FOR- Nonviolence Training for adults

Once upon a time there was a couple who loved children. Nevertheless, when the husband saw a child run across his freshly-laid sidewalk, he grumbled and shouted loudly after the child. "Why are you so angry" said the wife, "remember how we always say we love children?" "I guess I do love them in the abstract," he responded, "but not in the concrete!"

There are many concrete examples of real children's lives. The way we treat our children, not the way we talk about them, is a measure of the violence in our culture. They are like a Barometer of Violence. There is the interpersonal violence: *Four year old Sally forcibly abducted from my Manchester day care center by her father, who was separated from her mother; he twisted Sally's arm behind her back, threatened me loudly and pushed me out of his path. *The five year old killed accidentally as she sat in the family car, a victim of a drug war in her New Haven neighborhood. *A woman who applied to be a day care assistant in New London urged me to discipline the children as she had raised her three boys --- with a baseball bat. *Three University of Connecticut seniors studying to become teachers explained how they would change the behavior of a two year old who bits others: bite him back. *The child abuse and neglect investigations which revealed that infants died because adults caring for them shook them so violently, beat them, threw them against a wall or smothered them; and others which proved preschool-aged children were force-fed, tied to chairs, verbally demeaned, and disciplined in a myriad of creative but cruel ways.

And there is the overwhelming systemic violence: *Infants born in the Norwich homeless shelter. *A one year old in Honolulu, whose mother stayed vigilant all night as he slept so that rats could not bite him. *Children of Spanish-speaking families who were discriminated against by staff at an anti-poverty program. *Ill children in Meriden whose mothers spent their food money to take the train to New Haven pediatricians because the local doctors refused to take another welfare case. *Two toddlers who wandered for days in the streets of Eastern Connecticut with their homeless mother. * Young children reported to protective services because they were left home alone or were playing in the streets; their mothers could not afford day care while they worked.

Statistics from the Children's Defense Fund offer a more stark gauge of cultural violence:

Twelve children killed by guns every day, and the number rising.
A declining number of children in jail and on trial for crime, but more and more children charged as adults.
Corporal punishment used against a child in public school child every 10 seconds.
One-fifth of our children living in families considered "poor," although most of the parents work.
One-sixth of our children without health insurance.
One-eighth of our children never completing high school.

We must admit that we are growing our children in a culture of violence. A culture that supports increasing the military budget while health, education and human services are under-funded. A culture of triple evils, according to Dr. King: poverty, militarism and racism. And we export this culture of violence -- weapons to the Middle East, land mines, SOA-trained military personnel, economic sanctions on Iraq, and nuclear missiles for allies.

The pressure of violence bears down on today's children. What will the Barometer read a year from now? In 10 years? The U.N. Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World calls us all to recommit ourselves now to building the Beloved Community of Dr. King. And we can follow Gandhi's example: taking constructive action to build the culture we desire AND waging active resistance to violence and oppression. We can build a Culture of Nonviolence. Send us information about Decade activities and nonviolence training in your area so we can share it with others.

Listen to the dreams of the world's children in John Denver's song. Len Schreiner, a Seattle teacher, has been performing it and suggests it become the theme song for the Decade.

I want to live, I want to grow, I want to see, I want to know.
I want to share what I can give, I want to be, I want to live.

There are children raised in sorrow, on the scorched and barren plain;
There are children raised beneath the golden sun.
There are children of the water, children of the sand,
And they cry out through the universe, their voices raised as one.

I want to live, I want to grow, I want to see, I want to know.
I want to share what I can give, I want to be, I want to live.

We are standing all together, face to face and arm in arm,
We are standing on the threshold of a dream.
No more hunger, no more killing, no more wasting life away,
It is simply an idea, and I know its time has come.

I want to live, I want to grow, I want to see, I want to know.
I want to share what I can give, I want to be, I want to live.