Too Young for This

While travelling to college, I noticed a school student waiting by the roadside.

He was wearing a mask, covering one ear, and holding his phone close to the other because the noise from the traffic was so loud that he could barely hear.

It was an ordinary moment, yet it left an extraordinary impression on me. Children should be walking to school with excitement, enjoying the fresh morning air and the sounds of birds.

Instead, many of them begin their day surrounded by vehicle emissions and constant traffic noise.

Seeing him made me realize that pollution is not only something we breathe.

It is also something we hear and experience every single day. A child should never have to protect themselves from the environment they are growing up in.

Clean air and a peaceful surrounding should not be privileges.

They should be the basic conditions every child grows up with.

That single moment reminded me that creating a healthier environment is also about protecting childhood itself.