‘Stand up for your rights!’

In their second protest in two weeks, last Tuesday evening, May 29, more than 50 parents and children from Children’s Liberation Daycare Center marched through the East Village to Community Board 3’s full-board meeting. Carrying posters and singing “Get up, stand up! Don’t give up the fight!” — lyrics from Bob Marley’s reggae anthem — they marched from their daycare center at P.S. 122, down Avenue A to the meeting at P.S. 20 at 166 Essex St. The daycare center has been ordered to vacate the former school building by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services for renovations, but they fear they won’t be allowed back in after the completion. The daycare charges that Performance Space 122, the arts group with whom they share the building, wants them out. “They got this community center, P.S. 122, this theater, on the backs of these children,” said Elin Wilder, a Children’s Liberation board member whose children attended the daycare. “Prior to our joining,” she said, “they were not going to get a lease if it were not for the kids being here. This is just wrong. They should have to pay market rate if they kick us out of here.”