The right to choose...

I live in a country where school is obligatory for everybody until 16. It is so normal for our children to go to school that they even complain about it! They don't know that in many countries, children don't go to school, and especially girls. In some countries, girls who are the age of my daughter already work. What kind of life is this? What kind of world? It literally wakes me up at night to think about these children who are made to work or those who are used to fight or left alone by themselves because their entire family died of AIDS and there is no place for them, little girls who are used for prostitution, or just forced to stay at home to cook and clean at an age where they should be playing and learning.


This is why every year since it started, I very modestly contribute to give little girls a better living, by buying candles "La flamme Marie-Claire" which I offer to my mother as a gift on Mother's Day. Flowers fade anyway, chocolates go in one day... 

Through this, the organisation "Toutes à l'école" collects money to build schools so that little girls can get education in countries like Cambodia or Afghanistan. This project was initiated by the Marie-Claire magazine (a kind of French Elle Magazine). On the candles is written: Tomorrow I will be an educated woman. The idea is that if those little girls have a chance to go to school and get a proper academic education, they will be able later to have a job that they like and that will provide money for them and their family, instead of staying at home or working for very cheap in fields, for instance. I love this idea. I love thinking about these girls, how proud they must be to go to school, how eager to learn and how suddenly there is a future for them, at least there is a dream. And even if things don't go perfect for all of them, it is still a great initiative.

So if you are living in France, just know that these candles will be for sale only up to the 30th of June, so don't wait, buy one (4 euros, in stores like Monoprix) or several and give them as gifts to your friends  or keep them for your house (they smell good too).

And I can't resist to show you these beautiful portraits of little girls from "La flamme Marie-Claire" that I found there.

Like I said yesterday, there is nothing more precious to watch than joyful children. And everybody should have the right to choose their lives...