Writing Rights: Eva Mangan (14) - Malala, Education and Knowing your Rights

Eva, (14) loves music, acting, writing and reading. She talks to us about the right to education, and how, in her opinion, it is often taken for granted. She has huge admiration for Malala Yousafzai and her story has fuelled Eva's passion about how important it is for us to know and use the rights we have.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24435564

Accompanying Music: 'Deja Vu' by Michael Gallen, Mark Gavin and Robert Hope

© West Pole Music and Management Ltd.

Fighting Words is a creative writing centre established by Roddy Doyle and Sean Love. http://www.fightingwords.ie/

Transcript below

Music.

Eva: I’m Eva, I’m 14, I’m from Stillorgan. I’ve been playing the guitar for about a year and a half now. I started off with acoustic but I didn’t really like it so I went onto electric. I am really into music. I love all sorts of bands. My favourite genre would probably be like, post-hardcore which is a little bit alternative.

I really like acting and musical theatre. I’ve always watched musicals when I was younger and I still do (*laughs) Eva; And I did a lot of musical theatre stuff with my choir last year.

I got into writing as maybe a ten year old but, I usually take other people’s experiences and kind of make them my own. So, if something happened to one of my friends, I’d pretend it happened to me and like write about it then. But, so, I kind of take it and put it into third character. I’ve always really enjoyed writing and reading. And I read so much.

Ever since the Malala story was on the news I’ve always been really interested in it because she was kind of, she wasn’t my age but she was kind of around my age. And she’s doing amazing stuff, like, she’s blogging about all of this horrible stuff that;s going on in her own country and then she got shot in the head. I really admire her. I’ve always been a big supporter of hers and the right to education would be important to me because, we completely take it for granted, in other countries girls would give their right arm to go to school and we’re here trying to get out of it early.

The right to education would be important to me because I think people should go to school, just to better themselves and for experiences. I have seen so many girls, even around Dublin who just can’t go to school and even one of my friends, she just does not go to school and she takes complete advantage of it like. They go off ditching school and everything. I think that’s, like, stupid because some girls don’t even get the opportunity to do that. In some countries it’s against the law to go to school. And people take complete advantage of that. And I think that’s a really bad thing.

I honestly didn’t know much about children’s rights until we had the workshop and the one that would stand out to me the most would be, the right to have a name. I think that is, that’s really shocking, that there is a right to have a name because clearly some people in the world, like, don’t. And the right to have love in your family as well. Cos, I’d say neglect is the worst thing that could happen to a child. There definitely is a right to know your rights. I mean, people go through life, like, not knowing them. I think you really need to and see if like, yours are being ignored or something. And yeah, I think they’re really important.

Music. Ends