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Post by City Kidz Ottawa.

...And ONE for all!

Too Much Need….

I’ve been reading a book called A Child is Not a Toy, Voices of Children in Poverty, by Sheila Baxter,  It’s a little dated (1993) but unfortunately, the issues are still the same 20 years later.   What follows really struck me. Ms. Baxter quotes a social service worker on her perspective working with impoverished children and youth.  The social service worker says, “I remember recently a young man who had been in care said to me – I asked him, what were the things that helped you live through what you lived through?  What he said was, it was the worker who remembered the little conversations he had had, and when it was time for his birthday, the worker brought him a little present.  It wasn’t fancy.   It wasn’t big, but showed him that that worker had listened to him, had remembered when he said that he liked football or he liked whatever, and time after time, and young person after young person, and in my own experience, it’s been that somebody is there who cares about you and who does . . . what would be a very small thing, but just shows you that they care.  I don’t think we have a lot of that today.  I think we have people working under very heavy case loads, people working with very big classes, people under all kinds of stress themselves, and they don’t have time to listen to kids.  So, they don’t know the kids and so they’re not there when it’s important.”   And I say….

But, God…. But City Kidz….

 

…And ONE for All!