A Palestinian teacher who grew up in a refugee camp was awarded a $1 million global teacher prize in recognition of her dedication to helping children who had been exposed to violence.
Hanan Al Hroub accepted the Global Teacher Prize at a ceremony in Dubai on March 13. Pope Francis announced the winner to the crowd through a video conference, saying that teachers are “the builders of peace and unity.”
“I am proud to be a Palestinian female teacher standing on this stage,” she said while accepting the award, according to the BBC.
Hroub grew up witnessing acts of violence in the Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem and later became a teacher after her children became traumatized from being shot at while traveling home from school.
By encouraging play and rewarding positive behaviors, Hroub has facilitated a decline in violent behavior among her students.
“I tell all the teachers, whether they are Palestinian or around the world: ‘Our job is humane, its goals are noble. We must teach our children that our only weapon is knowledge and education,’” Hroub said in an interview with CNN after receiving the award.
In his speech, the Pope praised Hroub’s methods in teaching children to avoid violence, according to BuzzFeed. “A child has the right to play,” he said. “Part of the education is to teach children how to play, because you learn how to be social through the games and you learn the joy of life.”
The Global Teacher Prize is granted annually to teachers that have made outstanding contributions to the profession. The award was created by the Varkley Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to “improve the standards of education for underprivileged children throughout the world.”
A panel of educators, entrepreneurs, public officials, scientists and others are responsible for choosing the winner.
Many celebrities, including actors Salma Hayek and Matthew McConaughey, as well as many politicians including Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the ceremony where Hroub received her award.
“I support the Global Teacher Prize. Those that teach — devoting their talents and time to nurturing the talents of others — deserve to be respected and celebrated,” Kevin Spacey said in a statement on the Global Teacher Prize website.
Violence claims the lives of nearly 1.4 million people across the globe each year, according to the World Health Organization. Formal education can help prevent violence by giving children the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, problem-solving strategies, critical-thinking and communication skills.
“Based on this truth, the role of education starts, the teacher’s responsibility starts also as an educator, an artist, creating an environment and a context that frees children from violence, frees their imagination and embodies it in forms of dialogue, love and beauty,” Hroub said.
– Lauren Lewis
Kellogg Helps Women Smallholder Farmers Globally
Food manufacturing company Kellogg has teamed up with TechnoServe, an NGO focused on entrepreneurial initiatives in Third World areas, to launch an initiative helping female smallholder farmers receive training in climate-smart agriculture.
The initiative was unveiled on March 8, International Women’s Day. The work will predominately be focused in India to help 12,000 women who are smallholder farmers get access to tools, financing and agricultural inputs. A program will also be created in South Africa to train 400 women in improving the quality and quantity of their yields.
According to GreenBiz, the number of smallholder farmers around the world has been on the rise, and almost half of them are women. In developing countries where smallholding is a common practice, men are typically the ones trained in business transactions and financing. About half of India’s population is a part of smallholder families, and much of this group suffers from extreme poverty.
Diane Holdorf, Kellogg’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said in the GreenBiz report, “We know that in many of these societies, these women face very significant challenges; they lack access to training, lack access to financing and lack access to seeds that would really help them to improve their agricultural yields and livelihoods.”
Kellogg, like most multinational food companies, relies on international farmers to grow its ingredients. In India, GreenBiz reports that roughly 23,258 smallholder farmers supply the honey, wheat, rice, and maize that Kellogg uses in its nearby production.
About a year and a half ago, when the U.N. and the global business community began drafting Sustainable Development Goals to address world poverty, Kellogg investigated how to help female smallholder farmers. Kellogg then began a pilot program with TechnoServe to teach 3,000 smallholder farmers about sustainable farming, and now have established this official initiative.
With global warming becoming a growing issue, many farmers around the world are challenged with shorter planting seasons, droughts or floods. As a result, according to GreenBiz, Kellogg believes that helping smallholder farmers adjust will be both good business and good corporate citizenship.
– Kerri Whelan
Photo: Flickr
Takeaway from Reading “Half the Sky”
Reading a book like Half the Sky illuminates how unfair our world is. Though women make up about half of the world’s population, they are consistently discriminated against, overlooked and are in some cases, treated as second class citizens.
