About

Currently some 300,000 children around the world are being denied their childhood. Often kidnapped from their homes and forced into armed conflicts as both combatants and sexual slaves, these are the child soldiers and their story is rarely told. While issues like HIV/AIDS and global poverty are given such a public arena, many of us students, are completely unaware of this other reality in which children our age are forced to kill. Our goal is to begin by telling their story.

History:CHILD(not)SOLDIER was created in December, 2006 by several students from New York University during their freshmen year, inspired by a professor, Elisabeth Lindenmayer, and her harrowing experiences in peacekeeping as former Assistant Secretary General under Kofi Annan. They have since received grant funding from Youth Venture and mtvU, and recognition and support from NYU, Invisible Children, Global Goods Partners, and the 2008 MIT Global Poverty Initiative.