11-Year-Old Mexican Student Creates Bullet-Proof Backpack Due to Risk of Shoot-Outs teleSUR
go to original November 25, 2016

Juan David Hernandez Rojas shows off his bullet-resistant “safety backpack” at the ExpoCiencias Tamaulipas science fair. (FarandulaTV2)

Juan David Hernandez Rojas, from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, is only 11 years old but he's come up with an innovative solution to the dangers of violence posed by the country's ongoing conflict with organized crime groups: he's made a bullet-resistant backpack.

“In my city shootings and robberies are very frequent, unfortunately, and that's why I invented the safety backpack,” Hernandez told Proceso magazine at the ExpoCiencias Tamaulipas science fair.

In a video shared on Twitter by Ruido en la Red, the primary school student speaks nonchalantly about the shootouts that happen in the city of Matamoros as he shows off the features of his backpack.

The bag is lined with bullet-resistant material, has an alarm, a light and a GPS locator. “So my parents can easily find me in case I don't show up,” says Hernandez.

He even demonstrates how the bag would be used in the event a student is caught in the middle of a shootout and needs to protect themselves from an errant bullet.

Hernandez says his bag “marks the difference between life, death, and desperation.”

The young boy's invention is a reminder of the daily violence many Mexicans are exposed to as a result of the conflict between organized crime groups and the Mexican state, begun by former President Felipe Calderon in 2006 and continued by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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