Give in to Hope Day 41: Sparsh Shah
I am sure someone you know has broken a bone. Maybe you’ve even broken one once. Can you imagine what it would be like to have your bones crack and break all the time, every day, from doing simple things like sitting, standing, or brushing your teeth? Sparsh Shah doesn’t have to imagine this. It is what he experiences every day, as part of his diagnosis of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (or “brittle bone disorder”). Sparsh was even born with 35 broken bones! For his safety and mobility, he uses a motorized wheelchair to get around and hasn’t been able to be as physically active as other kids his age. Not being able to run or play rough games or sports hasn’t stopped Sparsh. He writes his own music and raps, sings, plays piano and records covers, raises tons of money for charities across the country, and is a motivational speaker, cheering on adults and kids and encouraging people to not let anything hold them back. Sparsh has not let his challenges get in the way of making his dreams come true!
To learn more about Sparsh Shah: https://youtu.be/X9amik3e-AA
Listen to Sparsh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqwzlMUt9oM
Do you have any dreams that seem hard to achieve? Are there things you tell yourself (I’m not good enough, I’m not brave enough) that stand in your way? What could you tell yourself to be your own cheerleader?
Closing prayer: Dear God, give us positivity, determination and a great attitude like Sparsh, and watch us change the world. Amen.
Param Jaggi has always been interested in science, and in the idea that kids can change the world. You’ll often hear him ask “how am I supposed to change the world if there isn’t a world I can live in?” When he was just a young kid, he invented a filter that can go on the exhaust pipe of the car, or motorcycle, or other emissions-releasing pipes, and can filter out the carbon dioxide using algae! An incredible invention that can make the air cleaner and healthier for us all. He has continued his interest in the environment, specifically reducing how much carbon dioxide is emitted into the air. He is fascinated with the alternative sources that we can use to create energy, including the sun, water, and the wind. At only 18 he started his own alternative energy company! With people like Param around, we are more likely to have a healthy world for world-changers like all of you to grow up in!
Iqbal Masih was born in Pakistan to an extremely poor family. At one point in time, the family had borrowed a small sum of money, but they had been unable to pay back their debt. When Iqbal was only 4, the carpet merchant who had loaned his family the money demanded payment, that the Masih’s did not have. The carpet merchant took Iqbal and said his small size and nimble fingers would be helpful, and that he could work off his family’s debt. Like many other poor children, Iqbal was forced to work 12 hour days on a loom making carpets, even though he was only a tiny child. At around 10, Iqbal was able to escape this slavery but was again recaptured and forced to work. After escaping again, he was able to go to school for the first time, at a special school for kids who had been slave laborers. He immediately began speaking out about his experiences, being an advocate for ending child labor, and helping thousands of other children escape from slave labor. He, unfortunately, died at only 12 years old, most likely killed by someone who was angry about him speaking out against child labor. The amount of good that Iqbal was able to do in his extremely short life inspired other young people in countries around the world to speak out against this forced, unpaid labor, and for some countries to make changes in their laws to better protect the rights of children and the poor.
Have you ever had a moment when you just felt like you needed a friend? What would it be like to walk into a classroom, a cafeteria, or the playground and not have anyone to play with? When Christian Bucks moved to a new town because of his dad’s work, he saw a school with a bench that kids could sit on if they were feeling lonely. The school had taught all the kids to keep an eye on the bench, and if they saw a kid on it, they should go help that kid feel included and less lonely. Christian loved the idea and brought the bench to his school administrators, and then wanted to get the Buddy Bench out to as many schools as possible. Christian is not the inventor of Buddy Benches, but he was instrumental in getting information out about them to the media, who loved the idea, and it caught on and spread to schools all over the United States, and even the world! Christian is a kid like lots of us, moving to a new school, a little nervous about how to make friends, but once he saw a potential solution, he realized that he wasn’t the only lonely kid in the world and that other kids could benefit from not only the Buddy Bench, but training about how to be welcoming, inclusive and friendly to all kids at a school. Christian didn’t want to be a bystander, he wanted to be a buddy, and because of him, there are fewer schools with kids looking for a friendly face!
Jazz Jennings is not the first transgender activist we have talked about during our Lenten series, but she is arguably the most famous young person who is transgender (where the gender a person knows they are in their mind and heart may not match with their chromosomes or body parts). According to her parents, even though she was born with traditionally “male” body parts, Jazz identified as a girl as soon as she could talk. In 2007 (which isn’t that long ago, but is quite early in the fight for transgender visibility among young people), 7-year-old Jazz was interviewed by Barbara Walters, and families with children outside the gender binary got an incredible advocate, cheerleader and role model. Since then, Jazz has hosted tv shows, written a book, has a reality show, and continues to be one of the loudest and proudest voices in support of young people’s understanding of their gender identity. Jazz is an ally to all.
When Katie Stagliano was only 9 years old, she grew a cabbage. But not just any cabbage, a gigantic 40 pound cabbage! She donated this cabbage to her local food pantry, who used it to make a meal that fed an incredible 275 people! Katie was inspired to grow more crops in her home garden to help feed people in need, but realized that she was only one person. The more people, growing more crops, in more gardens across the country, could help feed the hungry everywhere! She created Katie’s Krops, a program that taught kids how to create their own home and community gardens to connect with food pantry’s in their community. Katie’s Krops now oversees 100 gardens in 30 states, donating about 38,000 pounds of fresh produce to those in need every year! It is important to Katie that the gardens are developed and run by kids. She wants to keep her non-profit kid centered and kid-led, as she knows how passionate and creative young people can be, but often they are unable to volunteer at many places because of their age. She knows that age is not a barrier to caring and wanting to make change, and so Katie strives to give kids as many opportunities to serve as possible!
Cereal, snacks, and so much more–the amount of items that come wrapped in plastic seems to be growing every day. For Isabel and Melati Wijsen, who live on the island of Bali, they were horrified to see the “tides” of plastic waste that washed up on the beaches of the beautiful island nation, polluting the water and endangering the animals and sea life. When they were only 10 and 12, the sisters made it their goal to eliminate plastic bags from Bali, thereby making a dent in the amount of plastic waste in the region. In Bali alone, the amount of plastic waste that used to be created daily was the equivalent size of a 14 story building! Bye Bye Plastic Bags, the nonprofit founded by the sisters, was originally a small-scale effort, but the girls knew that real change would only occur if they had political power behind them. When the Balinese governor would not meet with them, they want on a doctor-supervised hunger strike (meaning they didn’t eat) until the governor relented, met with them, and committed to help with their goal. By 2018, Bali banned plastic bags, styrofoam containers and plastic straws, and the girls had started a new project, launching Youthtopia, “an online headquarters for young world changers” in 2020. These girls want to empower other young people, like them, to find projects that are meaningful to them, and to jump in to make a change!
When you hear the word traffic, you probably think of being stuck on a highway or busy city street, with lots of cars around you, and none of the cars seem to be moving at all. That is an explanation of traffic, but if you hear the word trafficking, it usually means to do something against the law, to move animals or people from one city or country to another without their permission. Often people, typically very poor people, are taken to another country to work as servants, maids, do childcare, pick crops, or other jobs, and they may not receive any pay for this, essentially making them slaves. Sadly, this happens to too many people, particularly children, every year, including our hero of today, Anoyara Khatun. When she was only 12, Anoyara was taken from her home and sent away to be a domestic servant (a housekeeper, cook, maid, etc.) for a wealthy family. She was rescued by an organization called Save the Children, and able to return home, but she realized that her case was not rare and that children all over India, and the world, were experiencing trafficking every year. With help from Save the Children, Anoyara started discussion groups for children, run by children, all around the region where she lived to help kids have a better understanding of what trafficking is, how it could happen, and ways to prevent it. After getting these groups started, she wanted to do more. She has worked with Save the Children to rescue 185 other children from trafficking, helped prevent multiple child marriages, and registered hundreds of children to attend school, many for the first time! She has received India’s highest honor for her work to end trafficking, but she has said she will not stop until every child is able to have the childhood they deserve.
Spending time with family seems like a pretty normal experience for most of us, but when a child has parents who are living in a country as undocumented immigrants (which means they don’t have the papers that they need to be in that country legally) it can be extremely scary, as you never know if your parents will get taken away, deported back to the country they came from. For 5-year-old Sophie Cruz, she worried about this all the time. She was born in the United States, but her parents were from Oaxaca, and she did not want to be separated from them. When her family had the opportunity to see the Pope (the leader of the Catholic church), she broke past security to attempt to give the Pope a letter she had written, pleading with him to save her parents from deportation. The Pope saw Sophie, stopped his motorcade, and accepted her letter. The next day, at his meeting with members of the US Congress, he urged more compassion and acceptance for immigrants and refugees. Since this historic meeting, Sophie has also met President Obama, spoken at the Women’s March, spoken out against the Trump Administration, and continued to work on behalf of undocumented immigrants and helping them stay legally in the US. This tiny activist is someone who people want to pay attention to, and her passion to keep her family, and thousands like them, together, keep her focused on change.
We have already touched on access to clean water being a human right, as well as the young activists who are working to center Indigenous communities in environmental justice work. Autumn Peltier, a member of the Anishnabek Nation in Ontario, Canada, is a young climate activist who is not afraid to go toe to toe with powerful people in her fight to protect the water. She criticized Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to his face for his support of oil pipelines that run through First Nations lands, and challenged him to have more Indigenous voices included in conversations about Canada’s environment. She is considered the Chief Water Protector of her people, a title she was passed down from her aunt, another climate activist and Water Protector. As comfortable talking with world leaders as she is to her followers on Instagram, Autumn is charismatic and committed to reclaiming our sacred connection to water, the source of all life.