Zaida Charepe: "Children's Right to Hope in Challenging Times"

On March 20 it is intended to mark the National Day of Hope, a goal for which researchers and health professionals have been working since 2015. In 2018, the creation of the National Day of Hope was officially requested, through the petition delivered to the Parliament, which gathered more than 7,000 signatures.

Stressing the importance of this ephemeris, Zaida Charepe, professor at the School of Nursing (Lisbon) of the Institute of Health Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and coordinator of the Hope2Care Project, marks the date with an opinion article questioning the Children's Right to Hope in the face of a Multidefied Humanity: Truth or Consequence?

"Every day we talk about children, their rights and the duties of the community towards their protection and overall care. Given the numerous challenges associated with the humanity's confrontation with global threats, these rights and duties deserve special emphasis.

Reading and internalising the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we can see that the active conflicts in the world have weakened their right to non-discrimination, to the protection of their best interests, to their participation in society, survival and development.

The disengagement of children from what they know, from what has been taken for granted and belongs to them, whether due to illness, war or social condition, is a fact in the 21st century. The vulnerability perceived by all these children and others who are removed from their natural environment, because they live with a chronic and disabling illness, in poverty or in precarious living conditions, makes it essential to place Hope in the public debate.

We know that children have a natural conception of looking to the future with hope. For children, hope means playing, being free, feeling their hearts beating faster, having friends, family and belonging to a community that embraces them endlessly.

Communities are considered fertile ground to sow the seeds of hope for each child. Child in its uniqueness, Child in being and feeling. But how do we sow this ground? How do we nurture it properly in times of uncertainty?

The community needs to nourish itself from mutual help, from highly meaningful and collaborative relationships. But to be nurtured, it needs hope. Hope, that subjective "something" that cannot be seen, but which is found in the invisibility or behind the scenes of human emotions. What we do know, is that Hope is essential to the human experience, the lifeboat, what we have left ... sometimes the only.

When we address human relationships, we address hope. The hope of what we have been, what we are and what we will be ... each one ... in the collective. And the child is at the centre, the future and the hope of every community, regardless of its environment and health, economic and/or social condition. Sometimes, in times of uncertainty we don't have seeds, but we have the desires that carry them ... so we ask for help, we share, we seek the exception to problems, we value what makes each family, each community, each human system function, even in the face of adversity more or less forceful.

Once hope has been sown, there is Time. Time to discover, time to deepen, time to grow. Children discover, deepen experiences and grow. We can conclude that when we sow the seeds of hope, we are nurturing the child itself.

How much time do we need? And how can we get involved in challenging times, like the ones we are living in nowadays? By believing in the role of each family, each community.

Each element of the community, that community which is fertile and fruitful in the secular art of sowing, leaves a large part of itself in the children. They leave the action of hope, goals and desires for a future that is built at each stage of their development and growth. Each child represents an ATTRIBUTE of Hope, for each community: Maria, who is courageous; Luis, who is confident; Mário, the neighbourhood adventurer; Luisa, who is a great storyteller...

Maria Montessori said "Children are invested with unknown powers, which may be the keys to a better future".

Powers (known as talents, or attributes, or strengths) nurtured by families, by communities, by social work professionals, health professionals, education professionals and so many others. But what we have to remember in this blossoming process, which takes time, is that we have to nurture it daily. We care, when our language allows for appreciation, allows for listening, allows us to welcome and value the community in its experiences of vulnerability, drawing on its vital forces and its best attributes. So, the soil that allowed us to sow our seeds has its own ingredients for germination at the right time.

As for the results, we will have to wait and see;

Flowers of many colours and shapes. But still, flowers. When we do not know the way ... we know what is most certain: TO THANK AND TO OFFER OUR HOPE. How? By letting it show in symbols, messages, gestures, presence, that needs the FLOWER. The one that germinated from the community where hope was nourished and sown.

Families, parents, children have the right to HOPE! And we, the community, have the duty to Nurture it."

Zaida Charepe