A day for the children

You all know what happens on Mother's Day; you buy the flowers and chocolates. Then there is Father's Day when you get in a six-pack of beer and promise to cut the grass. But what happens on Children's Day?

Quite a lot will be happening this year. The chance to be a Gladiator for a day, fun money-raising events for charity and even having a party in school are some of the activities schools are being encouraged to get involved in. National Children's Day this year is going nationwide from its usual focus on a parade in Dublin and it is set to take place on October 3rd. Each school by now has received an information pack detailing events and informing teachers and pupils on the ways to participate. All primary schools have been invited to enter a free draw to take part in the Young Gladiators Challenge. On September 20th, 20 schools will be selected on Network 2's Den 2 programme to meet at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght on October 2nd for a series of challenges that will no doubt leave the less able a little bruised and dazed. The Velcro Wall, a Mammoth Egg-and-Spoon race, Scaffolding Tower and Monster Basketball are some of gruelling activities that contestants will be put through.

A huge simultaneous party all over State is an activity which will appeal to children of all ages. The idea is that schools would hold the party on Sunday October 3rd and organise games around it. To get a start with the preparations, schools can apply for a free Smarties' Party Pack which contains party invitations, recipes, balloons, posters and tips on how to make it a memorable knees-up. Five schools will be chosen to host a themed party where a team from the National Children's Day will travel to the chosen schools on the day to organise their big bash.

Schools and pupils are also encouraged to organise fund-raising activities which will benefit Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, Barretstown Gang Camp in Co Kildare for children who are sick and International Orphan Aid Ireland. School bazaars, art competitions, sponsored walks, raffles, pet competitions and pupil-versus-teacher challenges in football, basketball or whatever are some of the ideas put forward in the pack to raise money.

On the day itself, the Bravery Award Recipients will be awarded certificates by the President, Mrs McAleese, and visits will also be organised to children in hospital. A team from the National Children's Day will visit hospitals armed with balloons and party gear and they may even have a celebrity or two in toe.

Sally Keaveney is the woman responsible for putting this year's National Children's Day together but she got involved in a rather haphazard way. She used to organise adoptions of children from China and in 1996 decided to have the Chinese children participate in the parade which then was the main element of National Children's Day. "The children marched along in the parade with Irish children. Neither creed nor colour mattered as they were all the same," explains Keaveney. However, the following year when she rang up to enter the children in the parade again she was told that there would be no parade. As children's expectations grew, the idea of marching up along Dublin's thoroughfares didn't hold that much appeal to young people anymore. With no parade National Children's Day, an event that has continued since 1962, was in danger of becoming extinct. She decided to step in.

"I thought `where do children go, where do they congregate?'. And school, of course, was the answer." She then set about organising a pack for schools and sponsorship for the project. Indigo and the Department of Education helped out financially.

But is there really a need for a children's day when some people think that every day is for children? Keaveney definitely thinks so. "For just 24 hours out of a whole year people can just focus on children," she says of the event that was mainly inspired to give children in orphanages a day out. "We don't have many orphanages left but we do have children who don't always have a happy time. Even privileged children need this day because their parents may be busy a lot of the time."

In addition to the fun and games that schools can organise, Sally says that children should be given breakfast in bed on October 3rd and shouldn't be made to eat their peas at dinner.

She has been "flabbergasted" by the response from schools who want to get involved and hopes the event will grow in the years to come. Will it ever become as big as Mother's Day or Father's Day? "I would hate to see it becoming a commercial day where you have to get a card and if you forget you feel obliged to run out and get something," she says. Her hope for National Children's Day is that people simply become aware of children and recognise it as one special day for them.