Vietnam’s homeless children were coined “children of the dust” or “street children” and frequently live in large, bustling cities, like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. However, organizations have initiated direct community engagement and support for street children by building children’s shelters.
According to the Human Rights Watch, there were approximately 23,000 homeless children in Vietnam in 2006. As impoverished families become unable to support their children, many turn to the streets in search of work.
A majority of street children are boys who find cheap labor in cities, such as Hanoi. Common jobs include shoe-shining and street vending in public spaces. Due to the difficulty of maintaining a stable income on the streets, the Human Rights Watch reported that homeless children in Vietnam often earn an estimated 20,000 dong, about $1.25 each day.
To address these growing concerns, four organizations have made progress in aiding Vietnam’s street children.
Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation
Since 2004, the foundation has reached more than 2,000 children and currently has 400 children using their programs. The Step Ahead program focuses on caring for both street and disabled children, using “social workers, lawyers, psychologists, teachers and residential care staff” to provide children’s shelters, tutoring services and legal assistance.
Additionally, the Step Ahead program promotes an outreach team to directly provide healthcare and shelters for homeless children in Vietnam. A drop-in center is also available for children to socialize and meet with social workers.
Family 4
Family 4 currently operates several children’s shelters, which serve as home to 30 children, aged 6 to 18 years. According to Family 4, the children are “orphans, or children from extremely impoverished families whose parents could no longer provide for them.”
Four social workers, called “mothers,” are responsible for establishing a familial environment to create healthy relationships with the children, paying close attention to their health and developmental needs. Education is also encouraged by the shelter, spanning from kindergarten to college.
For example, Dat, a former child at Family 4, received his university degree in Agricultural Engineering and currently works as an organic strawberry farmer. Dat became a member of Family 4 in 2004, after his single mother struggled to afford care for him and his siblings.
Children of Vietnam
The organization focuses on reaching children through education, healthcare, housing, nutrition and disaster relief. For instance, scholarships are distributed for both education supplies and hospital bills.
In 2005, a tutoring program was implemented within the Da Nang Street Children program to increase high school graduation rates. For example, in 2013 alone, the program reached 154 children. Moreover, the Bright Scholars Club formed in 2012 to aid women toward financial stability, allowing greater privileges for their children.
More recently, in 2013, the program built six “new compassion houses,” ten toilets and made housing repairs for four families. Roof repair was also completed at the Hoa Mai orphanage. Children of Vietnam also provided 248 families with disaster relief for floods.
Friends of Hue Foundation
The children’s shelter is just one of several projects supported by this foundation. Founded in 2000, after a serious flooding in Hue, the foundation originally centered its mission on disaster relief, but has since expanded to programs, such as the children’s shelter.
The shelter implements “extracurricular activities and classes such as traditional Vietnamese music, piano, dance and art classes” in addition to career counseling and an English-language program. Since its initiation, the Friends of Hue Foundation has enabled 20 children to leave the shelter and pursue “formal education” and various careers.
“Children of the dust” now have greater access to shelters offering healthcare, education and safety from the streets. As organizations recognize and employ programming for street children, their futures look more hopeful than ever.
– Christine Leung
Photo: Flickr
Poverty & Pollution: How to Reduce Air Pollution in Developing Countries
Even though there is air pollution in every country, developing countries with rapidly growing populations are more likely to have the short end of the stick when it comes to air pollution.
Global Air Quality
The World Health Organization released an updated global ambient air quality database stating that populations in low-income cities are the most impacted by poor air quality. The updated database shows that 97 percent of cities in low and middle-income countries do not meet the WHO air quality guidelines. This percentage drops greatly — to 49 percent — when looking at high-income countries.
WHO released a list ranking the particulate pollution in cities all around the world. On this list, 11 of the 12 cities were in India. This ranking doesn’t necessarily say that Kanpur, India has the worst air quality, but rather states that it has a higher risk of poor air quality.
But this data begs the question — why are India and many other developing countries so susceptible to poor air quality?
