Archive for category: Children

Information and stories addressing children.

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Recognizing the Right to a Childhood in Malawi

Right to a Childhood
In the last two decades, international organizations and nonprofits have turned their attention toward the right to a childhood. Children are vulnerable not only due to their age but also due to their lack of resources, low education and inability to effectively communicate. This combination has left children susceptible to child labor, child marriage and sex trafficking, forcing them to grow up quickly without a childhood. More must be done to harmonize regional, international and local laws to clearly define the age of a child in order to prevent confusion and children slipping through the system in order to allow every child the right to a childhood.

Prioritizing children’s right to a childhood in Malawi has a significant meaning for many young women combatting forced marriage. Child marriage, with parents’ consent, is common in Malawi for children between 15 and 18 years old. In 2015, Malawi amended its marriage law to increase the minimum age to 18. The constitution allows marriage at 15 years with parental consent.

Malawi’s Protection and Justice Act defines an adult at 16 years of age. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child defines an adult at 18 years. Harmonizing these laws would reduce confusion and decrease forced marriage by increasing the age of eligibility to marry. If this harmonizing of laws and redefining of age proves successful, this could be an example used for other countries combatting childhood labor, child soldiers and early childhood marriage, increasing availability of the right to a childhood.

The protection of a child’s innocence, as well as their right to a childhood, should start much earlier than marriage. Right to Play was founded in 2000 by four Olympic gold medalists and an entrepreneur. The nonprofit focuses on protecting a child’s critical years. “While food, water and shelter are essential, so is a childhood, complete with education and opportunities to actively engage with other children,” its website states. The organization teaches children life skills, which will help them overcome inevitable conflict and disease as they grow up.

Games engage children to participate in the programs, while the “Reflect-Connect-Apply” approach forces the children to examine their life experiences. Then they relate those experiences to their education. They finally apply this technique to their daily lives. “Reflect-Connect-Apply” focuses on creating positive, sustainable change in three areas: education, health and living in peace.

In some parts of the world today, children are not able to experience the benefits of a right to a childhood. Organizations and NGOs working on the ground level of local villages are teaching communities the value of play combined with an international movement to harmonize laws and clearly define an age for a child could help. Protecting the right to childhood is good for the immediate community and generations to come.

– Danielle Preskitt

Photo: Flickr

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Making Strides Through Peace Education in Rwanda

Peace Education in Rwanda
In the wake of the 1994 genocide, peace education in Rwanda teaches children from different ethnic backgrounds how to reconcile their differences and empathize with one another.

In classrooms filled with children of both Tutsi and Hutu ethnicities, conflict is frequent. Although many of these children are too young to remember the genocide that claimed the lives of nearly one million Rwandans, primarily Tutsis, they live with the after-effects of the trauma that their families endured.

Many children grew up hearing one-sided or incomplete narratives. Others suffer more tangible losses: the death of a parent, or a family member in jail, and the resulting economic difficulties.

At school, children directly impacted by the genocide often become targets for bullying. Students who receive government compensation meet daily resentment. Classmates scorn genocide orphans who cannot afford clothes. There is no outright fighting; the methods of intimidation are more subtle. Notebooks thrown in toilets, name-calling and anonymous letters filled with threats are not uncommon.

The UK-based NGO International Alert helps to bring students from different ethnic backgrounds together in Peace Clubs. Here, they can better understand the conflict they witness in the classroom and discuss their individual narratives. International Alert supports similar clubs for adults, which bring victims and perpetrators together in conversation. However, those under 24 years old receive a special focus, since they make up 60% of the country’s population.

Peace Club members engage in critical thinking activities. They observe and interpret images with messages that are not always straightforward. Through plays, poems and acted-out scenes they examine prejudices and stereotypes, mapping out the route from conflict to reconciliation. They also learn about people who refused to commit atrocities during the genocide, treating them as role models.
The club is invested in creating strong connections between members and within the greater community. Club members work together through cooperative projects and volunteer to do community service for group members’ parents who are struggling.

A conflict-free classroom relies on empathic students, but also on a peace-centered system of learning. Aegis Trust, the organization that runs the Kigali Genocide Memorial, trains teachers for the best ways to approach and lead discussions about the genocide with their students.

This new peace education in Rwanda is directly in contrast to the old curriculum, which was designed to discriminate and to foster hatred and division among students. Out of fear, many teachers chose not to talk about the genocide at all, leaving the children to draw their own conclusions based on what they heard at home.

Aegis also comes into the classroom to offer day-long courses in peace-building. In the morning, they revisit the country’s history, learning about the ways that hate leads to violence and the necessity of reconciliation. In the afternoons, the students take a trip to the Genocide Memorial, an experience that is so horrifying that it leaves some of them in tears.

The students say that these sessions make a clear difference in the overall attitude of the school. Students, regardless of their ethnicity, began to treat one another with compassion and to support those with physical needs. Anti-genocide clubs formed. The teens and young adults spoke with one another about what they learned.

In 2015, the Rwandan government launched the Peace Education Program, which incorporates peace into every subject taught in the schools. Aegis continues to advise teachers on the best way to overcome suspicion in the classroom. They also try to instill in their students the ability to trust in the future.