It is not surprising that the authors of Half the Sky, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDonn, are award winning writers for their work in raising awareness about the reality most women face in their countries in relation to discrimination.
Written as a series of essays, this book has two parts. The first part of the essay highlights the oppression and discrimination against women especially in developing countries and how this problem is often overlooked due to corruption, lack of strong justice systems and the patriarchal state of these nations.
The second part focuses on practical ways to create this “movement and effect the change needed” to address these situations.
From the beginning to the end of this enlightening book, it is obvious that the writers are very knowledgeable on their topic of discussion and their work shows extensive research in different areas of discrimination within different locations in developing countries.
From discussing issues such as women being promised work and ending up in sexual slavery and imprisonment, to illuminating health issues within developing countries such as women and girls ending up with fistulas after birth, women dying from HIV and AIDS, women and girls going through female genital mutilation as well as being overlooked in terms of getting an education, this book paints a sad reality of women’s lives in the developing world.
The most fascinating point that arises in the book is the fact that culture is the main catalyst for the way women are treated in their societies. In our dynamic world, culture in the developing countries seems unchangeable, especially in relation to its negative aspects. Another surprising fact in the book is the idea that older women in some of these societies are perpetrators of discrimination towards other younger women in the society.
Here, this is quite a deviation from what the “West” has portrayed in development; the idea that men are the main perpetrators of women’s oppression.
Half the Sky not only raises awareness about the injustices women faces but it also advocates for women to fight for their rights by speaking up and resisting the discrimination they face. Though the book points out a few strong and relentless women like Usha Narayane, Sunitha and Krishna who do exactly this and fight for justice, it highlights that most women in the developing world are vulnerable and are unable to get access to their rights.
Half the Sky is the voice of the vulnerable, uneducated and oppressed women in the developing world.
– Vanessa Awanyo
Photo: Google Images
5 Facts on Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement
In 2004, Wangari Maathai became the “first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize” for her humanitarian work. Here are some interesting facts about her life and mission with the Green Belt Movement.
5 Facts About Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement
What makes Maathai’s movement a phenomenon is the very idea that she helped mobilize African women in contributing to sustainable development, tree-planting, integrating themselves into Kenya’s democracy. Her campaign also created awareness about the importance of women’s rights.
Wangari Maathai, through her humanitarian work, is not only a heroine for her country but also for all Africa and women as a whole. She passed away in 2011, however, her legacy will forever serve as a form of empowerment for women in Africa.
– Vanessa Awanyo
Photo: NPR
What is the Global Development Lab Act?
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations announced the introduction of the Global Development Lab Act. It was introduced by Senators Ben Cardin and Johnny Isakson on March 4, 2016. This bipartisan legislation states that the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid could be significantly enhanced through the use of scientific and technical innovations and by involving the private sector. As a result, there would be more low-cost and common-sense solutions to development challenges such as improved health outcomes and reduced global poverty.
Established in April 2014, USAID’s Global Development Lab builds upon the belief that innovation, technology and partnership can accelerate development impact fast, cheap and sustainably.
“The Lab’s role is to rethink assumptions and harness the power of the crowd and America’s leading research institutes and universities, coupled with the democratization of science and technology, to lead to new breakthroughs that it can bring to scale,” Alex Dehgan, USAID’s former chief scientist said interviewing with Center for Global Development. “If the Lab isn’t pushing boundaries, it isn’t creating discomfort, it isn’t attracting new solvers (including from the developing world), it will fail to achieve its promise.”
The Global Development Lab Act (S. 2629) establishes five key duties: (1) increase the application of science, technology, innovation and partnerships to cultivate and gauge new ways to end extreme poverty; (2) discover, test and scale development innovations to increase cost-effectiveness and support U.S. foreign policy and development goals; (3) leverage the expertise, resources and investment of businesses, private organizations, science and research organizations, and universities to increase program impact and sustainability; (4) utilize innovation-driven competitions to expand the number and diversity of solutions to challenges of development; and (5) support USAID missions and bureaus in applying science, technology, innovation, and partnership approaches to decision-making, obtainment and program design according to the legislation.