Developing Countries and Poor Air Quality
Two main issues that plague developing nations are that the government doesn’t have its sights set on cleaner energy, and renewable resources tend to be more expensive than cheap fossil fuels like coal. For example, in India, there are anti-pollution laws, but the government doesn’t enforce these laws well enough. “Outdoor air pollution is pretty much a governance problem,” said Kirk Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the University of California Berkeley.
The difficulty in India comes from scenarios where one major city bans a certain type of pollution source, but those in neighboring cities may not have banned this specific source — the pollution can then blow unimpeded over the perimeter. There needs to be coordination across cities to fix this issue. In India, this can be rather difficult due to the fact that the rural and urban politicians have fairly different constituencies.
Roughly seven million people die each year due to air pollution. Air pollution can cause diseases such as stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and respiratory infections.
More than 90 percent of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. Cities and national governments need to take action to reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution and to improve the overall quality of living. Here are three ways that cities and national governments can reduce air pollution in developing countries.
How To Reduce Air Pollution in Developing Countries
While the government and city officials have much they could do to reduce air pollution in developing countries, there is also plenty that can be done on the individual level. Here are three ways a single person can make an impact on the air around them.
Reducing air pollution would save lives and reduce the risks of many different diseases. Air pollution may seem like a formidable issue to tackle, but it can be both acknowledged and reduced.
Anyone can help reduce a small part of the air pollution around them. WHO released a challenge in May called “marathon a month.” This challenge calls for people to pledge to leave their personal transportation behind and use alternative transportation, like walking or cycling, for the equivalent of a marathon distance for one month.
Wherever someone may be, they can help those in their local community and in neighboring developing countries reduce air pollution and make the Earth a cleaner place.
– Victoria Fowler
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Education in Paraguay
In eastern Paraguay, both deforestation and poverty continue to run rampant among inhabitants of the Atlantic Forest. An area wherein a majority of the people are uneducated, girls continue to be largely denied access to an adequate education.
Statistics On Girls’ Education in Paraguay
The literacy rate of girls 15-24 years old in Paraguay has risen to 98.62 percent as of 2015. However, while a majority of girls in the country are literate, the retainment rate of girls in schools is low. From completion of primary school to upper secondary school, the participation of girls drops 25 percent, from 86 to 61 percent. Additionally, as of 2012, 42,486 female children and 29,531 female adolescents remain out of school.
Approximately 70 percent of girls in the area are pregnant by age 16, largely due to poor education and impoverished living conditions for women. One school, the Centro Educativo Mbaracayu, is seeking to alleviate these problems and help girls’ education in Paraguay.
The Centro Educativo Mbaracayu
Founded in 2009, the Centro Educativo Mbaracayu is a boarding school exclusively for girls. The school sits on the Mbaracayu Forest Nature Reserve, which protects the largest portion of the remaining Atlantic Forest. Although the Atlantic Forest contains hundreds of native and endangered species, only about 7 percent of the original forest remains. The Centro Educativo Mbaracayu, started by the NGO Fundación Paraguaya, teaches its students to take care of the forest around them while also educating them in other areas.
The school exclusively caters to rural and indigenous girls, a group severely disadvantaged by the Paraguayan education system. One of the benefits of the forest school is the cost accessibility for its students. Tuition is free for indigenous girls and is 100,000 guaraní (approximately $17.50) for non-indigenous girls. Centro Educativo Mbaracayu is able to keep costs low for its students by operating self-sufficiently.
One of the important aspects of the schools’ curriculum is its focus on reproductive and sexual education. The severe lack of reproductive education in Paraguay is arguably one of the main causes of young pregnancies in the country. By promoting reproductive health and sexual education, instructors at Centro Educativo Mbaracayu hope to help their students achieve their degrees — not only as a tool to achieve better socioeconomic standing, but also to instill confidence and self-worth into the girls.
Beyond sexual education, the school teaches the girls techniques for agribusinesses and IT skills. Students can also study differing applied skills specializing in textiles, tourism and environmental management. All classes are taught alongside and in accordance to national Paraguayan educational standards, in order to broaden girls’ education in Paraguay while still complying with national standards.
Graduating from Centro Educativo Mbaracayu
Upon graduating from Centro Educativo Mbaracayu, students receive high school diplomas in Environmental Sciences as technicians and are highly encouraged to pursue higher education.
