Antigua and Barbuda is a small, two-island Caribbean country that became an independent state within the British Commonwealth in 1981. In 2017, Hurricane Irma destroyed most of Barbuda, whose population evacuated to Antigua. Antigua is now home to approximately 97% of the population of 102,634, 75% of which is rural.
Antigua and Barbuda is a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), a classification recognized by the U.N. in 1992. Equal to less than 1% of the world’s population, SIDS are typically geographically remote and deal with unique social, economic and environmental challenges. Antigua and Barbuda’s economy is primarily reliant on tourism. In addition, several marine economic sectors, including fishing, maritime transport, water management and mineral extraction, contribute a very small percentage of the country’s GDP.
Antigua and Barbuda’s Education System
Antigua and Barbuda’s free and compulsory education (established in 1973) covers primary school (grades 1-7, ages 5-12) and secondary school (grades 8-12, through age 16.). An education levy on all basic wages covers all costs, including infrastructure, class materials and transportation. In addition, the country has three small colleges and the University of Health Sciences, which trains medical practitioners who serve in the islands. Antigua State College offers a variety of courses, including home management, office management, agriculture, electronics and refrigeration. Adult training is provided through the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies. The World Bank (and various other sources) reports 99% literacy for 2001, although more recent statistics are not available.
In the 1980s, the government invested in education infrastructure, including the renovation of primary and secondary school facilities, in addition to larger classrooms for vocational and nonformal programs. In 2010, the country initiated the “child-friendly school” concept, which quickly expanded to 60% of the primary and secondary public schools. The CFSs promote practices and behaviors “designed to help children realize their right to a basic education of good quality.”
The Education Act, 2008 outlines the framework and basic administration of Antigua and Barbuda’s education system, responsibilities of the Minister of Education and Director of Education, rights and responsibilities of students and parents, enforcement of compulsory school attendance, administration of educational institutions, inspection and review of the system.
Commonwealth of Learning
Antigua and Barbuda is one of the 54 Commonwealth countries that belong to the Commonwealth of Learning. COL was established in 1987 and describes itself as “the world’s only intergovernmental organisation solely concerned with the promotion and development of distance education and open learning.”
Antigua and Barbuda’s Ministry of Education, Sports and Creative Industries, Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs, Antigua State College and the Five Islands Campus of the University of the West Indies have partnered with COL for activities in the country. Highlights include a state-of-the-art solar-powered multimedia courseware development studio at Antigua State College, with COL developing teacher capacity to design and develop blended and online courses. Over 470 learners have already taken these courses, and online workshops were held in November 2022 (for 27 teachers) and May 2023 (23 participants). Open Educational Resources workshops were held in math and science education in May 2024. A workshop in May-June 2024, on teaching mathematics with technology, hosted over 1,100 participants (half women).
Although classified as a Small Island Developing State, Antigua and Barbuda is successfully addressing the accompanying challenges, especially in effectively incorporating the benefits of technology to make high-quality, relevant education available to its people.
– Staff Reports
Photo: Flickr
Women’s Empowerment in Thailand
The need for gender equality is especially prevalent in Thailand where, even though the poverty rate is decreasing, women and children are still at risk of sexual and domestic violence. Thanks to the many issues within Thailand, new human security threats are emerging. Issues include the prevalence of traditional attitudes and stereotypes which validate domestic violence and violence against women, low participation of women in politics and in positions of power, trafficking and exploitation.
There are steps being taken to address these issues and empower women in Thailand. One of the main disadvantages for women is the inability to access better education, employment and health services. The Women’s Empowerment Fund was established to help women acquire just these things. The fund program, lead by Amporn Boontan, is based in the northern part of Thailand, in the city of Chiang Mai.
Boontan believes that her new position as Thailand’s regional coordinating group (RCG) representative for JASS Southeast Asia, can help promote the role of women, protect women’s rights and advocate for more protective domestic violence laws. She also maintains involvement with civil society groups like the Thai Youth Action Program where she trains youth in topics like sexual health, youth violence and leadership skills.
The U.N. Women organization works with the government in Thailand and with other partners to carry out national and international goals relating to the empowerment of women. These goals will improve women’s empowerment in Thailand and continue to lower the poverty rates in the country.
– Lorial Roballo
Photo: Flickr
Ending Child Marriage Could Reduce Global Poverty
Child marriage, which primarily affects girls, has many consequences. It causes overpopulation, poor health for said child and it tends to lead to violence. Conversely, ending child marriage would have lasting social advantages and economic benefits, such as an increase in the girls’ earnings.