Only education can give them that future. As Rwandan Minister of Education Hon. Dr. Vincent Biruta said, “Education is our only hope that atrocities will not happen again.” As a result, peace education in Rwanda continues to open up a much-needed dialogue about past conflict.

– Emilia Otte

Photo: Google

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Studies Show Long-Term Effects of Poverty in Children

Effects of Poverty in Children
Recent research and behavioral studies focusing on children that grow up in conditions of poverty have indicated that the stress associated with that environment can have lasting negative effects. It has been long accepted in the field that spending one’s formative years in the tough circumstances associated with poverty can lead to learning and behavioral problems. However, these recent studies indicate something different: the long-term effects of poverty in children are not only potentially psychologically detrimental but also physiologically damaging.

Researchers and experts in the field have coined the term “toxic stress” to describe the prolonged activation of the stress response system when a child experiences strong, frequent or prolonged adversity. Children brought up in the harsh conditions of poverty are highly likely to be continually exposed to this type of toxic stress. The absence of protective relationships, physical and emotional abuse, chronic neglect, exposure to substance abuse and violence and the accumulation of family economic hardships all lead to the prolonged activation of the stress response system. This toxic stress, especially in the early formative years of a child’s development, can have highly detrimental effects on the individual’s health which follows them for the rest of their lives.

The most recent research suggests that toxic stress can lead to some of the major causes of the deadliest diseases in adulthood, such as diabetes and heart attacks. As Dr. Tina Hahn, a pediatrician, recently claimed, “The damage that happens to kids from the infectious diseases of toxic stress is as severe as the damage from meningitis or polio.”

Undergoing toxic stress can also lead to higher risks of internal inflammation; a 2015 study at Brown University found that the saliva of children who had experienced abuse or other hardships had elevated levels of inflammation markers. The effects of poverty in children can also potentially be deadly: one of the direst findings, from a 2009 study, found that adults with six or more adverse childhood experiences died 20 years earlier than those with none.

The findings of the adverse long-term effects of poverty in children have begun to lead to a change in approach on behalf of psychologists, pediatricians and educators. The American Academy of Pediatricians in 2016, for example, passed a policy urging pediatricians to routinely screen families for poverty and help them find food, homeless shelters and other necessary resources. Some schools have also begun to screen children for signs of toxic stress, in order to curb these harmful effects before they manifest themselves. This practice, unfortunately, is far from universal. However, as awareness about these findings grow and more studies reach similar conclusions, the professional — and public — attitude toward the issue of poverty is beginning to change, it is beginning to no longer be seen only as a socio-economic issue but as a fundamental humanitarian and health one.

– Alan Garcia-Ramos
Photo: Flickr

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The Top 3 Barriers to Education

Barriers to Education
Much of the world is completely unaware of the current global education crisis. Although education is an inalienable right according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDH), there are currently 263 million children out of school. There are multiple barriers to education that need to be addressed to end this crisis.

Here are the three top barriers to education:

Affordability

The most apparent barrier to education is affordability, even though the UDH states that free basic education is every child’s right. Many developing nations have abolished formal school fees, but informal fees continue to prevent children from receiving an education. Informal fees include required uniforms, textbooks and additional school materials. In developing countries, “children from the poorest 20 percent of households are four times less likely to attend school than the wealthiest 20%.” The inability to afford formal and informal fees perpetuates a cycle of poverty amongst the poor, as children remain home to support their families.

Lack of Trained Teachers

Lack of trained teachers is a barrier to education that affects even those in developing countries that can afford schooling. Not only are there not enough teachers worldwide to achieve universal education, but their training is either poor or nonexistent. In 2016, the U.N. reported that 69 million trained teachers are necessary to achieve global universal education by 2030. With many teachers in developing nations failing to meet national standards, children lack basic education.

Gender Inequality

The UDH states that every child has the right to education, but unfortunately, being the ‘wrong’ gender is a barrier to education. In developing countries, girls are significantly less likely to receive an education than boys. This is due to entrenched gender norms that maintain that households should not educate their daughters. Many impoverished families must make a choice of which of their children to send to school. In this case, households are much more likely to send their sons to school than their daughters because of social norms. Instead of attending school, many girls are sent to work or kept at home to provide and care for the family.

Addressing barriers to education is critical in obtaining universal education by 2030. Towards this goal, many organizations concentrate on establishing specific barriers. Such organizations include CARE, 60 Million Girls, the Global Partnership for Education and Educate a Child. These organizations and others like them work to educate people about the crisis and propose potential solutions. Possible solutions include additional and proper use of funding for education; strengthening educational systems and recruiting and providing training for teachers.

Knowing the barriers to education is the first step to providing every child with their inalienable right to education. The next step is to work together and tackle each barrier one by one.

– Haley Hurtt

Photo: Flickr

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Successful Efforts to Improve Education in Cabo Verde

Education in Cabo Verde
Unknown to many people around the world, there is a small country made up of 10 islands and five islets off the west coast of Africa called Cabo Verde. The country has faced and continues to face many obstacles such as a lack of natural resources, drought and poor land for farming. Despite these challenges, the country remains prosperous and continues to see improvements in its education system. Here are some things to know about education in Cabo Verde.