Since its founding the school has graduated Paraguay’s first female forest ranger, two primary school teachers in the community and a hopeful future president, just to name a few. More importantly, every girl at the school leaves knowing her worth and having learned many invaluable skills.
While living and learning at the school, a community is formed. A community that highly values its female students and its forest environment. The girls are taught to care for the forest and the animal inhabitants within it while gaining skills in sustainable forestry.
The goal of the school is rehabilitation and growth. Rehabilitation for the shrinking forest and growth for Paraguayan girls who have previously been undereducated. By teaching and taking care of the region’s girls, the school is in turn taking care of its forest and starting a movement for better girls’ education in Paraguay.
– Savannah Hawley
Photo: Flickr
Ghana Eradicated Trachoma, a Disease That Left Millions Blind
On June 13, 2018 the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that trachoma, an infectious and painful disease of the eye that may potentially lead to blindness, is no longer a public health concern in Ghana.
Trachoma and Ghana
Ghana sits on West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea and is a home to 28 million people — 2.8 (or 15 percent) of which were at risk of trachoma in 2000. The WHO attributes the success to a collective effort between local and regional communities and international collaboration.
Trachoma is caused by Chlamydia bacterium and is spread by flies, a lack of sanitation and lack of access to clean water. When a person has the disease, the inside of the eyelids become scarred and curl inwards, causing the lashes to scrape against the lens of the eye, eventually destroying it if left untreated.
The disease was once common in the west, but has since been reduced to areas of the world where people do not have the resources to fend off the disease, usually attacking the world’s poor and leaving them unable to properly carry out their daily tasks.
Trachoma of the Past, Present and Future
Often described as a sensation of “thorns” in the eyes, trachoma is an extremely uncomfortable and serious disease. The disease is ancient, and dates as far back as the time of the pharaohs and ancient Greeks and Romans. Even prominent figures across ancient history such as St. Paul, Cicero, Horace and Galileo were believed to have suffered from the disease.
In 2000, the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service put in place a national Trachoma Elimination Program. This program involved putting the Surgery for Trichiasis, Antibiotics to Ward Off Infection (SAFE) strategy into action.
Surgery for trichiasis, the condition in which the eyelashes grow inward, was provided free of charge for more than 6,000 patients, and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer donated 3.3 million doses of Zithromax antibiotics to help avoid infection.
Pfizer also has plans to continue to donate Zithromax globally to help other trachoma-endemic countries. The importance of hygiene and facial cleanliness was promoted throughout the community during events, school health education and radio messages — while Ghana’s Community Water and Sanitation Agency worked towards environmental improvements.
Number Seven, Ghana
Ghana is the seventh country to have officially wiped out the disease, along with Oman, Morocco, Mexico, Cambodia, Laos and Nepal — and it is the only sub-saharan African country to have done so. In spite of this brilliant success, up to 200 million people are still at risk of contracting trachoma in 41 countries, many of which are on the African continent.
Experts are hopeful for the future eradication of the disease considering the ways in which Ghana eradicated trachoma. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed his optimism saying, “Although there’s more work to do elsewhere, the validation of elimination in Ghana allows another previously heavily-endemic country to celebrate significant success.”
– Camille Wilson
Photo: Flickr
Four Organizations Helping Homeless Children in Vietnam
Vietnam’s homeless children were coined “children of the dust” or “street children” and frequently live in large, bustling cities, like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. However, organizations have initiated direct community engagement and support for street children by building children’s shelters.
According to the Human Rights Watch, there were approximately 23,000 homeless children in Vietnam in 2006. As impoverished families become unable to support their children, many turn to the streets in search of work.
A majority of street children are boys who find cheap labor in cities, such as Hanoi. Common jobs include shoe-shining and street vending in public spaces. Due to the difficulty of maintaining a stable income on the streets, the Human Rights Watch reported that homeless children in Vietnam often earn an estimated 20,000 dong, about $1.25 each day.
To address these growing concerns, four organizations have made progress in aiding Vietnam’s street children.
Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation
Since 2004, the foundation has reached more than 2,000 children and currently has 400 children using their programs. The Step Ahead program focuses on caring for both street and disabled children, using “social workers, lawyers, psychologists, teachers and residential care staff” to provide children’s shelters, tutoring services and legal assistance.
Additionally, the Step Ahead program promotes an outreach team to directly provide healthcare and shelters for homeless children in Vietnam. A drop-in center is also available for children to socialize and meet with social workers.
Family 4
Family 4 currently operates several children’s shelters, which serve as home to 30 children, aged 6 to 18 years. According to Family 4, the children are “orphans, or children from extremely impoverished families whose parents could no longer provide for them.”
Four social workers, called “mothers,” are responsible for establishing a familial environment to create healthy relationships with the children, paying close attention to their health and developmental needs. Education is also encouraged by the shelter, spanning from kindergarten to college.
For example, Dat, a former child at Family 4, received his university degree in Agricultural Engineering and currently works as an organic strawberry farmer. Dat became a member of Family 4 in 2004, after his single mother struggled to afford care for him and his siblings.
Children of Vietnam
The organization focuses on reaching children through education, healthcare, housing, nutrition and disaster relief. For instance, scholarships are distributed for both education supplies and hospital bills.
In 2005, a tutoring program was implemented within the Da Nang Street Children program to increase high school graduation rates. For example, in 2013 alone, the program reached 154 children. Moreover, the Bright Scholars Club formed in 2012 to aid women toward financial stability, allowing greater privileges for their children.
More recently, in 2013, the program built six “new compassion houses,” ten toilets and made housing repairs for four families. Roof repair was also completed at the Hoa Mai orphanage. Children of Vietnam also provided 248 families with disaster relief for floods.
Friends of Hue Foundation
The children’s shelter is just one of several projects supported by this foundation. Founded in 2000, after a serious flooding in Hue, the foundation originally centered its mission on disaster relief, but has since expanded to programs, such as the children’s shelter.
The shelter implements “extracurricular activities and classes such as traditional Vietnamese music, piano, dance and art classes” in addition to career counseling and an English-language program. Since its initiation, the Friends of Hue Foundation has enabled 20 children to leave the shelter and pursue “formal education” and various careers.
“Children of the dust” now have greater access to shelters offering healthcare, education and safety from the streets. As organizations recognize and employ programming for street children, their futures look more hopeful than ever.
– Christine Leung
Photo: Flickr
Credit Access in Romania
Given its turbulent history throughout much of the twentieth century, it is inspiring to see Romania’s economy thrive. Romania experienced economic difficulties as part of the Soviet Union and was especially hard hit by the recent global recession. Despite its recent accomplishments, Romania still has many economic woes including a high poverty rate. With its problems, credit access in Romania is essential if the country wishes to alleviate some of its economic hardships. After its most recent elections, the Social and Liberal Democrat parties formed a coalition government. Many of the coalition’s goals and priorities centered on economic issues, some of which include: the improved absorption of European Union (EU) funds and a focus on securing investments in infrastructure and health care, reforming the pension system, and simplifying tax administration.
Poverty in Romania
Generally speaking, much of Romania’s wealth does not “trickle-down” to all of its citizens, which explains part of the country’s problems with combating poverty. The World Bank cites the following statistics regarding poverty in Romania.
Economic Reform
Much of Romania’s financial system needed reform before its acceptance into the European Union in 2007. Romania’s financial systems were in ruin after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 so the European Union urged the Romanian government to reshape its financial sector in order to better adjust to the new, open-market economy of the EU. Because of its reshaping and restructuring, the Romanian economy was the second fast-growing in Europe in 2017. The World Bank predicts that the Romanian economy will continue to grow.
New legislation regarding access to credit was passed in Romania in 2016. Elena Iacob, an attorney who has analyzed the legislation, concluded: “It remains to be seen whether the various measures enacted by recent legislation will actually help the consumers to have access to more fair terms and affordable credit to satisfy their needs, or, on the contrary, will ‘help’ to the raise of the cost of the credit and to the demise of the market for residential real estate development, already weakened by the economic and financial crisis.”