“Child marriage not only puts a stop to girls’ hopes and dreams. It also hampers efforts to end poverty and achieve economic growth and equity,” said Quentin Wodon, lead author of the World Bank’s report on the economic cost of child marriage. “Ending this practice is not only the morally right thing to do but also the economically smart thing to do.”
Ending child marriage would save countries a lot of money — by 2030, countries could save $327 million in education budgets alone. In Africa, seeing an end to child marriage could save up to $5 billion as a result of lower malnutrition, according to the Global Partnership for Education. It could also reduce fertility rates by 10 percent, which would reduce overpopulation and global poverty by extension.
So, what’s the best way to end child marriage? Simply keeping girls in school.
Education is the best way to end child marriage because it allows girls to be more independent and strong-minded. The longer a girl is in school, the less likely it is that she will be married young. Unfortunately, there are societies that deem education a luxury and a “waste of resources.” Such societies are also threatened by the independence a female would gain by being educated.
Failure to educate girls has its own negative implications. In the same manner that ending child marriage can increase a girl’s earnings in the future, so too can having an education. In fact, some countries lose out on an estimated $92 billion of economic growth for failing to properly educate their girls.
Pooja (not her real name), a girl from Nepal, knew education would have given her a better life. “If I had studied I would have been working. But my parents held my marriage and I couldn’t do anything after marriage. I now have children to look after,” she said.
Everything is connected. Seeing girls educated could potentially end child marriage which would potentially reduce global poverty.
– Dezanii Lewis
Photo: Flickr
Mitigating the Effects of Hunger in East Timor
The war resulted in a 24-year Indonesian occupation of Timor Leste, and a cumulative death toll of 200,000 people – nearly one-quarter of the current population. Throughout the country’s occupation, there were guerilla movements working to remove Indonesia from power. However, the final decision to leave Timor Leste to its own devices came after a change of leadership occurred in Indonesia and U.N. intervention.
The Timorese voted for independence in 1999 – the result was a 78 percent majority. Unfortunately, the vote was far from respected. Those who did not wish to be independent of Indonesia instigated yet another insurgency against the majority of Timorese, necessitating more direct United Nations involvement. Finally, in 2002, after two years of U.N. Peacekeeping presence, full independence was attained.
However sweet this victory may have been, it did little to alleviate the problems of poverty, malnutrition and hunger in East Timor. Hunger is arguably the country’s most urgent problem. It affects nearly 100 percent of the population.
In 2010, 57.7 percent of children under the age five were classified as stunting, a term used to describe the condition of weighing too little for your height. Other indicators of malnutrition, such as wasting and generally being underweight, are prevalent, indicating that the situation is dire.
One of the many organizations working to mitigate the effects of hunger in East Timor is Oxfam Australia. The work they do is primarily aimed at educating the public, generally women and children, about the effects of malnutrition and specific ways to increase their family’s consumption of important nutrients.
In classes that they term “supplementary feeding courses,” they demonstrate how to cook nutritious meals, process fresh food so it lasts longer and which ingredients have the highest protein content.
This program, coupled with the organization’s efforts to work with local farmers on improving agricultural yields for their farming cooperatives, has been a formidable attempt to arm Timorese communities with life-saving nutritional and agricultural knowledge.
-Katarina Schrag
Photo: Flickr
Hunger in Ukraine: Corruption in the West, War in the East
Ukraine’s GDP decreased by 6.6 percent in 2014 and 9.8 percent in 2015, when fighting in the east escalated and devastated the once-rich industrial regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ukraine is now home to one of the most violent conflicts on the planet.
Around 1.5 million Ukrainians suffered from hunger due to the conflict in eastern Ukraine after two years of fighting in 2016, with 300,000 in need of immediate help and food aid. The ongoing war led Ukraine to become the only European country to require assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP), which distributed rations and aid to Ukrainians in the east. The WFP has assisted over one million people in the country since it began operations there in August 2014.
Hunger is also a problem in western and central Ukraine, untouched by the conflict but still deeply affected by the country’s economic crisis. Corruption is still seen as a major problem after the 2014 revolution, and protests against the government of President Petro Poroshenko have erupted over concerns of rising poverty and corruption.
While the war has left over 2,500 civilians dead, the conflict has stalled and Ukraine is making progress in reducing poverty since the most violent periods of the war. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2017 Global Hunger Index, Ukraine sharply reduced its rate of hunger over the last several years and was one of the strongest performers after China since 2008.
– Giacomo Tognini
Photo: Flickr
Women’s Empowerment in Rwanda
The approach, though indeed revolutionary, has all the hang-ups usually associated with Top-Down solutions for social change. Namely, the government’s new policy, which requires 1:3 proportion of women to men in parliament, has done little to alter the reign of patriarchy in the general consciousness of the male population. Though the achievements it can claim are remarkable in comparison to many of its neighbor states, the fact remains that the women of Rwanda have yet to realize full empowerment.
