First graders from The Friends School of Atlanta share their hopes for the world.
The Friends School of Atlanta
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The Friends School of Atlanta
First graders from The Friends School of Atlanta share their hopes for the world.
The Friends School of Atlanta
Who says three needs must be the restrict? NPR requested luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and the White House’s Raj Panjabi and others to share their desires for the approaching yr.
Then NPR put out the decision to you: If cash had been no object and also you had unanimous help, what would you would like for the world in 2023? From close to and much, together with a instructor from The Friends School of Atlanta who despatched in her college students’ needs, here is a number of your ideas.
Submissions had been edited for size and readability.
Cherish our pale blue dot
My dream for human form is that folks would cease trashing the ocean. –Mira, 1st Grade
My want is that every youngster is taught the fundamentals of ecology and our complete reliance on pure techniques. Many youngsters don’t know the place their water comes from or the place their waste goes. Without a educated inhabitants, insurance policies that profit all of us are exhausting to realize. –Jane Eller, retired director of the Kentucky Environmental Education Council, a state company
Extend the olive department
My dream for humankind is for individuals to have peaceable days on a regular basis of their souls. –Shannon, 1st grader
My want is for the Russia/Ukrainian struggle to stop quickly and diplomatically. Loss of lives, obliteration of dwellings, civic and cultural buildings and the opportunity of nuclear weapon utilization has positioned the world in peril. The billions of {dollars} spent ought to have gone to handle local weather change and international meals insecurity. –Sarah Wright, retired pediatrician from Oregon
My want for 2023 is that leaders of all international locations might fly into orbit to view our planet from house. I’m of the opinion that this expertise would have a profound impression on every chief and supply perspective on priorities. –Carter Alexander, Suwanee, Georgia
My want for 2023 is that wherever you might be, discover win-win-win options to issues. Many individuals play win-lose video games in all elements of life with out understanding what successful is or realizing extra individuals are impacted than the 2 opponents. Sometimes merely having the ability to compete is a win. Many will not be so fortunate. Children are all the time watching. If they observe us creating win-win-win options with out demeaning “losers” they may naturally wish to do the identical. –Joel Stegner, retired market analysis director, Edina, Minn.
First graders at The Friends School of Atlanta want for kindness and peace in 2023.
The Friends School of Atlanta
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The Friends School of Atlanta
My dream for humankind is for everyone to have peace of their household. A sort household could be form to their youngsters and assist them to be form to others. –Seva, 1st grade
My want is that gun violence might be prevented. While the U.S. is an outlier in unsafe gun legal guidelines, the issue of gun violence is international. My son usually tries to think about his 11-year-old life in a spot with out the specter of gun violence, and it breaks my coronary heart that he might by no means have that have. –Kelsey Power, proprietor of Charleston Power Family Garden, a mini orchard and market backyard in St. Louis, Mo.
Let children be children
My want for 2023 is that we acknowledge that an 18-year-old individual shouldn’t be absolutely an grownup besides legally. While many people know 18-year-olds who’re fairly mature, the human mind doesn’t full its neurological growth till roughly age 25. One of the ultimate mind areas to develop controls government operate – guiding decision-making and supporting the administration of impulses. Yet, we within the U.S. topic 18-year-olds to an grownup court docket jurisdiction in a felony continuing. An 18-year-old can get married, get a tattoo, donate blood, play the lottery or become involved in some types of on-line playing. They can enlist into navy service and even go into the battlefield. When we let 18-year-olds assist determine the end result of a authorized case for one more individual as a juror, we’re placing decision-making into the palms of an individual who can’t reliably keep away from impulsive choices. We let individuals who flip 18 purchase firearms. Why are the rental automobile firms the one group to bear in mind this very important neurological truth? Is it as a result of they’ve one thing invaluable to guard? Don’t all of us? –Jill Pulley, government director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Clinical and Translational Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
My want for 2023 is for international leaders to sort out the present training disaster and the impression it has on a number of the world’s most marginalized learners. This disaster has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, as many as 33 million youngsters with disabilities had been out of college, the bulk in lower-income international locations. These youngsters, particularly ladies with disabilities, are much less prone to go to highschool and extra prone to be illiterate than youngsters with out disabilities. It could be nice to see youngsters with disabilities included in mainstream training and in information assortment. This requires each funding and coaching educators. All of this work needs to be performed with the enter of these with lived expertise of incapacity so their voices are heard. –Liesbeth Roolvink, deputy technical director for inclusive training on the worldwide growth group Sightsavers
Give shelter
My dream for human form is for everybody to have houses. The houses could be good. And the houses would have the entire assets they want. –Francis, 1st grade
Housing is on the thoughts of 1 first grader at The Friends School of Atlanta.
The Friends School of Atlanta.
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The Friends School of Atlanta.
My want for 2023 is a perpetually dwelling (a secure place to remain for the remainder of their lives) for all of the pets on the earth, with out threat of abuse. –Susie Lipton, a pediatric infectious illness specialist who lives on a small farm in Maryland
My want is to place paperwork apart and take all these workplace buildings and parking garages that emptied out through the pandemic, all these malls which might be foundering, barely surviving or are deserted, all these high-rises with complete flooring empty, all of the blighted empty tons and long-abandoned buildings — and home so a lot of these which might be unhoused, all around the world. Provide a spot in these buildings for social providers to assist the unhoused discover the providers they want. –Genevieve Foskett, former librarian, Wisconsin
Soup up the photo voltaic grid
My want is to have free electrical energy for all households. There is large untapped photo voltaic potential the world over, sufficient to feed power into the grid and supply low-cost electrical energy to companies to offset the price of transmission and upkeep. Creating free electrical energy for electrical car charging stations would remove the most important hurdle to widespread adoption of electrical autos. –Rick Palmeri, retired pc man and full time dreamer, Connecticut
Make workdays safer and more healthy
I hope that companies can prioritize office well being and security. Every single day, 7,500 individuals die globally from unsafe and unhealthy working situations. Working with governments, universities and different nonprofits, we will change the narrative by saving lives that in any other case could be misplaced or develop into non productive to society and the economic system. –Bernard L. Fontaine, Jr., managing associate of The Windsor Consulting Group, Monroe, N.J.
Dignity issues
My want for 2023 is for everybody to be handled with dignity, no matter age, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation or some other id. Everyone has the precise to be handled with dignity, and I attempt to create an atmosphere the place that is the norm. I imagine that making a extra equitable, peaceable and simply world begins with how we deal with each other. Dignity is integral to our sense of self-worth and self-respect. It can be important for {our relationships} with others, permitting us to be seen and revered for who we’re. –Immy Mulekatete, communications fanatic with the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in Rwanda.
Gisele Grayson and Carmen Drahl are freelance editors. Thanks to Miriam Kshensky Arensberg and Celest Samas, 1st grade lecturers at The Friends School of Atlanta, and to everyone who submitted a want.