Benefits of Credit Access
Credit access in Romania would potentially give Romanians more purchasing power. Romanians could spend their money on things they have always wanted, or they could save that money for the future, in preparation for healthcare expense or for a relative’s education. With more disposable income, Romanians could funnel more money into their economies, strengthening their own local and national economies as well as that of the EU.
Iacob’s analysis is cautiously optimistic about Romania’s economic future. While unsure of the effects of the new legislation, Iacob argues that the legislation does favor the consumer. Hopefully, with greater credit access in Romania, many will be able to better themselves financially, all in an effort to lessen the country’s poverty rates. Given its recent economic advances, credit access in Romania could allow the nation to increase its standing and influence in the EU while becoming a shining example of the successes in the war on extreme poverty.
– Raymond Terry
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Education in Armenia
The great emphasis on education in Armenia could be attributed to the nation’s 1600-year-old history of literacy and its treatment of schools as the basis for cultural and political survival. Article 39 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia (1995) ensures the right to education for all citizens of the Republic. In recent times the government has tried to ensure gender-equality in education, health, power, decision-making and other areas as demonstrated by its strategic action plans.
While Armenia does display an impressive gender-parity in primary education, there are several aspects to girls’ education in Armenia which in turn impact the socio-economic and cultural standing of Armenian women. Let us understand some of these facets of girls’ education in Armenia.
Gender-Inclusive Education
Armenia has a 12-year school education system. Grade 9 graduates are required to move to a high school to continue their education or choose a Vocational Education and Training institution. At tertiary educational level, students choose either a general stream (humanities, sciences, etc.) or a vocational stream (agriculture, construction, information and technologies, etc.). According to the World Bank, the Armenian government aims to incorporate its gender-equality agenda into the educational system. In 2011, the National Statistical Service reported a “universal enrollment rate among both boys and girls at the primary level and a 99.6 percent enrollment rate among girls” compared to “98.4 percent among boys at the secondary level.”
In a recent World Bank report titled, ‘Armenia Country Gender Assessment,’ it is reported that a dramatic growth of up to 57 percent among women in higher education occurred during the year 2012-2013. However, despite the growth in the percentage of women in higher education, the labor market still encounters a lower participation rate among women.
The researchers attribute this gap to the difference in subject-matter choices offered to boys and girls at the tertiary education level. While women are more likely to study the social sciences, health, education and other non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects, men are more likely to choose STEM-related fields or vocational education, which in turn leads to better-paying jobs. These findings point to the “aspirational (behavioral), informational and institutional” factors of the tertiary level of education in Armenia.
Women’s Representation in the Workforce
The Asian Development Bank reinforces that a gender-parity in enrollment rates in Armenia, from primary to higher education, does exist. However, despite the tendency for a larger number of women to acquire postgraduate education, they lag behind men in the labor market due to their choice of “traditionally female” domains of study. In addition, women more often tend to succumb to cultural pressures of marriage and family duties. Factors such as the quality of education, gender stereotypes, and school curricula have been found to also influence and determine many women’s decisions.
Armenia has a history of including gender-inclusion education that dates back to the 19th century; however, a survey conducted by the World Bank found that 54 percent of Armenian teachers hold the opinion that girls and boys should be treated differently, because “they are essentially different.” School-textbooks and curricula are also responsible for promoting stereotypical and traditional ideas of womanhood and serve to inadequately represent women, according to Iveta Silova, author of ‘Gender Analysis of Armenian School Curriculum and Textbooks.’ The study notes that Armenian language textbooks and literature rarely include or acknowledge the works or contributions of Armenian female writers and poets.
This omission of female authors limits “the scope of the country’s literary accomplishment to the work of men only.” Some of these challenges to girls’ education in Armenia ultimately leads to underrepresentation of women in political policy-making roles and the labor market, thereby perpetuating stereotypical female roles and causing a wide wage-gap between men and women.
Strategic Steps for Girls and Women in Armenia
The World Bank determined girls’ education across the world to be a “strategic development priority” that can lead to better educated and healthier women who are more aware of their socio-political and economic rights. This, in turn, can help build better communities and lift nations out of poverty.
