AFRICA/SIERRA LEONE - “People feel very strongly about the Day of the African Child in Sierra Leone where the majority of the population is under 25 years of age”

Freetown (Agenzia Fides)- “People in Sierra Leone feel very strongly about the Day of the African Child. It is a national celebration involving schools of all grades” Fides learns from Xaverian Missionary Fr Gerardo Caglioni, who spent years on mission in Sierra Leone.
“It is popular because the majority of the country's population is young, under 25. In a way the Day acknowledges the importance of investing in the new generations, so that, thanks to school education, they realise who they are and are able to guarantee their country a better future” Fr. Caglioni told Fides.
The Day of the African Child was begun in 1991 by what, at the time ,was called the Organisation for African Unity, today the African Union, to commemorate the victims of a massacre in Soweto in 1976 and to promote the rights of children, denied on this continent. On 16 June 1976, thousands of black school children in the township of Soweto, South Africa, took to the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and the imposition of the Afrikaans language used by white South Africans, hundreds of young boys and girls were shot by the police.
To the young victims of 1976 we can add all the victims, many of them children, of the numerous African wars.
But African children die not only because of war. The first cause of infant mortality is disease, often due to a lack of hygiene and efficient medical care. According to recent figures in Sub-Saharan Africa every year 4.5 million children die before reaching the age of 5. Most killer disease can be easily prevented. Malaria for example could be better prevented with more widespread use of mosquito nets, deaths caused by chickenpox could be prevented with vaccination. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 17/6/2010)