This Logo which was designed twenty one years ago, remained with me unused. Now that the Developmental Paediatrics and Child Neurology department at MOSC Medical College, where I work is about to enter its tenth year in September 2021, I want to dedicate this logo to the department.
Let me go back to the days when it was designed. I wanted to create an equal footing for boys and girls knowing that parents preferred to have boys as children and girls were prevented from being born and when born families saw them as those to be given away in marriage. Girls when they grew up suffered from not getting equal opportunities in life. I was desirous to give a boy and a girl a physical posture in the logo, which would indicate a dynamic position suggesting readiness to move and be mobile into the open world of opportunities.
I dreamt of children building the world in which they live and grow up. Adults needed to view the growing up years of children at home and a school being seminal experiences through which they contribute to build the experiences at home, school, play ground, neighbourhood and wherever they are involved. Children are the epitome of creativity, innovation, originality, and exploration because of their instinct to observe, behold and create.
With the blocks available with the two children in the logo they are building the globe of the world and they have arrived half way, building on what they were given to begin. They have only a few blocks to complete their turn. They have to leave the rest to other children coming after them to continue building.
The two are situated on either side of the globe and regard the globe respectfully to which they belong. They kneel on either side of the globe to respect those millions of children, who were earlier involved in building and now leaving the space for them and others to continue. This reverential view of the task, where others were involved earlier and now given to them to be involved is a sacred expression of the devotion with which each child builds to belong to the global home.
Every child inherits and builds on it to bequeath more than what he or she inherited. All children from every corner of the world are builders in their longing to belong to a safe global home. But the logo is constrained by a square which clearly suggests that they live and build in a confined space to begin with. It is the homes where they are born which become the primary ambience of this building to belong. As they move to schools and colleges they extend this building process for more children to join in to experience a sense of belonging.
I confess that children are born into the adult's world and most of the global space on earth is occupied by adults for their pursuit of occupation and entertainment. So there is a grief all children carry that they have to stay within the designated spaces allotted to them, which is disproportionate to the number of children in the globe.
Among children of the world who are building to belong there are children form different economic backgrounds, ethnicity, abilities or disadvantages, languages, religions, way of life or orientation. They celebrate the global home they build to belong, which is theirs as much as it is of adults and other created beings.
There is also a mystical sense to this building to belong. They come together because they are being brought together by cords of love whose origin is their creator God.
They were conceived through an act of self giving love between their parents and womb of their mother became the home for them for nine months. They were in transit from the womb to their earthly home after the nine months. From their first physical home they travel further into the expanse of their inner and outer world while continuing the journey to their eternal home. Amidst the mystery of several experiences which surround and form them, they become engaged in an inner journey towards the eternal truth of God, ever present in their lives. So they build their lives and others in their company, during this mystical journey to encounter the deeper sense of belonging to each other as humans and with God as the source of their being. They given as a gift to their parents at conception. They have come beyond their parents although came into being through them. Is is this eternal mystery that would become manifest to them to Maken them know the larger purpose, for which they have been chosen to be present in the pages of human history for a while.
In a larger sense children are given to belong to their parents, while they build to belong to the humanity of which they are an inherent part.
As professionals, we are enablers for children to become aware that they already belong to their family and promote within them the calling to build to belong to the humanity, which is their home. That is how the humanity becomes a manger for all children to be born to belong!
Let children Build to Belong ! All child development activities are to enable children to Build to Belong.
M.C.Mathew(photo and text)
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