTSIDE!” Gee, thanks Dad!
However, neither parents nor their kids fully realize or remember the dangers that lurk outside the front door.
The mid-year summer school holidays are not far away. In a nation where the summer heat is unbearable even in well-equipped classrooms, it’s time to escape.
For the unlucky kids from wealthy families, they will spend the summer in cram schools and evening classes or private tutoring. However, the poorest kids will probably have to help their parents on farms or in small businesses. I’m not including richer kids in this topic as their parents are likely to have home Internet so they can waste hours on computer games; yet, this still leaves many kids with time on their hands. In the cities, it will be playing on the sidewalks or whatever open ground is available; and in the countryside the rivers, mountains and beaches.
Now it’s normal for kids to do inherently dangerous things, as it’s part of growing up and learning the limits of themselves and the world. They fall out of trees, run and fall over a thousand times, hurt themselves having mock fights or receive sports injuries. That’s fine and it’s survivable. But there are a lot of unreasonable and plain stupid things that parents and responsible adults had better protect their kids from.
In the four months since the start of the year, horrifying stories have emerged in the local news.
In March, adults in Dien Bien Province, near Hanoi, were filmed transporting kids across a swollen river in plastic bags because there was no bridge to cross safely. In April, a girl went missing and six others were swept away by floodwaters from a dam in Lai Chau Province. There was no bridge crossing. Parents dig up unexploded ordinance for scrap metal with kids nearby. The traffic death toll does not really show how many kids died or were injured by adults. The same statistics also do not really say how many kids didn’t have a helmet. The list goes on and on.
The dangers raise many questions, particularly about adults. Why are schoolchildren on bicycles riding through red lights and no adult says anything? How is it that the nation can find US$1.6 billion for a new curriculum and textbooks but can barely raise $80 million for bridge construction in the areas that so urgently need them before the wet season begins from August? How can farming communities allow children to wander alone around ponds and rivers without supervision from an adult? How can adults fail to fence off dangerous construction and mining sites that have large enough budgets to afford fencing?
There are solutions – education is one part and funding is another but the greatest responsibility lies with parents and adults to speak up for their children, and also behave in the same way that they would like their children to become.
Don’t run the red light and say nothing to the students – tell them to behave safely on the roads! Don’t ride a motorbike without a helmet! One of my greatest frustrations is seeing parents on expensive bikes who didn’t bother to buy their kids helmets.
If you don’t have a safe bridge in your area, speak up! I do understand that poorer people lack the education or skills to ask for these things so I’m asking that more educated Vietnamese speak up on behalf of their friends and relatives who live in much poorer circumstances.
I’d love to see the youth groups campaigning more about safety and asking for protection from the adults. Maybe it would be a useful shock for a kid to tell his parents to be safer on the roads or ask questions about danger: “Oh, Dad! That’s dangerous! I learnt about that in school!”
My girlfriend, reading this story as I’m writing, pointed out that kindergarten kids often “do speak up when their parents violate the traffic rule like ‘Mom, you have to stop at red lights!’ but older children are often reluctant or shy to speak up.”
I know of many youth groups who go into the mountains to distribute food and school supplies – perhaps they can perform plays to educate kids and adults. In this way they support the government and the goals of prosperity for the nation.
How about more safety campaigns by kids aimed at adults? Hey, Dad! Where’s my helmet? Hey, Mum! I want to walk across the bridge that the teacher taught us about. A T-shirt design competition would be a great idea as well! And making slogans – ‘Great dads make safe bridges!’ ‘My parents bought me swimming lessons!’
Yes, there are many wonderful Vietnamese organizations, including the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport (building bridges in poorer areas), enlightened and future looking mayors and committees already trying to make progress. And they should be considered national heroes for what they do.
So this summer holiday – let’s make a national goal, a national slogan – on the TV, on posters, at meetings and parties, on the loudspeakers and in the coffee shops – “Kids are safe as adults!”
And have a great summer holiday!
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Đăng ký: VietNam News