It wouldn’t top most kids’ list of thing to do during their summer vacation, but nine-year-old Mineola resident Adnan Tapa wrote a letter to President Barack Obama expressing his concerns about Syria after seeing a televised news report about the war there.
“They said they were killing innocent babies and children. That made me very sad,” said Adnan, a fourth grader at the Jackson Avenue School.
And the month after Adnan penned the letter to the president in May, Obama wrote back and invited him to the White House.
Adnan said he never expected the president to take the time to answer his letter – but to his surprise, Obama did just that, telling Adnan he was working to find a solution to the situation in Syria.
The president also enclosed a picture of the Obama family and their dog.
“I was very surprised that the president wrote to me,” Adnan said.
Ava Doshi, Adnan’s mother, said said her son told her he was upset about all the people being killed in Syria, particularly the children, after they watched a segment on ABC News about the civil war in Syria.
“He asked me if there was something he could do,” she recalled. “I told him he could change the world and the problems he would inherit. I told him he could write to the president about how he was feeling.”
So Adnan sat down and wrote to the president, asking him to do something to stop what was happening to the people he saw on TV in Syria.
“I told him that the Taliban are killing innocent kids and other people and I was really scared for them,” he said.
He said watching the news segment about Syria made him think about how he would feel in a situation like that one.
“Because if that was me, I wouldn’t want my friends or my family’s friends getting killed,” Adnan said.
Doshi said her son has traveled with her to India twice and is very quick to pick up on things happening in the world around him. She said he’s always demonstrated a sense of compassion toward other people.
“He’s smart in like picking up things. He has interest in helping people,” she said.
Adnan said when he told Patricia Molly, his principal at Jackson Avenue about it, she praised him for his efforts.
Now Adnan is seeking to continue his corresponedence with the president.
He recently wrote a letter back to Obama, thanking him for the letter the president sent him in June and wishing him good luck in the election.
If Obama wins the election, Adnan said, he figures he’ll have a better chance of visiting him.
