University of North Carolina Center for Global Initiatives

Within 2 days in early November, my 8th grade daughter saw UNC Playmakers’ The Parchman Hour and CGI’s Visualizing Human Rights anti-conference. Inspired, she wrote this poem about human rights:

 

But You and I are really just the same 

By Sophie Steiner

 

I would get on a bus

A bus for Human Rights

So that every person

Can live with no

Abuse or violence

So that girls can

Live with no

Harm

That boys can

Share the wealth

So that every human

Is equal

And no one

Is at a loss

I would get on a bus

And travel

I will stand

On my own two feet

And I will support myself

If no one else does

I will get on a bus

For Human Rights

Hunger carves a hole

In two opposite people

The people of power

Of gold and wealth

And the people of nothing

Nothing to live for

No food or water

People talk and talk

About changing

What are they going to change?

Travel and listen

Don’t sit and talk

I would get on a bus for

Human rights

So that every human can

Live without a hole

Of hunger

I would get on a bus

For Human Rights because

The empty, dark hole

Needs to be filled with

Light, music and art

So that every word

Can be heard

And no one is ignored

And there is no empty hole

Everyone talks but no one

Does

Will you?