The Armenian government has taken consistent steps towards ensuring gender-equality in the educational system. Its adoption of the Gender Policy Concept Paper in 2010 and the Law on Securing Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in 2013 are prime examples of such efforts. The educational reform proposals by the government are aimed at “democratization of the education sphere…establishing gender-balanced representation at all levels of the education sphere…and supporting equality of women and men in society, social justice, and enjoyment of social freedoms.”
Measures are being taken to improve girls’ education and are aided by the continued efforts of the World Bank, the European Union’s support towards modernization of education, and the UNDP’s goals to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education” in Armenia.
– Jayendrina Singha Ray
Child Soldiers in Nigeria Require Immediate Assistance
Violent conflicts largely incited by the militant group Boko Haram continue to ravage northeastern Nigeria and the larger Lake Chad region. Due to these conflicts, youths in the area face the unwanted yet real menace of being recruited as child soldiers in Nigeria.
Parties Recruit and Abduct Children for War
In 2016 alone, there were 2,122 cases of deployment of children for military purposes in Nigeria, according to a 2017 United Nations report on children and armed conflict. The report also stated that Boko Haram used four boys and 26 girls for suicide attacks in 2016; 13 more children were killed in November and December by the Nigerian security forces, which suspected them of carrying bombs.
Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a vigilante group that opposes Boko Haram, also recruited child soldiers in Nigeria, though they were mostly used for supporting roles. The Nigerian Security Forces (NSF) was also accused of deploying children in warfare.
A United States 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report pointed out that children merely 12 years old were recruited by NSF. The report also explains that some of the child soldiers in Nigeria were originally arrested or detained for alleged connections with Boko Haram and might have been forced into military operations by the state.
“Human Bombs”
Some suicide bombers were as young as seven or eight years old. In a bombing in Maiduguri in December 2016, two young girls set off explosions in the middle of a crowded market, killing at least one and injuring 17 people.
“They got out of a rickshaw and walked right in front of me without showing the slightest sign of emotion. I tried to speak with one of them, in Hausa and in English, but she didn’t answer. I thought they were looking for their mother. She headed toward the poultry sellers, then detonated her explosives belt,” local militia member Abdulkarim Jabo told United Press International.
In only the first eight months of 2017, 83 children were made into “human bombs,” more than doubling the number of child suicide attacks in the entire year of 2016. Most of the children used were girls.
Reintegration for Child Soldiers in Nigeria
Children who were able to escape from Boko Haram often suffered further from rejection as they tried to reintegrate into civilian life, as the use of child soldiers in Nigeria aroused fear and distrust among the general public. Child soldiers also have to endure severe physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Those who return home often face discrimination and even ostracization by their families, including girls who were forced to be “wives” in captivity.
The United Nations calls for the unconditional release of children from armed forces worldwide and the increase of resources for the purpose of reintegration and education of released children. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated in 2017 that 65,000 children worldwide had been released from armed groups in the past decade.
U.S. Government (USG) Programs Support Highly Vulnerable Children
On June 7, 2018, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Stuart Symington announced a $112,000,000 donation to assist with humanitarian efforts in the region. USAID will manage the use of funds via Food for Peace, Foreign Disaster Assistance and the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration. Ambassador Symington said that among its recipients, the donation would go toward helping child victims of the violent conflicts in the area, many of whom have been forced to separate from their families.
USAID and other USG agencies have cooperated to mediate similar humanitarian programs around the world. A USAID program based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) helped reintegrate previous child soldiers through communication campaigns that directly talk to local community leaders, psychosocial counseling, family tracing, education, financial support, etc.. In a single year, the program identified 1,905 children and provided them with health and psychological support.
More attention must be given to the children being exploited by these groups. With the continued efforts of government programs, there is still hope for child soldiers in Nigeria.
– Feng Ye
Photo: Flickr
Thirsty for Quality: How Water Impacts Mental Health
While June is a “cloud cover” month in Africa, temperatures are still considered sweltering hot during the summer months. While some areas of the world are fortunate to have sanitary water, Niger does not. On Niger’s hottest days of the year, temperatures can range from 83 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
Not having quality water and safe sanitation practices can make it a challenge to keep cool and hydrated in the Sahara. While clean water impacts overall health, there are many ways water impacts mental health as well.
