Promoting the well-being of our future generations

Four hundred teddy bears have been donated to First Nations children in remote Western Australia following an event organised to coincide with International Children’s Day. 

Held in collaboration with the Western Australia Multicultural Lions Club and supported by the Melville Baha’i children’s classes and surrounding community, the event featured a keynote address that focused on the theme ‘Children: The Promise of the Future’ and highlighted the role society, parents and institutions needed to play in promoting the spiritual and material well-being of children everywhere. 

The program also included prayers offered by the local Anglican Church Reverend, with children from the Baha’i classes clothed in traditional dress and participating in the devotional program. 

With local dignitaries present, and the event covered by the local media, organising task force member Neda Meshgin said it was a great opportunity to engage in public discourses and raise awareness of an issue impacting humanity while collaborating with like-minded organisations.

“The Baha’is consider children to be the most precious treasure in our communities, and the promise of our future,” she said when interviewed by WAMN news.

“And so because of that we actually see them as the responsibility of everyone in the community.

“We’re really excited that we’re actually co-sponsoring this event with the WA Multicultural Lions Club, and in the lead up to this event and up to the first of June, they are actually collecting teddy bears that they will be donating to disadvantaged children in rural and remote Western Australia.”

Motivated by a desire to apply the Baha’i teachings on social transformation to the progress of their neighbourhoods, Baha’is around the world are engaging in projects and activities, both long-term and short-term, where social action and engagement in prevalent discourses are leading to the strengthening of communities.

The following is a poem recently written by an individual in Perth when reflecting on the concepts of building community and children being integral to the process: