Ayaw: A dialect which means don’t, no.
A refusal. A strong plea to stop.
Ayaw. An innocent call for help.
Facts tell us of the bitter stories of children victims of abuse.
They are in our neighborhood. And we wonder how their number is increasing each day. These children who look filthy, begging for food, sniffing rugby, or peddling on the streets. These children who are working instead of being in school.
Psychologists define child abuse as the failure to provide for the child’s basic needs for survival: food, shelter, clothing, education, health care and all the support and guidance the child needs as he/she grows into adulthood, which includes his developmental rights, rights to protection and participation.
Recent reports have indicated another disturbing reality. Abuse happens at home. It does not happen just now. It already happened then. Long before the parents become parents. At a time that they were once children. Hard, disturbing truth.
Abuse is intergenerational. It becomes inherited.
Ayaw. Don’t let this continue.
Stop abuse now.
Create child-friendly spaces. Make our homes, our streets, and our neighborhood safe for children.
Batang Pinangga is a foundation for the abused, abandoned and neglected children. It works to rebuild the once caring aspect of communities, concerned for one another, looking after every child. Being aware that massive poverty, brought about by landlessness and absence of social infrastructures for the poor, created the rising phenomenon of child abuse and neglect.
The government promises poverty alleviation but the children of the poor cannot wait much longer. They have been hungry too long, not schooled, just like their parents, and their grandparents, and their great grandparents.
Let us do something to help the rural poor. Create jobs in the provinces.
Let us do something so that the poor children can go to school.
Let us do something so that the poor can have access to medical and dental care.
Ayaw. Don’t just give your loose coins.
Share your skills. Participate. Educate.
Ayaw. Don’t be a victim. Be a protector.
Be a caring community.
Ayaw. Don’t be passive. Create your own volunteer-action group. Start your mission.
Ayaw. Spread the language.
