THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN

Thursday, March 28, 1991

More than a good deed


There is a theory that if young Americans who are getting the best our system can offer - schooling, health care, safe neighborhoods and a loving family - just knew how fortunate they are, they would make the most of their lives. They wouldn't turn their backs on these precious gifts, gifts that would be out of reach had they been born in countless other nations around the globe.

How to teach those lessons? The bitter youths of the South African townships, the urchins of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, the political prisoners of Guatemala, Tibet, and many other nations are distant at best, illusory at worst, when discussed in classroom lessons.

But the realities or injustices around the world can be made tangible. Today, the Santa Fe branch of Amnesty International, the Nobel Prize-winning human rights organization, is honoring 170 students - as young as six years old - who recently wrote letters on behalf of injustices worldwide. The students urged Guatemalan President Jorge Serrano Elias and the chief of the Brazilian police to cease the reported beatings, rotures, and killings of children. They asked Elias to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Maria Tiu Tojin and her infant daughter, Maria Josefa. They wrote Philippine President Corazon Aquino pleading for the release of 12-year-old Enrique Calima.

Having students write letters like these is the first such program for Amnesty International and its sucess might serve to foster similar campaigns in communities around the nation.

It is apt that the Santa Fe students and the teachers who were involved are honored. But wouldn't it be more appropriate if the fortunate youth of a nation that strives for human rights and justice worldwide continued to speak out in support of the less fortunate?

The benefits of researching and writing these letters are clear: To understand worldwide injustices and to empathize with its victims, is to understand your own nation and its freedoms.

© The Santa Fe New Mexican. Reprinted with permission.