The Lack of Water in Niger
Water is a basic human necessity to live. Because the body is made up of at least 60 percent water, the body needs water to help regulate body temperature and empty waste.
Half the population of Niger does not have access to clean water. This means that the people of Niger do not have access to proper drinking water, hygiene methods, spaces to rid their bodies of waste and are unable to replenish their bodies with water, causing just over 11,500 deaths of children under five years old each year.
How Water Impacts Mental Health
Among physical health concerns, clean water and proper hydration also affect mental health. Three ways water impacts mental health are:
If a person is not inputting water into their system as quickly as it is being released, the body becomes dehydrated. However, prior to physical symptoms or awareness, the brain’s neurons have already detected dehydration within the body, lowering circulation, energy and the ability to cognitively function or process.
The brain and the heart are the two main reservoirs of water within the human body. When the body is dehydrated it affects circulation, which means lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain, altering physical and mental activity.
Because lack of water can cause such fatigue, this can have a quick impact on mood stability and cognitive function. For example, fatigue might accompany anxiety or irritability, causing a higher emotional reaction to circumstances. It also affects the way in which men and women process or perceive surroundings, tasks and situations. Dehydration, whether physical, mental or both, can cause a lack of concentration, reaction time, memory, and reasoning.
Improving Water to Improve Mental Health in Niger
In 2011, the World Bank and World Health Organization partnered with the African Minister’s Council on Water to make financing sanitation efforts in 2015 and beyond a priority in 32 countries, including Niger. These efforts include making sanitation, hygiene and quality water a political priority, founding community-led programs and providing quality water to disadvantaged areas.
The amount of water that one should replenish back into the body depends on the person, activity and climate. Given that Niger residents reside in 80 percent of the Sahara Desert, residents of Niger may need to replenish their bodies with more water than the average person. While safe water is essential for drinking, cooking and keeping clean, water impacts mental health in such a way that it is essential for emotional and mental well-being also.
– Ashley Cooper
Photo: Flickr
Addressing the Reasons to Encourage Literacy in Yemen
Reading and writing are creative processes in building new pathways to leadership, future college and career plans and community programming. While some nations might make this a priority, Yemen’s focus is not currently to encourage literacy among the educational system.
Issues with Education in Yemen
As of 2017, 4.5 million students did not receive schooling due to absent teachers. Teachers in Yemen are on strike for not receiving payment for their services to the community. No school in session means unproductive minds and no practice with literacy.
Due to progressing conflict in Yemen, educational access and literacy efforts are not a top priority for many. There are approximately 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian aid, which is roughly 69 percent of the population.
The priority aid in Yemen consists of protection, as three million people have been displaced from their homes and approximately 44,000 people have been severely injured or killed. Other priorities focus on basic survival such as food, shelter and healthcare. Restriction on imports, economic decline and inflation among markets is making it extremely difficult for civilians to afford anything, much less education.
Encouraging Literacy in Yemen
As of 2017, UNICEF is a major partner in developing and implementing strategic plans for the ministry of education in Yemen. UNICEF is using a systemic approach to achieve educational goals. The framework consists of support from policy and legislation, ministry leadership, funding and public demand followed by implementation within the pre-primary sector and focusing on curriculum for early learning.
It is important to develop plans for early learning that empower literacy among Yemeni children and youth, as they are the future of the nation. The top three reasons to encourage literacy in Yemen are:
Why Literacy is Important
Reading, writing and learning involve creative and critical thinking as well as problem solving. Literacy encourages better communication, self-management, resiliency, participation, empathy, respect for others, cooperation, decision making and negotiation—all of which are necessary life skills.
There has been a 10 percent increase in literacy over the past 20 years, jumping from 60.22 percent to 70.1 percent. However, areas with high conflict, such as Yemen, have greater potential to fall behind.
With an increasing drop out rate in the education system and high conflict causing other basic needs to take priority, it is easy for literacy to get lost in Yemen. Continued work can ensure a bright future ahead for families in Yemen, but a political focus on education and literacy in Yemen must be made a top priority.
