Life Threatening Journey Just To Get To School

If you complain school is boring and nonsense.  Think again! Being able to get to school safe and sound is a bliss.  But not to these school children in the third world where all of them struggle the hard way just to get an education.

If you think these kids are leisurely playing, think again!  These children are doing these regular way just to be able to get to school.  Yes, there were no school buses nor cars and vehicles not even passable roads to get them to school safe and in one whole being piece.  Every school day, these kids travel from their home to the nearest possible school in the route and way that are ‘available’ so that they can attend school and pursue their dream of a better life and future.  But what ‘bright future’ do you think they face if the road towards the learning institution that will serve as their seat of learning can only be traveled in a much perilous way.

In the Philippines, where flood and raging waters brought by the year-long typhoons and heavy rains are a regular thing.  School children crossed the raging currents of high flood waters on tire tubes and lucky they maybe if they come to class in dry school clothes and uniforms.

In Vietnam, children swim across the water current and don’t mind about the dangers of being swept away just so they can get to school and study.

In Indonesia, school children knows nothing about the safety a seat belt brings if most of them can be seen hanging and or seating, if there are any seat available in some sort of carriage that will not even pass as a vehicle and without any safety harness or anything whatsoever just to get on school and learn.

Also in Indonesia, in Sanghiang Tanjung village, school children hang onto the rope of a collapsed hanging bridge and crawl across a muddy raging river just to save time and be on time to the school class which will aid them to gain more learnings.

In Colombia, the trek is not on the land and winding roads but way up hundreds of feet above a river or treacherous marshland on an unsafe zip line that hung on a tree branch to another tree 430 yards across. Japan’s fastest bullet train is a near match on speed yet the danger is unparalleled compared to the former.

And finally, in Shuafat Refugee Camp, Jerusalem, children are caught on crossfire between the fighting of the Palestinian rebels against the Israeli military.

Education to many of us is an engine and way to have a better life and future.  But for school children in the third world countries it is a life threatening struggle to be able to catch and quench their hunger for knowledge.

So the next time you complained about how school is boring and dull. Think back and consider how fortunate you are not on the situation on any of the school children in the above conditions.  Appreciate and thank more.

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