Students speak up for others
Motorists honked and gave thumbs-up to the kids with the posters marching and chanting around Park Circle. They should have seen them inside the community center.
The "harambee" held there — a bouncing, dancing, screaming, singing, clapping, stomping exuberance of spirit — spoke out loud and clear that the Freedom School scholars mean it when they call for help for an estimated 9 million uninsured children across the country.
"If we don't help, who will?" asked Shayne Kelley, 13, of Charleston, as he jumped up and down at the curb, signaling cars and trucks to sound the horn.
Nearly 150 Freedom School students at Carolina Youth Development Center and Metanoia Community Development Corp. in North Charleston held the march for uninsured children around the downtown circle on Friday, taking part for the first time in a National Day for Social Action.
The youth center is an emergency shelter and help-intervention agency for children. The development corporation is a faith-based neighborhood improvement organization.
Each school is a summer camp-style learning session that emphasizes literacy, culture and social contributions, sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund. It makes a morning ritual of harambee, a Swahili word that translates as "working together for a common purpose."
The march gave the students, age 10-18, "a chance to talk out in the community about everything we've been talking about," said Katrina Wright, a clinical counselor for the Carolina Youth center. "It gives them a chance to get their message across, to make a difference."
The school "develops the child as a whole. It's not just a summer camp. It's something where they can take away a whole new self-image," said Laurie Brinson, of Carolina Youth.
On Friday, they took it to the street, carrying posters that showed hearts and hospitals, ambulances, stretchers and an American flag.
"Leave no child behind!" they yelled.
Yes, they can make a difference, said Dominique Williams, 13, of Summerville. "When people see it, we can send a message."