– Ashley Cooper
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Education in Maldives
Despite its beautiful beaches, blue lagoons and extensive reefs, Maldives is one of the poverty-stricken countries battling its developmental growth. Roughly 35 percent of Maldives is under 18 years old, making education a key area for social investment, especially in girls’ education. While the primary education is achieved equally by boys and girls, girls’ education in Maldives ends before they move to secondary education, which remains a big challenge for the Maldives government to combat.
The literacy rates for both adults and youth are the highest in the region and exceed the world average. Maldives has made such progress in achieving universal primary education with perfect gender parities, despite the devastating tsunami of 2005 that swept over most of its islands. However, it remains a challenge to ensure quality remains a key concern in primary education and to encourage girls to pursue secondary and higher education.
Facts About Girls’ Education in Maldives
The government of Maldives considers gender disparity a non-issue and does not guarantee a free and compulsory primary education for all girls. The Maldives’ Ministry of Education’s 2006 statistics indicate that every primary school age boy and girl in the country are enrolled in primary school. Moreover, 99 percent of girls who have completed primary school have continued into secondary education. However, after the 2007 Asian Development Bank Assessment, the government is taking steps to encourage girls to pursue postsecondary education.
Challenges and Barriers to Girls’ Education in Maldives
Maldives is located on a 1,000 kilometer-long chain of islands where the cost of transporting teachers and students becomes an expensive affair. Since transportation among islands is expensive, many children are at risk of being invisible, meaning they are unable to receive an education or they move away from parents to attend school. In addition, Maldives is dependent on expatriate teachers, and the quality of education is uneven for the 70 percent that lives on islands far from the capital, where two-thirds of teachers remain untrained, libraries and separate toilets for girls are unavailable and children with special needs have little access to school. Because of the lack of training, especially in gender sensitivity, curriculum materials and textbooks have strong gender biases.
Due to strong gender biases, women’s participation in politics and senior management levels is very low. In ADB’s (2007) analysis, women constitute only 15 percent of the legislators and senior officials in Maldives, and only a third of government officials are female. Gender division of labor is evident in public service employment with women making up 54 percent of the temporary positions, primarily to carry out tasks that are culturally “suitable” to them. For example, in the sectors of education, health and welfare, women are supervised and managed by senior ranking male employees.
Improvements in Girls’ Education in Maldives
In a country where settlements are sparsely scattered across small islands, the government has established at least two primary schools in each atoll to improve girls’ education in Maldives. With support from UNICEF, the pilot initiative of child-friendly schools, which was started with 22 schools, was scaled up to 105 during the post-tsunami period.
In addition, UNICEF and the Ministry of Education have come up with a novel solution: a series of 20 Teacher Training Centres (TRCs), one in each of the atolls that make up the country. These TRCs provide teachers and students with a trove of modern online teaching and learning tools at the touch of their fingertips, thanks to banks of high-speed Internet-enabled computers, SmartBoards that allow for interactive training at a distance and a website being developed by Cambridge International Examinations that are adapted specifically to Maldives. The Maldives Government has recognized the importance of training school teachers and heads supervisors in child-friendly approaches.
Recommendations
A report suggests that a gender audit should be conducted at the institutional level, so issues related to the subordinate role of women in organizations are highlighted. There should be a political will to spark organizational structures that allow gender equality in the workplace, which in turn can encourage girls to continue school at higher levels, as well as to pursue learning in fields that have traditionally been male-dominated. School and teacher training focused projects should make their output, outcome and impact indicators more explicit about progress milestones in terms of closing the gender gaps.
Although there is a good enrollment of girls and boys in the primary school, gender disparity exists in access to and attainment in secondary and post-secondary education and vocational training programs. The stereotypical perceptions of gender roles limit girls’ and women’s mobility and restrict their educational participation beyond primary level, as such opportunities are available only in urban areas or city centers. Girls’ education in Maldives is very low at the secondary level and measures have been taken by the government to motivate girls to study further and take-up jobs which are male-dominated.
– Preethi Ravi
Photo: Flickr