The State of the World's Children, 2006.

In UNICEF's 2006 State of the World's Children report: titled Excluded and Invisible, Anne Veneman, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), aptly describes the many children around the world who are without adequate access to education, life-saving vaccines, and protection as excluded and "invisible" (p. vii). Even if the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)* are achieved by 2015, millions of children who are poor, vulnerable, exploited, and abused will be overlooked. These children are the poorest of the world's poor. They are abandoned, uneducated, and neglected. They live without adults, protection, or health services. Worst of all, they lack any official identity, thus further alienating them from any meager services that might be available. The world does not even know they exist, let alone know they are suffering. They are ignored and then forgotten.

These children are 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds living in nightmares of hazardous forced labor. They are street children with no hope. They are child soldiers and sex slaves who are kidnapped and caught during the atrocities of armed conflict. They are young adolescents, 11 or 12 years old, who are suddenly responsible for younger siblings and cousins within communities where HIV/AIDS has "stolen" the remnants of any caring adults. They are left out and are isolated because of their gender, ethnicity, or disability. They are displaced refugees who are forever separated from their families. There is nothing worse, absolutely nothing worse, than being alone in the world--totally alone--and young.

What can YOU do? The first step is to make the UNICEF site at www.unicef.org your home page. Learn more about the lives of our world's children. Just knowing about them is the first step. The second step is to speak up where you are, with your colleagues or the children you teach. Inform others. The third step is to visit ACEI's new Web link, Equipping Teachers for Advocacy, at www.acei.org to discover excellent classroom resources designed to support your own advocacy efforts on behalf of the "excluded and invisible."

We wish you well and invite you to share your stories of advocacy with us.

* The MDGs call on all nations of the world to: 1) eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, 2) achieve universal primary education, 3) promote gender equality and empower women, 4) reduce child mortality, 5) improve maternal health, 6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, 7) ensure environmental stability, and 8) develop a global partnership for development.

Your ACEI representatives to the UN, Lynn Staley, Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk, and Nancy Brown