Roméo Dallaire

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing an amazing man speak.

A senator, the Lieutenant-General, the Assistant Deputy Minister in the Department of National Defence, an author, the recipient of the Officer of Order of Canada, the Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec and the Aegis Award for Genocide Prevention. That is quite a mouth full; but that doesn't even do him justice.

After the incredible speech was over, I found myself speechless. This man had so much to say, and said it with such passion that I was lost in thought. After a lot of thinking and processing, I can now say that what I heard last night was nothing but astonishing.

If you've ever seen "Hotel Rwanda", Nick Nolte played the part of the Canadian general in charge of the United Nations Mission to Rwanda, also known as Roméo Dallaire. How a single man can be such a huge part of ending the Rwandan Genocide and how one man can have such a strong voice for children who have none, I will never know.

" I am dedicating the rest of my life to eradicating the use of child soldiers and eliminating even the thought of using children as instruments of war." - Roméo Dallaire

The general theme of the evening was about how this generation and is in an era where we think of our society as progressing. Because we are putting so much emphasis on the environment and making sustainable choices we think that we are doing the world so much good. But why are we worrying about the environment when just over that little pond called the Atlantic Ocean there are hundreds, thousands and millions of children being used as instruments of war? And why are we worrying so much about our environment and not worrying at all that at any moment an atomic bomb could explode and kill masses of people? Why are we saying as a society that we are progressing, when 80% of human population live in poverty? Us, the 20% of the population who are lucky to live in righteous conditions, we need to do something for that other 80%. Whether that be go overseas and work firsthand with children and families affected by war, or whether that looks like writing a one-line email to your MP every day, encouraging them to do something about these horrid issues.

The part of the presentation that got to me the most was when Roméo described a memory of his. He said he'd never forget the time that he was in Rwanda; him and a few peace keepers were driving through a town where they got out, only to see dead bodies everywhere. Amongst all the lifeless bodies, there was a boy; covered in dirt, surrounded by flies and looked like he hadn't eaten in days. It was when Roméo looked into this boys eyes that he realized those were the same eyes of his 7 year old son he had left at home. That young boy living in these wretched conditions is just as much of a child as all the kids in Canada that have a home, a family and a school. No human is any better, or more important than the next, and in North America if there was an amber alert for any child, we would respond in an instance. So this is the question: if we saw our kids in a condition such those that the African children are in, we would act on it. Why aren't we helping these people who need our help? They are no less human than we are.

It really makes you think.

In a way I feel guilty, but I know that's not the message Roméo wanted to give.

Join Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire’s Zero Force, the global movement of everyday people united by a common goal — ­ to ensure that no child is ever again used as an instrument of war.
"Even one child soldier is too many."
Enlist at: http://www.blogger.com/www.zeroforce.org