Let’s Make Our Environment Safe for Our Kids

The life of Barak Houry, 12, was tragically cut short when he was run over on his bike; his family is intent on fulfilling his dream: creating an automated fire-fighting device (Times of Israel)

This 12-year old may have been one of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs!

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the family of this incredible boy who was run over by a drunk driver (just a mile or so from my home) on Yom Kippur – a day when there are no cars on the road in Israel (except emergency vehicles), and the kids go wild riding their bikes on the highways.

Thank you Ricky Ben-David and The Times of Israel for this stunning feature.

I totally understand his parents not wanting to give up on his BIG DREAM to develop an automated fire-fighting robot.

He didn’t want any help from experts and developed the prototype all by himself – talk about innovation.

A fundraiser was created to bring his project to life and so far it’s raised $127K.

We still don’t fully grasp how much the next generation has to contribute to making our world a better place.

Barak Houry was on a swim team with my friend’s son – so this last week I’ve been commenting to every kid riding by me on a bike – be careful, slow down, etc.

I know from experience that there is nothing more painful than watching a parent bury a child. I watched my parents lose two beautiful sisters of mine – also very talented and loved by all.

So what is the point of this post?

Apart from keeping his memory alive, and promoting this example of the kind of environment kids need to flourish in?

What I really want to say is –

We are all responsible for the environment our kids grow up in.

We can blame the government, the education system, the ministry of health, social media, and the list goes on and on.

But at the end of the day – there is no one to blame except ourselves.

We are all complicit to this environment where a grown man felt compelled to hop into his car while under the influence, on a day when no one is going anywhere in our little country.

We need to wake up and stop expecting someone else to take control of the situation for us – no one is coming.

It’s up to each and every one of us to put a lot more energy into creating a better environment for our kids to flourish in.

If we each do what we can, imagine what a beautiful world our kids can grow up in.

Our environment is everything – it defines everything about us.

We really need to think long and hard about what we’re putting into our environment every single day, and what we can do differently.