Air pollution affecting the children
CHILDREN'S EMBASSY DETSKA AMBASADA
Founder&President at FIRST CHILDREN'S EMBASSY IN THE WORLD MEGJASHI MACEDONIA
? What kind of work does The Children’s Embassy do?
The First Children's Embassy in the World MEGJASHI is the oldest civic organization in the Republic of Macedonia to protect the rights of the child, established on 29 April, 1992 by Gordana Pirkovska Zmijanac and Dragi Zmijanac. Megjashi advocates and protects children's rights, stands for responsible parenthood and respect for the child's personality. Megjashi continuously works on the strengthening of the civil movement for children’s rights and functionality of the institutions in the best interests of the child. Embassy promotes peace activism and volunteerism, developing active citizenship based on the principle of nonviolence.
With its activities Megjashi has contributed to the development and strengthening of the civic awareness for the children's rights. It has broken the silence of children's suffering, especially physical, sexual and economic abuse of the children, revealing many cases of abuse to the public and directly engaging in establishing effective mechanisms to protect the children.
As a result of the extremely dedicated and hard work during its 27 years of existence, Megjashi has grown into a worldwide known and recognized organization for children’s protection and children's rights in general.
In the previous period (1992-2019) the Embassy pursues its activity acting in the following areas: psycho-social, legal and other kinds of assistance to children who need help with a particular emphasis on the marginalized groups of children; monitoring of the children's rights and promotion of the rights of the child in the Republic of Macedonia and abroad; taking initiatives to promote the legislation to protect children in the Republic of Macedonia and its implementation, as well as activities for peace building and nonviolent conflict resolution. These domains remain of primary interest in the following period.
[https://www.childrensembassy.org.mk/home.nspx]
? What is your work concerning the topic of pollution?
One of the first activities that First Children’s Embassy in the World Megjashi took concerning the pollution were urgent measures for air pollution legislative changes to reduce pollution. Since 2016 Megjashi took actions regarding this issue. It is crucial for Megjashi that the Members of the Parliament vote the legislative changes and reduce the permissible threshold of air pollution with dangerous particles. The Children's Embassy Megjashi requires the permissible limits of PM 10 and PM 2.5 to not exceed more than 75 micrograms per cubic meter and not as now when the limit is up to 200 and the government takes emergency measures when the situation is alarming. In the video below, you can see some of the demands that Megjashi was working on and asking for the government to took urgent measures regarding the air pollution.
Another work that Megjashi was actively working on was with teachers from elementary and high schools in order to raise the awareness about the issue of air pollution in the schools. Most importantly, during work with the professors, our goal is to coach the professors to take activities in the schools regarding the air pollution. Together with Eco Guerilla in Tetovo and the organization Majka I Dete, Megjashi participated in taking actions against the air pollution. Through many Facebook groups we were able to observe the work of the teachers and encourage each other on the network by sharing pictures or videos. Many activities in the schools appeared after the seminars that Megjashi organized. For example, in Debar the children together with the professor were asking for stations in order to measure the pollution since they were not able to check how much their city is polluted.
And many more other activities like dance theaters, campaigns concerning the air pollution, march and boycotts. In the link below you can see some of the activities that Megjashi actively took. Another campaign that we made was together with Dvizenje za cist vozduh to raise awareness about the air pollution.
? How is the pollution affecting the children of Skopje and Macedonia?
Every second child is treated for respiratory diseases that are usually a direct consequence of polluted air. Air pollution, environment and nature pollution is a crime and for the consequences for the health of children should be responsible by all those who have directly contributed and are responsible for the situation. Children are most affected, especially in winter when the concentration of PM 2.5 and 10 particles is increased. Children are more sensitive than adults to indoor and outdoor air pollution because their lungs, brain and immune system are still developing, and their respiratory tract is more porous. Children in early childhood development are powerless to change anything. The Republic of Macedonia, as a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is obliged to enable children to live and develop.
Children have right to clean air. Children have right to a healthy environment. Air pollution is one of the major causes of child mortality. Allergies, asthma, bronchitis and many other respiratory diseases, these are just a few of the health consequences of children as a result of enormously polluted air. Air pollution is one of the major causes of child mortality. With pollution, children are deprived of their most basic right to life.
The state should undertake something to protect the most vulnerable, children in the Republic of Macedonia. What is worrying, there is no safe level of pollution. Respectively, a high concentration of PM 10 and PM 2.5 micrograms per cubic meter is permitted. Air pollution affects not only children but also adults, about 3,500 people die every year in Macedonia due to diseases caused by polluted air, big industrial polluters should be detected and to be sanctioned.
https://www.facebook.com/detskaambasadamegjashi/videos/275666143133383/
? How is the organization helping these children?
