At a time when we often define the world through borders, divisions, and differences, we rarely pause to ask ourselves how that same world looks through the eyes of a child. The poem by fifteen-year-old Amina offers precisely that perspective—gentle, sincere, and deeply humane. Through simple yet powerful verses, she reminds us of truths that adults often forget: that children do not recognize divisions, that their nature is to connect, not to separate. Her vision of a more just world is not just a poetic image, but a powerful call to question our own boundaries and to build a society in which no child carries a burden too heavy for their shoulders.
“A World Without Borders,” Amina Ćordić, age 15
Sometimes it seems to me that the world is full of lines.
Lines on maps.
Lines on walls.
Lines between “us” and “them.”
But none of those lines were drawn by a child’s hand.
Children do not draw borders.
Children draw the sun in the corner of a page, a house with a chimney,
and two small figures holding hands.
Children draw the world as it should be.
That’s why sometimes I close my eyes and try to imagine a world without borders.
Not a world without countries, but a world without fear!
A world in which no child has to learn how to be brave
before learning how to be loved!
Somewhere, right now, while someone is reading these words, a child is not dreaming of toys.
They are dreaming of silence.
Somewhere, a boy does not want a new ball, but just one night
in which the sky will not collapse onto the Earth.
Somewhere, a girl does not want a new doll, but for her father to return home.
Somewhere, a mother asks nothing from life, except for her door to be opened again
by the one she is waiting for.
And the world remains silent.
And silence sometimes hurts louder than any noise, sob, or tear.
They say children are the future.
But what kind of future are we building if we leave the present in ruins?
In the world I imagine, no child has to run from the sky.
Because the sky should be the same for everyone—blue, endless, and free.
A sky that carries birds, not airplanes that carry fear.
In that world, classrooms are filled with laughter that spreads like light through a window.
Children of different languages sit together, but they understand the most important language—the language of the heart.
Because when children laugh, their laughter has no nation.
When children cry, their tears have no borders.
A child’s sea is the same everywhere.
And perhaps that is the greatest truth adults forget.
A child does not choose where they are born.
They do not choose the color of their flag.
They do not choose the history they will carry on their shoulders.
And yet, it is the child who most often carries the heaviest burden—
too heavy for small shoulders,
too heavy for a heart that only knows how to love unconditionally.
That is why my fairer world begins with one simple thought:
no child is a stranger.
Because a child who cries in a distant land cries with the same voice as a child beside us.
And if we close our eyes to that tear, we have closed our eyes to our own humanity.
Perhaps a world without borders is not a place without lines on a map.
Perhaps it is a world in which no border is greater than the human heart.
A world in which children do not inherit hatred, but kindness.
And perhaps one day, a child will open an old map of the world,
look at all those drawn lines, and ask in confusion:
“Why did adults divide the land so much when the sky above it was always one?”
And then they may understand what we are only now beginning to learn:
that the planet is too vast for hatred, and a child’s heart too small for war.
Because when the last child in the world finally falls asleep without fear,
only then will the world truly be fair for the first time.
And then we will know that we have finally learned
what children have always known—
that the world is not divided by borders.
The world is shared only through kindness.
