What children miss most while confined to home
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Nasya Danial Cheng poses for a photograph while holding a picture that she drew as she stands by a window at her home in Choa Chu Kang on April 18, 2020.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Standing at the window of her grandparents' Housing Board flat in Choa Chu Kang, eight-year-old Nasya Danial Cheng poses with a drawing that shows what she misses most as she stays indoors amid the coronavirus outbreak.
In the poster, she drew her friends, her school library, and going out to shop with her family.
Nasya also penned her appreciation to healthcare workers, whom she says are heroes, and said she prays for the many people who are sick.
"I am happy because I get to see my family every day, but at the same time sad, because I don't get to go out," said Nasya, a pupil from Woodlands Primary School.
Many workplaces have closed and schools have moved to full home-based learning since the Government implemented its circuit breaker measures from April 7 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Around the world, scores of children have also been confined to their homes as their countries battle the coronavirus pandemic.
Nasya was among a number of children featured in a photo essay by Reuters news agency.
From Tokyo to Buenos Aires, and New York to Kathmandu, these children have taken to their homes' windows, balconies or front lawns to display their drawings and explain them to Reuters photographers.
Regardless of where they are, their themes are often the same: They miss their friends at school, grandparents, football and green open spaces, according to Reuters.
Reku Matsui in Tokyo has drawn himself between his grandparents, all three of them smiling.
"I miss being with my grandmother and my grandfather," the eight-year-old said, as reported by the news agency.
His sister Yaya, 12, has drawn a picture of herself and a pal. "What I want to do the most right now is hang out with my friends."
A number of children drew the sports they miss. Olatunji Adebayo, 11, in the Nigerian city of Lagos, has drawn a huge soccer ball. "I miss playing football with my friends... I feel sad about the lockdown," he told Reuters.
In China, where the outbreak of the new coronavirus began, and where the lockdown has been lifted, 11-year-old Li Congchen in Beijing has made an intricate series of drawings.
They show the virus arriving on a "bat aircraft", people willing to give their lives to fight it and, in the end, human beings defeating it with "vaccine guns", Reuters reported.
