RTÉ EDUCATION: Storybook is about putting a human face to the overwhelming statistics on global child poverty. Episode one sees radio presenter Tom Dunne spends time in Sao Paolo to get to know the street children in Brazil.
Every year more than 10 million children die because they are poor – that’s 28,000 a day, 1,150 an hour, 20 every minute or one child every 5 seconds.
Storybook is about putting a human face to these staggering statistics. Four celebrity presenters travel to four different countries to see what life is like for children living there. Radio presenter Tom Dunne spends time in Sao Paolo to get to know the street children in Brazil, comedian Colin Murphy goes to Uganda a country of one million AIDS orphans, Irish Times Journalist Kathy Sheridan visits Cambodia and meets children forced into child labour and You’re A Star winner Lucia Evans travels to Burkina Faso to see how young girls survive in a male dominated society.
This is television at its most personal and moving. It will also inform and educate people about children’s lives in poor countries.
This series is about raising awareness about the real challenges that children face everyday in developing countries. It is about bringing an Irish audience right into the life of a child who is dealing with what is for us unimaginable but in reality is very common.
Episode One – Brazil
Storybook tells the story of one specific child. In Brazil with Tom Dunne, we meet Paulino and his friends who live under a railway bridge in Sao Paolo.
We see their lives – the various day-to-day struggles they face – from the mundane to the most unimaginable horrors – all part of their routine but a serious abrogation of their rights as children.