Broad Meadows Middle School students unfurl the 500-foot scroll they will present to delegates attending the international child labor conference in Switzerland.

The students in Ron Adams' class at Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy could not have been more envious when they heard about this month's global march to end child labor.

Child labor had long been an important issue to all of them, and the march - which is taking place through May 27 on five continents - seemed like a great way to get involved.

They organized a cybermarch against child labor, in which every e-mail message they received will count as a mile marched.

Their goal is to receive 3,000 messages - - symbolic of the distance across the United States. A group of volunteers is now marching form Los Angeles to Washington as part of the global march.

Later this month, three of the students - -eighth-graders Greia Amarra, Meagan Donoghue and Stacey Smith - will travel to Geneva, Switzerland where they will share the messages they received with delegates attending an international labor conference.

With less than three weeks left before the conference, the students need about 1,500 messages to reach their goal.

"We want to tell people, 'We've done our part, now you've got to do your part so we can crush this thing,'" Stacey said.

Delegates attending an international child labor laws.

The students attached each message to a footprint, then constructed a scroll that is now 500 feet long to show the delegates.

They will take the scroll to Washington, and use it to lobby to the U.S. delegates attending the conference. Then they will present it to all the delegates.

"Before they vote, they should hear what the American youth believe," Adams said. "We want the delegates to know that young people are very concerned about this, and the messages are our proof."

Broad Meadows students have campaigned to end child labor since Iqbal Masih, a former child slave who spoke at the school three years ago, was shot and killed in Pakistan four months after his visit.

After Iqbal's death, Broad Meadows students led a successful fundraising campaign to open a school in his honor in Pakistan.

The trip will be sponsored by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, which has supported the students' on-line march.

The students have received messages form countries all over the world, including Egypt, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Belgium.

The student said some of their favorite messages came from a group of Australian students who became so excited about helping to end child labor that they took laptop computers to the sidewalk in front of city hall, and asked passers-by to send messages protesting child labor.

Greia Amarra, 13, one of the Quincy students going to Geneva, said she feels strongly about ending child labor because she grew up in the Philippines, and many of her childhood friends have dropped out of school to become laborers.

"When we were small, all of us used to say when we got older we were going to go to America," she said. "But I'm the only one who did. Now I'm here, and they're all still there working to support their families."

The e-mail address for the on-line march is endchlabor@aol.com.

QUINCY - A group of eighth-grade students at Broad Meadows Middle School received an award from the U.S. Agency for Internatioanl Development for their work against child labor.

The award was presented Thursday by the agency's administrator, Brian Atwood, in recognition of "the students' continued commitment to combatting child labor and the school's commitment to raising student awareness of human rights."

The Broad Meadows students have spent several months organizing with a global march to end child loabor.

As hundreds of people march across five contitnents this month to protest child labor, the Broad Meadows students are holding a "cybermach," in which every e-mail message they receive protesting child labor represents a vertual mile walked.

Their goal is to receive 3,000 messages, symbolic of the distance across the United States.

Their e-mail address is: endchlabor@aol.com.

Later this month, three of the students - eighth-graders Greia Amarra, Meagan Donoghue and Stacey Smith - will travel to Geneva, Switzerland, where they will share the messages they received with delegates while attending an international labor conferenc.

Broad Meadows students have campaigned to end child labor since Iqbal Masih, a former child slave who spoke at the school three years ago, was shot and killed in Pakistan four months after his visit.

After Iqbal's death, Broad Meadows students lead a successbul fundraising campaign to open a school in his honor in Pakistan.