DAY OF AN AFRICA CHILD - 16th JUNE

"The Day of the African Child is celebrated on 16 June in recognition of the day when, in 1976, thousands of black school children in Soweto, South Africa, took to the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured."
UNICEF

The Day of the African Child is a day to fight for the cause of children in trouble: the AIDS orphans, child soldiers and impoverished youth who will inherit the continent.

As many as 50,000 African children under the age of five will lose their lives as the result of preventable or curable diseases. And as many as 38 million children of primary school age in Africa still remain out of school.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY

June the 16th is Bloomsday when Ireland celebrates the life of James Joyce. Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere in the world to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and recall the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. Joyce chose the date because his first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle happened on that day. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses.

James Joyce lived for a time in Martello Tower situated beside the Forty Foot bathing place at Sandycove, a small village 7 miles south of Dublin. The opening scene of Joyce's Ulysses is set in this tower, which now hosts a small Joycean museum. Its people celebrate it with readings, music, songs, walking tours, and of course eating and drinking.