Those who can claim empowerment are, interestingly, most often survivors of the genocide. In these cases, the basis of their empowerment stems from what they have made of their shared experience since 1994, not so much from the government’s policy shifts.
A popular example of women’s empowerment in Rwanda is the Widows Associations which formed in response to the massive loss of men during the genocide. Acting, at first, as a support network for newly widowed women, these associations gradually morphed into collations of women who found themselves in new roles as Rwanda’s primary breadwinners.
After 20 years of action, these networks have transitioned from the promotion of women’s issues in the late 1990s to supporting the survivors of genocide. More specifically, the focus is on supporting nearly 500,000 women who were raped in 1994. There is a 76 percent prevalence of HIV in survivors of rape and a 25-30 percent occurrence of PTSD symptoms in the whole of Rwanda’s female population alive in 1994.
In schools, in the home and in less internationally visible arenas, women and girls continue to face the expectations of traditional patriarchy. Even those who have attained seats in parliament have been found, according to a 2014 NPR story, to experience adverse situations at home. This includes marital rape and abuse, as well as general gendered expectations for marital roles, such as women doing the cleaning, cooking, etc.
Ultimately, the challenge women’s empowerment in Rwanda faces is the permeation of social norms. It is only once this has occurred that women at all levels of society will be provided the social support necessary for universal empowerment to occur.
– Katrina Schrag
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About the Circassian Genocide
It was for this reason that the Russian army commenced a campaign, now seen by most of the world as a genocide, to oust the Circassians from the conquered region. The Circassian Genocide of 1864 is now remembered all over the world as one of the most gruesome genocides of the 19th century. The campaign utilized tactics, such as deportation, resource deprivation and mass murder. The idea was simple, conquer the land – extinguish the people. Prior to the Genocide, the region had roughly 1 million residents – by the end, all but 80,000 were either forcefully expelled or murdered.
Top 10 Circassian Genocide Facts
Today, these events are classified, internationally, as a genocide. In this case, the qualifier was that the actions taken by the Russian army had the clear intent of extinguishing the presence of Circassians from the region, so as to ensure little resistance to their rule. This explanation is in line with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’s definition.
Despite the international recognition of the nature of these events, the Russian government refuses to do the same. What’s more, they continue to exercise autonomous control over the affairs of the region and have since divided it into five administrative districts with little regard to the ethnic divisions in the area.
The government’s primary reason for not recognizing the Circassian genocide is, of course, political in nature. If the Russian government were to officially recognize the Circassian genocide, it would likely result in a push by Circassian diaspora communities to return to the land their forefathers were forced to flee from. This could result in a massive shift in demographics, and power, in the Caucasus.
– Katarina Schrag
Photo: Flickr
Five Projects Set to Improve Development in Thailand
There are a variety of options that can help with development in Thailand such as improving the business environment, expanding trade through better integration with the global economy, implementing public investments to private capital, stimulating domestic consumption and improving the quality of public services across the country. Beginning in 2017, in order to be recognized as a developed country, Thailand set long-term economic goals that address many key issues in the country. The Minister of Transport in Thailand, Prajin Juntong, has created five development projects in to help boost the infrastructure sector and encourage growth and prosperity for the Southeast Asian country:
Thailand’s economy is expected to develop further in 2018, with an increase of around 3.6 percent. Even faster growth may be possible in the long run with the inclusion of public infrastructure management. When these five development projects in Thailand are carried-out more opportunities will develop and economic growth will increase.
–Lorial Roballo
Photo: Flickr
Six Ways Global Education Would Reduce Global Poverty
Foreign aid helps contribute to the downsizing of global poverty, but there are other ways to help as well. If total global education were achieved, it would have a significant impact on the reduction of poverty.
Here are six ways global education can reduce global poverty.
It would take only $16 billion a year in aid to send all children to school in low-income countries, according to UNESCO. For comparison, the U.S alone spends $601 billion on its military. Global education is attainable, and it can change and save lives.
–Dezanii Lewis
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Enrollment a Success of Education in Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda is a small, two-island Caribbean country that became an independent state within the British Commonwealth in 1981. In 2017, Hurricane Irma destroyed most of Barbuda, whose population evacuated to Antigua. Antigua is now home to approximately 97% of the population of 102,634, 75% of which is rural.
