We Were All Children Once

How we were treated as children influenced what we grew up to be as adults. Children treated with understanding and empathy became  adults with empathy and understanding. Children who were taught love and patience grew into adults with love and understanding. I think I am making my point.

Children bought up in brutal conditions grow into brutal adults as a general rule of thumb. What can be done to prevent children being forced to become child soldiers, children being traded and sold in human trafficking that exists in so many places around the world?  All this in an age when we are building a new space program, medical science is making amazing advances, more women around the globe are attaining more rights and education is becoming a staple in countries that not too long ago had few if any classrooms. 

How can you help children or a child in dire need. Use the Internet and Google a charitable organisation near you. You can help either locally or globally through an organisation such as the ones you see on this link. 

https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/causes/children-charities?gclid=CjwKCAjwwuvWBRBZEiwALXqjwynvmoBajzNF8qYsbkorP5h9gZ-B2xiXTvA_Wjc3mrgC3jShl-A5DhoCtIcQAvD_BwE

Do your due diligence though. There are many scams out there and there are many charities that have very heavy admin charges with simply not enough funds from contributors getting through to the children that need them. By estimates, there are 45.8 million people are enslaved across the world. Global Slavery Index 2016 key findings: Total number of people enslaved globally: 45.8 million people. Enhanced methodology reveals that 10 million more people are enslaved than previously estimated – a 28% increase. Many many, of them are children.

How comfortable are you in your current life? Comfortable?  Maybe its time to forgo that planned cruise or the 2 months "in the desert" and channel that money to children who have been bought into this world and know nothing but suffering.

Just suggesting.

Trudeau falls short on commitment to Grassy Narrows mercury problems, chief says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/prime-minister-grassy-narrows-1.3939095

And Trudeau's government is failing their children. 

The level of mercury found in the umbilical cords of babies in Grassy Narrows First Nation was high enough to affect their brain development, according to a new report obtained by the Star.

Between 1978 and 1994 Health Canada tested the umbilical cord blood of 139 infants in Grassy Narrows.

“At these cord blood concentrations, there is consensus from the scientific literature that there would be effects on children’s neurodevelopment,” the report, written by Dr. Donna Mergler, says.

In the report, the leading expert reviews decades of scientific research on mercury’s effects and highlights the hidden impact of contamination on a community.

Mergler said that what recent science tells us is that mercury poisoning occurs at low levels previously thought harmless. At these low levels, a fetus is vulnerable to cognitive damage even if the child’s mother does not show signs of poisoning.

The scientist, whose research specializes in the effects of environmental pollutants such as mercury, wrote it was “surprising” that although world-renowned Japanese researchers had identified many cases of mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows, there has never been a “scientifically sound” community-wide examination of pre- and postnatal mercury contamination.

Advocates for Grassy Narrows have been trying to obtain the original cord blood data and other information collected by Health Canada over more than two decades so that their own experts can analyze it.

For six months, Health Canada said it would not release the data — even with identifying information removed — citing privacy concerns, according to email correspondence obtained by the Star.

On Thursday, one day after the Star asked Health Canada why the information could not be released, First Nation community advocates received an email from the regulator saying they could have the data.

The original contamination began when a Dryden, Ont., paper plant dumped 10 tonnes of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, into the English-Wabigoon River system between 1962 and 1970. The site of the plant, now under different ownership, is about 100 kilometres upstream from Grassy Narrows.

The locals, who’d built a livelihood as fishing and hunting guides, were told to stop eating the fish. The robust fishing tourism industry was decimated. The fishermen and guides went on welfare.

More than 300 residents (50 of them children) from Grassy Narrows and another community were diagnosed with “symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning” — including loss of muscle co-ordination, vision loss, slurred speech and tunnel vision — and awarded compensation from a Mercury Disability Board. A separate protocol was set up for children that also tests for cerebral palsy and some developmental delays.