The best question

I love questions, and today I was asked one of the finest questions that I remember. We had travelled to Padili, a remote tribal village close to the Rajhastan border with Gujarat, and were meeting with a group of children who were part of Save the Children’s Child Sensitive Social Protection project. I’ll tell you more about that at some point, but first to that question.

We had walked a fair distance across the fields from the community centre to meet the children from the local villages and the Save the Children volunteers at their regular meeting place. They greeted us with traditional ceremony, and were delighted when we handed over some small gifts – skipping ropes, balls, and such like. It was fantastic to see the children’s excitement as they chased bubbles, balls and balloons, and learned to skip. But then it was time to get to business and so we all sat down in a circle on the ground and we asked them questions, which they answered politely. They enjoyed going to the Save the Children run centre, they liked painting, and had made new friends. When we asked them a tougher question “What do you know about children’s rights?” a young boy answered perfectly – “Every child has the right to an education, to be healthy, to grow up safe and to be heard”. Education about children’s rights is a major piece of the Save the Children programme so it was good to hear that this is getting through. Finally we suggested that they might like to ask us some questions, and that’s when it came out.

A young girl quietly asked us “Will you play with us?”, and that changed the day. We said yes, and then decided together to play steal the handkerchief. It was fantastic fun even if the children beat the Save the Children team soundly! (But then they had practiced more recently than we had!) What a memorable moment.

Later as we drove away, I thought about what a fabulous question that was. We’d gone to meet the children and were firmly in our adult world of questions and answers. Then this young girl had the courage to say what she wanted, and things changed. What a beautiful metaphor for some of the fundamental rights of a child – to be heard, and to be a child.

That was our last visit, and a fitting climax to what has been a truly memorable trip. We left Padili and straight away started our long journey home. It’s late now and we have an early start tomorrow so I’ll leave it there for now. Tomorrow while we travel I hope I’ll have more time to tell you about the other things that we saw and learned about on today’s visits – there’s a lot still to tell.