March 16, 2020
April 10, 1979 (Olympia, Washington) ~ March 16, 2003 (Rafah, Gaza Strip)
Thirty years ago, when Rachel Corrie was 10 years old, she held a press conference on World Hunger.
Here is her statement:
Fifth Grade Press Conference on World Hunger
By Rachel Corrie, aged 10 (1990)
I’m here for other children.
I’m here because I care.
I’m here because children everywhere are suffering and because forty thousand people die each day from hunger.
I’m here because those people are mostly children.
We have got to understand that the poor are all around us and we are ignoring them.
We have got to understand that these deaths are preventable.
We have got to understand that people in third world countries think and care and smile and cry just like us.
We have got to understand that they dream our dreams and we dream theirs.
We have got to understand that they are us. We are them.
My dream is to stop hunger by the year 2000.
My dream is to give the poor a chance.
My dream is to save the 40,000 people who die each day.
My dream can and will come true if we all look into the future and see the light that shines there.
If we ignore hunger, that light will go out.
If we all help and work together, it will grow and burn free with the potential of tomorrow.
(Thanks to Judy Robbins for bringing 10-year-old Rachel’s poem to our attention.)
Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice