THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090098
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE GATEWAY
EXPLORING THE COMPUTER WORLD
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Hey, kids.
Pull up a computer keyboard and answer these questions.
What do you think about war? Abuse? Child labor? The environment?
Pretty easy to give a thumbs up or down on those.
Now, what do you think young people need to grow up healthy and happy? That may take a little more typing.
Former president Jimmy Carter, UNICEF and the Children First forum think it's worth your time to answer these questions - via the Internet - to make the world better for kids.
A fill-in-the-blanks format has been set up on the World Wide Web site of Children First: A Global Forum. The forum, which meets this week in Atlanta, will host 360 people - including 40 kids - from around the world. They will talk about programs that help children, from day care in Kenya to Project Head Start in the United States.
Forum sponsors, which include the The Carter Center, the World Bank, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a host of others, want real kids to help them find solutions - via the Web - to international problems.
``They want to bring in children's opinions. . . to come up with ways of improving life for kids all around the world,'' said Evan Levy, a publicist for the forum.
The Web site (http://www.globalforum.org/) asks kids to comment on topics such as poverty, homelessness, education and health. Many of the topics have links to UNICEF reports and film clips.
For example, click on ``Children in War'' and learn that an estimated 200,000 children were fighting - as soldiers - in 1988 alone. The report cites such horrifying scenarios as children being kidnapped for military duty or sent as expendable soldiers to clear minefields or act as spies.
``A child with an AK-47 or an M-16 assault rifle can be a fearsome match for anyone,'' it says.
Although organizers know that Web access may be limited for children in many countries, they remain hopeful that input will be broad. ``If there are kids in Bosnia that have access to the Internet, that would be an incredible resource for the conference to hear from a child in the middle of the war zone,'' Levy said.
The forum will also have an Internet chat room where kids can talk to conference-goers or ask questions. Youth reporters from Children's Express and New Moon Magazine will update the Web site daily.
The forum will look at progress made since the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 promised to look beyond simple survival and find ways for children to thrive and grow. The forum's own progress will be examined in the year 2000 during the next Children First forum in Sydney, Australia.
Kids without Web access can e-mail their comments to sjordan(AT)emory.edu. Those without computers can resort to old-fashioned pen and paper, addressed to Sonseeahray Jordan, Children First Forum, One Copenhill, Atlanta, GA 30307.
The forum plans to discuss what children need to reach their full potential. That includes such hard-to-pin-down stuff as physical, mental, economic, environmental and educational factors.
Hence, messages from children may bring some concrete information to the table.
``The point of the forum is to not take the opinions of children for granted,'' Levy said. ``Actually hearing from the mouth of a child puts things in perspective a little better.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Contact Children First: A Global Forum on the World Wide Web at
http://www.globalforum.org/
E-mail comments to sjordan@emory.edu
Or write Sonseeahray Jordan, Children First Forum, One Copenhill,
Atlanta, GA 30307.
by CNB