In August, we celebrated both International Youth Day and World Humanitarian Day. Unfortunately, for many young people across the world, these simply merged into one. How can Youth Day be a celebration when in Sudan five high-school students were shot dead and more than 60 wounded, some by snipers, when they rallied against fuel and bread shortages?
Last month, students across the world were marching the streets fighting for their right to education and for our freedoms, democracy and human rights. In Hong-Kong, youth started a mass movement. In Brazil, in a climate of threats, censorship and attacks on the right to education and democratic institution, students and youth alongside teachers’ unions and civil society organisations are leading the struggle against an increasingly repressive government. (Read this powerful blog by Andressa Pellanda and Gabriel Morais of the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education).
In Algeria, students are entering their 25th week of mobilisation, tirelessly demanding a regime change and democracy. In Nicaragua, students have resumed their protests in spite of the ban imposed since last September, and in Colombia, youth are actively protesting against the killing of activists.