Despite the actions that we mentioned in the previous questions, we also urged the international community to help the struggle for life and solve the pollution problem. We also addressed to all members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child at the UN in Geneva and asked for help in resolving this situation of violation of the elementary rights of the child protected by both the Constitution of our country and the Convention on the Rights of the Child - the right to life.
Unfortunately, the child's health is not a priority in Macedonia. When in conditions of high concentration of carcinogenic particles PM 10 and 2.5 micrograms per cubic meter and last all winter above the permitted 40 mg / m3 limit value according to European standards, what can you conclude? When the measuring stations show high thresholds of 200, 300, 400, 500 and more mg / m3 PM10 and 2.5 and last for the whole winter, we can conclude that the right to life of children is questioned!
“We are here to raise our voice and say that we cannot do it any more like this,” Dragi Zmijanac, a representative of a children’s rights organization Megjashi, told a local television station covering the protest. Some studies have suggested that Macedonia’s reliance on coal power in particular is shaving years off of residents’ lives. “The seriousness of the number of sick children,” he added, “is too high, and not only the central government, but also the local self-government must take urgent measures — short-term and long-term — to save the children.”
https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/ancient-valleys-macedonia-pall-air-pollution
? What are the typical consequences from pollution?
While the report from the European Environment Agency shows that the number of people who die in Macedonia from the polluted air is 3500 people per year. As a direct consequence of the high doses of carcinogenic particles in the air in Macedonia, we have over 3 000 premature deaths.
Polluted air is one of the biggest factors for child mortality and must be prevented immediately. Children are the most sensitive group because they have an organism in development and faster breathing, and thus faster introduction of contaminated substances in the body. Children are more vulnerable than adults of internal and external air pollution because their lungs, brain and immune system are still developing, and their respiratory tract is more dangerous. Every child has the right to life. The state must keep an eye on how children and young people can develop well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=72&v=FnFPviKuyFE&feature=emb_title
? Do you see any benefits from joining the European Union regarding solving the pollution issue?
What needs to be urgently done is legal changes to reduce the alarm threshold and activate emergency measures to save the lives of children in Macedonia. I think MPs must be mobile, require legal changes to reduce the high threshold of 200 mg / m3 to 40 mg / m3 permitted limit value, according to European standards. Lawmakers should require the threshold of information for PM10 particles to be 50 micrograms per cubic meter, and no higher than 75 micrograms per microgram per cubic meter, two days consecutively. The alert threshold should be set at 50 micrograms per cubic meter.
The limit values that are the most stringent rules in the European Union legislation for air pollution levels define that the daily limit of the presence of PM 10 particles must not exceed 40 micrograms per cubic meter. There is no safe level of pollution in Macedonia.
? Do you see any benefits from joining the European Union regarding children rights in Macedonia?
Every child has right to life. The state must keep an eye on how children and young people can develop well. That is why, a one year ago, we formed a parliamentary lobby group composed of MPs from the Commissions for Labor and Social Policy and Education and Science, in order that Parliament as a central institution that can shape and implement laws that promote the rights of children, to actualize problems in the Parliament which are of vital importance to children, which are important for children, to urge the government and relevant segments of society to report of what is done first for the health of children and their rights and to advocate the interest and voice of the children. We set up a parliamentary lobby group for children's rights in order to facilitate the implementation processes of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Macedonia, as well as to legally improve and implement the rights of children in practice.
We are calling upon The Committee on the Rights of the Child to closely monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Republic of Macedonia and to urge the government to protect children life’s by overtaking measures for reduction of pollution and creation of enabling environment for realization of the children rights and potentials.
The Republic of Macedonia, as a signatory of all international human rights protection documents, has an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights. This obligation requires the state to undertake appropriate legal, administrative, budgetary, judicial and other measures in the direction of the full realization of human rights. In that direction, we call upon the state to fulfill the obligations regarding respecting the fundamental right, THE RIGHT OF LIFE, introducing measures for the reduction of pollution that directly affect the health of people and their lives.
Macedonia has perfect conditions for using renewable energy sources. It is necessary to accelerate with gasification, to abolish VAT for central heating, pellet stoves, to completely replace the buses with new electric vehicles or gas, free public transport in winter using an environmentally friendly bus and definitely stricter inspection of industry (A & B permits) and investment in filters.