Focus is on Child Issues Getting Little Attention in 2008 Presidential Campaign.
GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As part of a series of educational forums preceding the final Presidential Debate at Hofstra University, a town hall meeting focusing on children's issues in America will be held here the afternoon of Tuesday (October 14th), one day before the Presidential debate. A morning news event will be held on the same day.
The town hall meeting will feature a prestigious national panel and an audience of local experts. The event will take place from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. at the Long Island Children's Museum, 11 Davis Avenue, Garden City, NY. Titled "Putting Children on the Political Agenda," the event will follow a media availability from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
The town hall panel will explore reasons why there has been so little focus on children during the presidential debates, highlight the most pressing issues facing children in America, and explain how our institutions help or impede our ability to create effective programs to help children succeed.
Panelists will include Michael Petit, president, Every Child Matters Education Fund, the national campaign to promote children's issues during this election season, as well as National Women's Law Center Founder and Co-President Nancy Duff Campbell; National Council of La Raza Education and Children's Policy Project Associate Director Miriam Calderon; Hofstra University Dean of Education and Allied Human Services David Foulk; and Forum for Youth Investment Executive Director Karen Pittman. The panel moderator will be Dana Friedman, executive director of the Early Years Institute.
Earlier in the same day, a related news conference will be held at 10 a.m. at the Long Island Children's Museum highlighting the local campaign in Long Island and draw attention to the children's hands project and voter pledge cards.
The hands and voter pledge cards represent the voice of children and the adults who are going to pay attention to issues and policies that affect children, youth and families. This event will serve as a call to action to all in attendance and to the presidential candidates to stop just saying they are going to do something for children, and work to make those demands a reality. More than 24,000 hand tracings from children have been collected by hundreds of youth organizations and government agencies across Long Island, and will be presented to local representatives of the McCain and Obama campaigns during the events. Every Child Matters has also distributed 2,500 voter pledge cards to parents who have promised to consider voting for those candidates who make children, youth and family policies a priority.
Throughout the day between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., there will be various ongoing civic-related activities for children and parents in the lobby of the museum. These include: a hand tracing station for children to provide a visual representation that their voice matters; a face painting station; a "wacky Hats" station for children to make their own Uncle Sam-style hats; a voting station for children to learn about voting and vote for their favorite character or museum exhibit; and a "Show of Hands" bus, for children to videotape a message to their political leaders.
The Every Child Matters Education Fund has formed statewide coalitions in all four states hosting presidential and vice presidential debates to bring together children, parents, educators, care-givers, advocates and families concerned about the status of children's issues in our country, and to raise their voices to encourage the media and the candidates to address these issues.
Additionally, over 30 national groups around the country have joined in the call for the candidates to explain how they plan to work towards improving the investment our country makes in its children's welfare and the media to ask the tough questions about children's issues of the candidates. Every Child Matters has conducted print and online advertising to reinforce these issues, conducted a public education campaign, done online advocacy and reached out directly to both candidates and to the debate moderators.
BACKGROUND: THE KEY CHILD ISSUES
How critical are the issues now being ignored? A recent UNICEF survey placed the U.S. 20th among 21 economically advanced nations in terms of overall child-well being. Yet the national tragedy suffered by millions of America's most vulnerable children is so far largely "invisible" in the 2008 election, while other issues dominate the headlines.
The Every Child Matter's publication Homeland Insecurity discusses the 13 million American children who live in poverty, more than eight million without health insurance, and three million reported abused or neglected. Nearly two out of five (39 percent) of America's 73 million children now live in low-income families, with almost one in five children (18 percent) living below the official poverty line. White children account for 39 percent of low-income children, while 61 percent of black children and Hispanic children live in low-income families. The U.S. has the second-worst child poverty rate (after Mexico) among 26 of the world's most affluent nations.
To underscore the serious and worsening circumstances facing millions of U.S. children, ECM calculates that, in the seven years since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001, roughly 28,000 U.S. children have died as a result of child abuse, suicide or homicide; 20 million American children were reported as abused; 1,135,000 more American children are in poverty; 4,450,000 additional Americans and their families have no health insurance; and 300,000 people, many of them with young children, were added to the U.S. prison population.
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