Antigua and Barbuda is a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), a classification recognized by the U.N. in 1992. Equal to less than 1% of the world’s population, SIDS are typically geographically remote and deal with unique social, economic and environmental challenges. Antigua and Barbuda’s economy is primarily reliant on tourism. In addition, several marine economic sectors, including fishing, maritime transport, water management and mineral extraction, contribute a very small percentage of the country’s GDP.
Antigua and Barbuda’s Education System
Antigua and Barbuda’s free and compulsory education (established in 1973) covers primary school (grades 1-7, ages 5-12) and secondary school (grades 8-12, through age 16.). An education levy on all basic wages covers all costs, including infrastructure, class materials and transportation. In addition, the country has three small colleges and the University of Health Sciences, which trains medical practitioners who serve in the islands. Antigua State College offers a variety of courses, including home management, office management, agriculture, electronics and refrigeration. Adult training is provided through the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies. The World Bank (and various other sources) reports 99% literacy for 2001, although more recent statistics are not available.
In the 1980s, the government invested in education infrastructure, including the renovation of primary and secondary school facilities, in addition to larger classrooms for vocational and nonformal programs. In 2010, the country initiated the “child-friendly school” concept, which quickly expanded to 60% of the primary and secondary public schools. The CFSs promote practices and behaviors “designed to help children realize their right to a basic education of good quality.”
The Education Act, 2008 outlines the framework and basic administration of Antigua and Barbuda’s education system, responsibilities of the Minister of Education and Director of Education, rights and responsibilities of students and parents, enforcement of compulsory school attendance, administration of educational institutions, inspection and review of the system.
Commonwealth of Learning
Antigua and Barbuda is one of the 54 Commonwealth countries that belong to the Commonwealth of Learning. COL was established in 1987 and describes itself as “the world’s only intergovernmental organisation solely concerned with the promotion and development of distance education and open learning.”
Antigua and Barbuda’s Ministry of Education, Sports and Creative Industries, Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Fisheries and Barbuda Affairs, Antigua State College and the Five Islands Campus of the University of the West Indies have partnered with COL for activities in the country. Highlights include a state-of-the-art solar-powered multimedia courseware development studio at Antigua State College, with COL developing teacher capacity to design and develop blended and online courses. Over 470 learners have already taken these courses, and online workshops were held in November 2022 (for 27 teachers) and May 2023 (23 participants). Open Educational Resources workshops were held in math and science education in May 2024. A workshop in May-June 2024, on teaching mathematics with technology, hosted over 1,100 participants (half women).
Although classified as a Small Island Developing State, Antigua and Barbuda is successfully addressing the accompanying challenges, especially in effectively incorporating the benefits of technology to make high-quality, relevant education available to its people.
– Staff Reports
Photo: Flickr
Water Quality in North Korea Affected by Recent Drought
The Problem
Water quality in North Korea has been affected by a severe drought, forcing relief aid to step in and counter some of these issues. One observer had the opportunity to monitor the water quality in North Korea and witness the scarcity of access to clean water due to environmental degradation that has gravely affected the nation. Too often, the North Korean people are neglected and rarely humanized by news outlets, who tend to focus on the ominous threat that the country’s government presents.
This individual, who remained anonymous, observed the work of an international charity organization known as World Vision, an advocacy organization that works on development and humanitarian aid. During this visit to North Korea, the observer witnessed the lives of people in rural and urban areas, noting the environmental degradation that had taken place due to the effects of climate change, deforestation, soil erosion and water resource depletion.
In January, it was reported that “more than 50,000 hectares of farmland in North Korea’s granary zones have been damaged by drought.” According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a severe drought had plagued agricultural areas due to a 30-80 percent drop in precipitation in January. OCHA further cited that due to this drought, the effects were a deterioration in water quality in North Korea, causing a concern of waterborne diseases spreading among the population.
Initiatives
On a more positive note, according to a report by World Vision, there has been an increase in installations of wells, along with high-quality solar pumps, in order to pump water to water tanks on nearby hills. This action has led to substantial improvements in access to clean water for communities. Some of the most vulnerable who were lacking this inalienable right that a lot of us take for granted now have indoor plumbing, offering them clean sanitation. As the observer explained: “1,435 children will have easy access to clean water for the first time in their lives.”
Final Thoughts
With its relentless assault on freedom of expression and stifling of any political dissidents who may challenge the status quo, North Korea’s government remains a staunch opponent to any form of democracy. The average North Korean citizen only worries about their daily lives, which includes how to break out of poverty. North Koreans may be among the most difficult group of people in the world to help due to the restrictions imposed by their government, but taking simple steps to improve sanitation and water quality in North Korea can make a major improvement in their lives.
– Alexandre Dumouza
Photo: Flickr