All eyes are on Washington as the survivors of last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, lead massive crowds Saturday in the March for Our Lives.
But these rallies aren’t just happening in the US. Dozens of marches are taking place Saturday in cities around the globe, where Americans abroad and their foreign allies are lending their voices to the cause.
London
Wendy Tarpley-Naylor shared a photo of her 6-year-old daughter Ella at a March for Our Lives event. Tarpley-Naylor, who is from Georgia but moved to the UK in 2008, said she held her daughter as a baby after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.
Tarpley-Naylor said her daughter understands what happened in Newtown and has told her, “But they were only little kids! People who want to hurt others should not be allowed to have a gun!”
Moving to the UK changed her views on gun legislation, Tarpley-Naylor said..
“It took moving six thousand miles to a country where most police don’t even have guns, but I have done a 180 on common sense gun reform.”
Copenhagen
Iida Keskinen, 18, joined the march in Denmark as an exchange student from Finland.
“I’m not American, but the phenomenon that has now become ‘the norm’ in the US has really shook me,” she said. “And I really wanted to make sure I had even a small impact in supporting this cause.”
“We live in a global world, after all,” Keskinen added. “No issue is only local anymore.”
Madrid
Aiko Smith took a picture of her daughter Lucia, 6, holding a sign that read, “Your right to rifles. My right to life. Choose.”
“Today was a way for her to get involved, to do something about gun violence,” Smith told CNN.
“As a child she’s not allowed a political voice through the vote, but schoolchildren have to face the brutal consequences of irresponsible gun policy and inept or impotent politicians. So it seemed important to give her a way to do something.”