SENATE
                           Final Reading
                        May 9, 2011First Regular Session
              Sixty-eighth General Assembly
                    STATE OF COLORADO
                                                  ENGROSSED
                                                           
                                                           
 LLS NO. R11-0920.01 Beth Treat                   SJR11-047
                   SENATE SPONSORSHIP
 Shaffer B., 
 
                    HOUSE SPONSORSHIP
 Hamner, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Senate Committees
 House Committees
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                  SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 11-047 
       Concerning recognition of extraordinary contributions of
            children to the world.
       
       
            WHEREAS, Young people have been a part of all the crucial
       episodes of our American history, having sailed with Columbus, served
       as go-betweens for English colonists and Indians, toiled as indentured
       servants, been kidnapped into slavery, fought in the American Revolution
       and the Civil War, labored in coal mines and factories, and stood at the
       forefront of the Civil Rights movement; and
       
            WHEREAS, In addition, certain children have made unique and
       lasting personal contributions in history that have changed the world, such
       as:
       
                 Louis Braille, who in 1824 at age 15, while living at the
                 National School for Blind Youth in Paris, invented a simple
                 system that allowed people who are blind to read and write, 
                 using patterns of six raised dots, inspired after having had
                 a French military battlefield code demonstrated to him;
       
                 Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank, a German-born Jewish girl
                 from the city of Frankfurt, who gained international fame
                 posthumously following the publication of her diary, begun
                 when she was 13 years old, which documents her
                 experiences hiding during the German occupation of the
                 Netherlands in World War II and has been acknowledged
                 for the quality of her writing, and which has become one of
                 the most renowned literary records of Holocaust victims;
       
                 Ruby Nell Bridges Hall, who in 1960, when she was 6
                 years old, after her parents responded to a call from the
                 National Association for the Advancement of Colored
                 People and volunteered her to participate in the integration
                 of the New Orleans school system, became the first
                 African-American child to attend an all-white elementary
                 school in the South; and
       
            WHEREAS, Young people continue to make life-changing
       differences in the lives of children around the world, as recognized by the
       International Children's Peace Prize, awarded each year since 2005 to a
       young person who has made a significant contribution to improving the
       situation of the world's vulnerable children, such as orphans, child
       laborers, and children with HIV/AIDS, the first such prize having been
       awarded posthumously to Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy infected
       with HIV, who brought international attention to children with HIV/AIDS
       and who, along with his adoptive mother, founded the Nkosi's Haven
       home for HIV-positive mothers and children; and
       
            WHEREAS, To help children perceive their own strengths and to
       understand their own potentialities, it is important that they be aware of
       other children who have had a positive and inspirational impact on the
       world; now, therefore,
       
            Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Sixty-eighth General Assembly
       of the State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein:
       
            That we, the members of the Colorado General Assembly, hereby:
       
            (1)  Recognize the strength, resiliency, courage, and potential
       inherent in children, especially those faced with extreme difficulties,
       dangers, or challenges;
       
            (2)  Remember and applaud the extraordinary achievements that
       children have made in history and that they continue to make today;
       
            (3)  Encourage families, schools, and community organizations to
       include in their conversations, educational activities, and studies, as
       appropriate, examples of outstanding achievements of children; and
       
            (4)  Declare the first week of October 2011 as Children's History
       Week in Colorado.