“All the Children Are Well”

A Masai greeting, a cleft palate, the education of girls, and global warming … What’s the bullying connection? Two stories of empowerment. 

A Masai Woman and Child

In Karl Schonborn’s touching novel, Cleft Heart—chasing normal, a young man born with a cleft palate tries to figure out his place in the world, confronting prejudice, bullying, and violence. Bullied for unintelligible speech, he grows up to become a star debater at Yale.

Karl, who blogs about the connection between bullying and violent crime, will be publishing excerpts from The Bullying Antidote‘s first chapter this fall. The chapter, “All the Children Are Well,” uses a Masai saying as a lens to explore our cultural problems.

Sadly, Masai children are not all well, either. Girls are circumcised between 11 and 13, and forced into marriage with men of any age and become mothers when they are still children. Fortunately, their situation is improving as more girls become educated. (And did you know education of girls and women is one of the top three things we can do worldwide to reverse Climate Change?).

Click here to support the Masai Girl’s Education Fund.

Karl calls The Bullying Antidote “an in-depth trove of easy-to-implement strategies in abuse prevention.”

You can read his blog series here.