Swazi schoolchildren have been talking about what they want the world’s most powerful countries to do to at next week’s G20 summit.
The meeting brings together finance ministers and central bank governors of major industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy, in particular the present recession that is sweeping across the world.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in its World Today programme has been interviewing schoolchildren to find out what is important to them.
The BBC met children from the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College, Mbabane, and found (not surprisingly) they were worried about their futures and what chances they had of getting jobs when they became adults.
The abject poverty suffered by most people in Swaziland was high on their agenda (seventy percent of Swazis earn less than one US dollar a day). One youngster wanted the G20 participants to visit a township to see for themselves what real life was like. Another wanted them to visit Swazi schools which are so poor children have to have lessons sitting on the floor because there is not enough furniture.
Another wanted them to visit families ravaged by the AIDS pandemic (Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world) to see how children have to become head of their families when parents and grandparents die.
If you missed the programme, click below to hear the Swazi children’s contribution. It lasts a little over three minutes.
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