Friday, November 9

Suicide of an 11 year old because she did not have shoes

This kind of story frankly makes me tear up. Children are our most precious resource and to see them suffer and commit suicide for basic stuff makes me very emotional as well as very angry at the same time. I was talking to my father and he reminded me of a story. We were exceedingly poor, dirt poor. When he was growing up, he was walking down the road in Dacca and saw this car parked on the side of the road. He just touched it and the driver came out and slapped him. He vowed then to "show" them all. And he did. But this girl didnt, and she committed suicide.

All she wanted was a bicycle, a pair of new shoes and to be able to
finish her schooling. But her family was dirt poor, and eventually the
12-year-old Filipina girl grew so demoralised that she hanged
herself.

Mariannet Amper left a letter under her pillow describing her failed
hopes and aspirations. Her family also found a diary in which she described the
privations of a life with no money in Davao City, on southern Mindanao
island.

The night before she killed herself with a nylon rope in their modest
hut, which has no electricity or running water, Mariannet had asked her father,
Isabelo, for 100 pesos (about £1) for a school project. But he had no money. The
next day, he managed to get a 1,000-pesos cash advance for some building work on
a chapel. But when he got home to tell her, his daughter was already
dead.

Poor father. I have seen tears in my father's eyes because he didnt have sufficient money to purchase mango's for my baby sister. But we all have to chip in and do something for the kids. I am going to get heavily involved in a children's charity here in the UK and India so watch out for more of this same. Let us all make an effort to improve the lives of all these children and aim to provide education for all.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

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