英語美文名人勵志故事61:奧黛麗·赫本給聯(lián)合國工作人員做演講的故事
61. Audrey Hepburn's Statement to Mem1ers of the United Nations Staff
61. 奧黛麗·赫本對聯(lián)合國工作人員的演講稿
So today I speak for those children who cannot speak for themselves: children who are going blind through lack of vitamins; children who are slowly being mutilated by polio; children who are wasting away in so many ways through lack of water; for the estimated 100 million street children in this world who have no choice but to leave home in order to survite, who have absolutely nothing but their courage and their smiles and their dreams; for children who have no enemies yet are invariably the first tiny victims of war---wars what are no longer confined to the battlefield but which are being waged through terror and intimidation and massacre——children who are therefore growing up surrounded by the horrors of violence for the hundreds of thousands of children who are refugees.
因此，今天我是為那些不能為他們自己要求什么的兒童們說話：我為因為缺乏維生素而失明的兒童們、為正在被骨髓灰質炎傷害的兒童們、為因為缺乏飲用水而日漸衰弱的兒童們說話;我為世界上大約一億流浪兒童說話，他們?yōu)榱松姹黄入x開家庭，他們除了勇氣、微笑和夢想之外一無所有;我為戰(zhàn)爭中被傷害的兒童說話，他們沒有任何敵人，但是在戰(zhàn)火中卻永遠最先受到傷害?，F(xiàn)在的戰(zhàn)爭不再僅限于戰(zhàn)場，恐怖和屠殺正在各地蔓延。成千上萬的兒童成為了難民，因此也在暴力恐怖的陰影下長大。
The task that lies ahead for UNICEF is ever greater, whether it be repatriating millions of children in Afghanistan or teaching children how to play who have only learned how to kill. Charles Dickens wrote, "In their little world, in which children have their existence, nothing is so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice." Injustice which we can avoid by giving more of ourselves, yet we often hesitate in the face of such apocalyptic tragedy. Why, when the way and the low-cost means are there to safeguard and protect these children? It is for leaders, parents, and young people-young people, who have the purity of heart which age sometimes tends to obscure-to remember their own childhood and come to the rescue of those who start life against such heavy odds.
擺在聯(lián)合國兒童基金會面前的任務，無論是把幾百萬阿富汗難民兒童遣返，還是要教會這些只見過死亡的孩子們游戲，都是史無前例的艱巨。查理斯·狄更斯說過：“在他們自我存在的小世界里，沒有什么比不公正更容易被兒童們感知和察覺。”我們可以通過更多的投入來避免不公平的現(xiàn)象，但是面對著這樣不可避免的悲劇時，我們常常望而卻步。為什么，選擇采用低成本的方式來保護這些兒童?領導人、父母和年輕人——年輕人擁有尚未被歲月模糊掉的純凈的心靈一一應該記住他們自己的童年時代，應該去解救那些生下來就面臨沉重負擔的兒童。
