Justin Kroll
Staff Writer
On Friday, February 11, the Global Action committee of Yozma will be holding an event for Red Hand Day, an international event to stop countries from using child soldiers.
“To date, there are about 250,000 child soldiers in the world,” Ami Fields-Meyer ’12, head of the Global Action committee, said. “They are relatively helpless and vulnerable because of the environments they live in. Many of them are basically slaves to their commanders – they are abused both emotionally and physically.”
Red Hand Day has tried to end the use of child soldiers since 2002 by collecting red handprints and sending them to Ban-Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, as a powerful and symbolic gesture.
“The website movement defines one of its central purposes as being ‘in order to say NO to child recruitment and the use of child soldiers,’” Fields-Meyer said. “So, no, this is not a fundraiser. It’s an awareness raiser.”
“What makes Red Hand Day so unique is how we all as a community unite to send a powerful message to end child recruitment and the use of these child soldiers globally,” Shannon Delijani ’14 said.
For more information about Red Hand Day, visit the site at http://www.redhandday.org/.