Perhaps tolerance is a simple as following the teaching of Jesus to "Treat others as you'd like to be treated!"
A PRAYER FOR TODAY
While the United Nations designates today an International Day for Tolerance,
we know that you, God of all people, call us to something higher,
to something beyond mere tolerance.
We pray that you would enable and empower us to be people of love and compassion,
who actively seek the good of the other and work to to that day when people from all tribes and tongues might come together in peace, embracing and delighting in our differences.
4.2 billion people live without safely managed sanitation – more than half the global population. (WHO/UNICEF 2019)
673 million people still practise open defecation worldwide. (WHO/UNICEF 2019)
Today, at least 2 billion people will have to use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. (WHO 2019)
Inadequate sanitation is estimated to cause 432,000 diarrhoeal deaths every year and is a major factor in diseases such as intestinal worms, trachoma and schistosomiasis. (WHO 2019)
297,000 children under five are estimated to die each year from diarrhoea as a result of unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hand hygiene. (WHO 2019)
All of the above is not because we don't have the technology! After all, human beings went to the Moon over 50 years ago! Do we, and the governments who serve us, need to re-align some priorities?
Let's spend a few moments imagining what it must feel like not to have a toilet.
What might you have to do if there was no toilet available?
Why might this have a disproportionate effect on females?
What are the possible consequences of not having a toilet?
A PRAYER FOR TODAY (from CAFOD)
Loving God,
we pray for a world of justice
where everyone has access to
a toilet and clean water.
May all our sisters and brothers throughout the world
Welcome to World Children's Day! This used to be called Universal Children's Day but the day has been re-branded!
This day was set up in 1954 by the United Nations. In 1959, the UN agreed its Declaration on the Rights of the Child. In 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Child became the most widely ratified international human rights treaty, setting out a number of children’s rights including:
the right to life,
to health,
to education
to play,
to family life,
to be protected from violence,
to not be discriminated,
and to have their views heard.
Here's a short but brilliant video (1 min 17 secs) from the children of Yemen!
Here's another video clip (2 mins 54 secs) which gives a bit more information and which includes one particularly surprising fact about a country which does not give its children the same rights as others around the world!