On March 4, 2016, in a press release, Senator Isakson stated: “The Global Development Lab Act would provide the integration of science, technology into our development solutions for eradicating poverty. The USAID Global Development Lab has created cost-effective solutions to solve challenges around the world. Through public and private coordination, we are leveraging the resources of business, non-governmental organizations, science and research to advance greater global health and economic development.”
The House version of this legislation (H.R. 3924) was introduced by Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-TX, and Michael McCaul, R-TX, on Nov. 4, 2015. The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a consideration and mark-up session for this legislation on Feb. 24, 2016.
– Summer Jackson
Photo: USAID
Palestinian Teacher Awarded $1 Million Global Teacher Prize
A Palestinian teacher who grew up in a refugee camp was awarded a $1 million global teacher prize in recognition of her dedication to helping children who had been exposed to violence.
Hanan Al Hroub accepted the Global Teacher Prize at a ceremony in Dubai on March 13. Pope Francis announced the winner to the crowd through a video conference, saying that teachers are “the builders of peace and unity.”
“I am proud to be a Palestinian female teacher standing on this stage,” she said while accepting the award, according to the BBC.
Hroub grew up witnessing acts of violence in the Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem and later became a teacher after her children became traumatized from being shot at while traveling home from school.
By encouraging play and rewarding positive behaviors, Hroub has facilitated a decline in violent behavior among her students.
“I tell all the teachers, whether they are Palestinian or around the world: ‘Our job is humane, its goals are noble. We must teach our children that our only weapon is knowledge and education,’” Hroub said in an interview with CNN after receiving the award.
In his speech, the Pope praised Hroub’s methods in teaching children to avoid violence, according to BuzzFeed. “A child has the right to play,” he said. “Part of the education is to teach children how to play, because you learn how to be social through the games and you learn the joy of life.”
The Global Teacher Prize is granted annually to teachers that have made outstanding contributions to the profession. The award was created by the Varkley Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to “improve the standards of education for underprivileged children throughout the world.”
A panel of educators, entrepreneurs, public officials, scientists and others are responsible for choosing the winner.
Many celebrities, including actors Salma Hayek and Matthew McConaughey, as well as many politicians including Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the ceremony where Hroub received her award.
“I support the Global Teacher Prize. Those that teach — devoting their talents and time to nurturing the talents of others — deserve to be respected and celebrated,” Kevin Spacey said in a statement on the Global Teacher Prize website.
Violence claims the lives of nearly 1.4 million people across the globe each year, according to the World Health Organization. Formal education can help prevent violence by giving children the opportunity to develop crucial social skills, problem-solving strategies, critical-thinking and communication skills.
“Based on this truth, the role of education starts, the teacher’s responsibility starts also as an educator, an artist, creating an environment and a context that frees children from violence, frees their imagination and embodies it in forms of dialogue, love and beauty,” Hroub said.
– Lauren Lewis
Why Every Woman in Africa Should Have Access to a Cell Phone
Firstly, cell phone ownership gives women the ability to be financially independent, because they can open an online bank account separate from their husbands’. Impatient Optimists claims that “A private account gives women in developing nations control over their money as well as the ability to put food on the table.”
Currently, 1.7 million women in low-income countries don’t own a cell phone, according to the GSMA (an association representing mobile operators worldwide). Women are also 14 percent less likely to own a phone than men. Therefore, technology is a vital component of big-picture solutions to gender inequality and female disempowerment.
Secondly, cell phones are beneficial in the realm of women’s education and health. Impatient Optimists notes that “The East African nation has rolled out an ambitious program allowing parents to register their child’s birth via mobile phone. Under the program, midwives can request a child’s birth certificate by sending a text message.”
The East African program will save women time and money because they will not have to travel to the capital to acquire a birth certificate for their child. The Millennium project reported that most women live on less than 1 dollar per day. Under such conditions, the option of an online birth certificate can have a dramatic impact. Significantly, children in Africa need a recorded birth certificate in order to access schools, medical care, and, eventually, a bank account.
Thirdly, cell phone access can increase employment for women in Africa. Impatient Optimists points out that having a mobile phone allows women to open their own businesses in remote villages, as opposed to walking a great distance in order to register the business.
The New York Times recognizes that, “economically empowered women are one of the most important engines of growth in developing countries, and they play a central role in building prosperous communities.” That is why women in Africa must have their own phones, instead of sharing with family members.
When women have access to their own phones, bank accounts, and financial situations, they often invest in health-care, nutritious food and education. In fact, The New York Times reports that, “A child born in a household where the mother controls the family budget is 20 percent more likely to survive and much more likely to thrive.”
Women in Africa should be given the power and authority to make financial decisions for their family, given that they tend to prioritize moral and just causes. A mobile phone in the hands of a determined woman could benefit not only the economy, but the daily lives of families across Africa.
– Megan Hadley
Photo: Flickr
USAID to Assist in Zimbabwean Drought Crisis
This extra emergency food aid will secure adequate supplies for 600,000 rural Zimbabweans who are experiencing their second straight year of drought due to the devastation generated by El Niño. $5 million of the donation, which was officially handed over to the WFP by U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Harry K. Thomas Jr., will be used to provide emergency food supplies and cash allocations for the most at risk Zimbabweans.
The supplementary funds from USAID will allow the WFP to reach more emergency food aid to Zimbabwe’s most at-risk individuals. The WFP noted that in addition to revitalizing existing operations in eight districts already receiving assistance (Zvishavane, Mudzi, Hwange, Binga, Chiredzi, Mwenezi, Kariba and Mbire) it will add three more districts: Chipinge, Mangwe and Uzuma Maramba Plungwe, to reach those most in need of emergency food aid. “With this funding, we will continue to pursue our goal to reach zero hunger in Zimbabwe by investing in resilience-building activities while meeting the immediate needs of the most vulnerable people during this difficult time,” said WFP Zimbabwe County Director Eddie Rowe.
The additional $5 million USAID funds will be used by the WFP to resume its Productive Asset Creation program. This will, said the WFP, allocate monthly food rations or cash transfers to the most disadvantaged Zimbabweans in exchange for labor on community possessions such as irrigation schemes, dip tanks and dams. The assistance will improve rural infrastructure and at the same time improve economic conditions for those rural populations.
In response to the emergency food aid crisis, the WFP also plans to extend its relief program for those who have been hardest hit by food insecurity in Zimbabwe.
The calamitous weather conditions in the country have been a major cause of the extensive crop failure and livestock deaths across the country. The WFP reports that Zimbabwe’s 2014/15 agricultural season recorded a 51 percent decline in maize production compared with the 2013/14 season due to drought, which was exceptionally severe in the south of the country.
These exceptional circumstances have thus propelled the WFP to adjust their relief program and extend it, due to the extreme and ominous impact of El Niño. WFP’s seasonal relief, intended to help individuals through difficult pre-harvest months, typically is in operation from October to March. This year, for the first time, food and cash assistance will continue throughout 2016 and into 2017.
– Heidi Grossman
Access to Private Toilets Improves Sanitation
For those living in developed countries, having access to private toilets is taken for granted. Having access to something as simple as private toilets changes lives drastically but about 2.3 billion people or a third of the world does not have access to them. This puts their health, education and safety at risk, as reported by The Huffington Post.
According to The Indian Express, approximately 60 percent of people in India do not have access to safe toilets. The people most affected by this are women and girls. They have no other choice but to relieve themselves outdoors. This puts them at a higher risk of getting assaulted or contracting diseases due to a lack of sanitation.
If private toilets exist in a community or neighborhood, they tend to be far and few between. More often than not, many schools in developing regions do not have sanitary facilities. When girls attending school don’t have access to sanitation, they have no privacy to deal with their needs and end up having to miss class when menstruating. This will often discourage girls from going to school at all, to avoid embarrassment and falling behind in school.
However, even if there is access to clean water and a private bathroom, many will continue to use the outdoors. According to The Guardian, particularly in India, many men still prefer to go outside to defecate, even if they have already installed a toilet at home. It gives them a moment of quiet as they survey their farmlands.
The results of using the outdoors as a toilet are negative. The practice continues to pollute already scarce water sources and to spread diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, and diarrhea. Other health risks include malnutrition and childhood stunting, which impairs 161 million children every year, according to a report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
A study released by WaterAid states that nearly 40 percent of India’s children are stunted. Stunting can affect not only their lives but the country’s prosperity in the future. Also, diarrheal diseases kill 700,000 every year.
Despite various governments’ pledges to install toilets in every home, little has been done to improve education about the damages that unsanitary practices cause.
Prime Minister Modi of India has made the issue of sanitation a top priority. In 2014 Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission, which translates to Clean India. This project aims to ensure a toilet in every home by 2019 and to teach people about the long-term consequences of using proper sanitation. In order to provide everyone with access to toilets, India would have to build 100 million.
March 22 was United Nations World Toilet Day. There is the hope that the day will increase awareness and educate about the importance of access to toilets.
– Michelle Simon
Photo: Flickr
Mother Teresa To Become A Saint This Year
Pope Francis will canonize Mother Teresa, a nun who committed her life to helping the poor. The Pope will do so on the 19th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, where she did extensive work assisting the impoverished.
An article written in USA Today describes Mother Teresa as, “Affectionately known as the saint of the gutter for her unconditional love for the poor, abandoned and marginalized.” As a result of her work in India, Mother Teresa earned several international honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Mother Teresa was born in Albania in the year 1910. At the age of 18, she joined an Irish Convent and received the name, “Sister Mary Teresa.” Months later, she moved to India, where she taught at St. Mary’s School for girls.
According to an article on the CNN website, “There, she took her Final Profession of Vows and became Mother Teresa.” Her Vatican biography stated that “nearly 20 years later, during a train ride in India, she felt a calling from Jesus to care for the poor.” She established Missionaries of Charity to serve the poorest of all.
She was beatified in 2003 by Pope John Paul II, who approved her first posthumous miracle. A USA Today report explains that beatification, recognition by the Catholic Church that a person is welcomed into heaven, requires at least one miracle, while to be sainted, requires two. Mother Teresa’s first miracle was declared after the Vatican Committee found no scientific explanation for the recovery of an Indian woman who prayed to Mother Teresa while suffering from a stomach tumor.
CNN reports that, in December of last year, Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, the recovery of a Brazilian man suffering from multiple brain tumors. Pope Francis will be canonizing Mother Teresa on September 4 of this year.
– Isabella Rolz
Photo: Wikipedia
TSEP Enhances Access and Quality of Education in Sri Lanka
The government of Sri Lanka launched Transforming School Education Project (TSEP) in 2012 to run through 2016. According to News Line, the objective of TSEP is enhanced access and quality of primary and secondary education. The project addresses the country’s underfunded education, wide ranged regional disparities and limited focus on key skills that students need to compete in today’s global economy.
“IDA has provided financing for the education sector in Sri Lanka over a long period of time to improve the quality of human capital through effective education and skills development,” The World Bank said of their contribution. “This $100 million project is the fifth education project in Sri Lanka.”
Strategies used to achieve school enrollment and attendance included health and nutrition programs to provide meals for children in poor communities and the building of sanitation facilities. In addition, special education programs were implemented for students who required alternative forms of education.
TSEP contributed to a spike in students reaching grade 11 up from 82 percent in 2011 to 85 percent in 2016. Of 3.2 million students, 52 percent were female.
School-based management and teacher development improved student learning and strengthened academic performance. One reform established a system for conducting national assessments of learning outcomes in order to better reflect modern international trends in curriculum practice. TSEP seeks to orient Sri Lanka’s education system to the world of work by focusing on subjects like English, IT, science, mathematics, commerce and management, as well as improving current curricula.
According to the World Bank, Sri Lanka has 4 million school children but only 215,000 teachers and around 10,000 schools. Only 7.3 percent of the government budget was invested in education in 2014.
By backing TSEP, The World Bank is supporting the Sri Lanka government’s development initiative Program for School Improvement. School officials are expected to be joined by local communities in the management and administration of schools, as greater responsibility and power will be delegated to them.
– Emily Ednoff
Photo: Flickr