Four Educational Groups
Education in Cabo Verde is broken up into four sectors: pre-primary, for children ages three to five; primary, from ages six to 11; secondary, for students 12 to 17 and tertiary, the country’s version of college. Only education from the age of 6 to 15 is mandatory.

Large-Scale Changes in 1975
In 1975, Cabo Verde gained its independence. Before its separation from Portugal, the literacy rate in Cabo Verde was only at 40%. As of 2015, the literacy rate in the country has doubled to an impressive 80%.

Improved School Attendance
In 2007, about 5,000 children were not attending school in Cabo Verde. As of 2015, that number has gone down to less than 1,000 students out of school. While there are still efforts to be made to ensure that every child attends school, this tremendous improvement in less than ten years is impressive.

Investments in Education
As of 2013, about 15% of the government’s yearly expenditure was going towards education. This percentage is higher than in many countries around the world such as the U.S., which spends about six percent of public spending annually on education.

Providing Necessary Tools
The school system in Cabo Verde does its best to provide all students with what they need to succeed in school. Textbooks are now available to 90% of students in the country. Additionally, 83% of teachers have attended in-service teacher training.

While education in Cabo Verde is not perfect, the country has made impressive advances since its independence in 1975. Almost all children in the country attend school and can read. Additionally, the government works toward improving its education system by providing all that they can. Cabo Verde may be a tiny and unknown nation, but their educational successes make them a great example for countries like them around the world.

– Olivia Hayes

Photo: Flickr

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HP World on Wheels Labs and Underprivileged Children

HP World on Wheels
In November of 2016, tech company Hewlett-Packard announced its plan to deploy 48 digital inclusion and learning labs across rural India. The program, HP World on Wheels, intends to enhance digital literacy, education programming and entrepreneurship training.

At the 2017 Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg, Germany, HP furthered its commitment to underserved communities by committing $20 million in technology to enhance the learning of more than 100 million people by 2025.

“In our technology-enabled world, none of us should accept that 330 million children are not learning basic skills,” HP chief supply chain officer Stuart Pann told the festival crowd. “To break the cycle of poverty, we must not only provide access to quality education but also enable better learning outcomes.”

Each HP World on Wheels lab is supplied with computing and printing technology, software suites and e-learning tools as well as IT literacy classes. They are powered by 10 solar panels and produce the least possible greenhouse gases, making them fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly.

HP has set four targets that will help it build strong communities through education:

  1. Expand HP World on Wheels to other less fortunate communities.
  2. Bring HP Learning Studios to refugees in the Middle East in collaboration with Digital Promise Global, the Global Business Coalition for Education, Microsoft and Intel.
  3. Enroll another 100 million entrepreneurs in HP Life, a free e-learning program, by 2025.
  4. Use the HP National Education Technology Assessment (NETA) to guarantee that the education matches what employers require.

As of 2016, there has been seven World on Wheels “Future Classrooms” utilized in rural India. The initiative to improve digital learning everywhere is in collaboration with the United Nations and other nonprofit organizations that will provide business and tech insight in the United States, Myanmar, Tunisia and many other countries needing help in these areas.

“As we work to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere, we recognize that a big gap remains between those who have access, and those who don’t,” HP chief sustainability and social impact officer Nate Hurst said. “We’re thrilled to take another step forward in helping bridge the divide with HP World on Wheels, bringing quality education, entrepreneurship training, and access to essential services to people right where they are.”

– Madeline Boeding

Photo: Google

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Suffering Children in Bangladesh

Children in Bangladesh
More than 60 million children currently call Bangladesh their home; nearly half of these children live in deep poverty. Many families don’t have the means to support themselves, which contributes to the country’s high rate of malnutrition.

Severe weather conditions make food security non-existent. Even something as essential as water can be a rarity for some civilians. In addition, medical help is a challenge to receive among the impoverished. Vaccines are not a commonality, and mothers receive minimal to no information on childbearing.

This disconnection from medical assistance causes many children in Bangladesh to be undocumented. Consequently, Bangladesh does not recognize them as citizens. They are thus unable to protect them from abuse, forced labor, prostitution, early marriage or child trafficking.

Education is free and mandatory for all children in Bangladesh ages six to eight; however, laborers and the disabled hardly obtain an education. The impoverished youth who do have the ability to attend school may have to abandon their education early in order to support their families.

The legal working age is 14, but children as young as six are working 100-hour workweeks and making an average of less than $2 a day.

What is being done to eliminate this issue?

World Child Cancer estimates that nearly two million children in Bangladesh need medical care, but only 1% obtain it. They are working to train healthcare professionals to give children crucial care and provide a consistent supply of medication.

The ‘Bangladesh MaMoni Health System Strength Project’ is a 4-year USAID and MCHIP funded program. The Project works to supply health care, family welfare and reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality. Through this organization, anyone can sponsor a child from early childhood to early adulthood. This will provide a healthy and safe place for them to live while supplying educational resources.

Bangladesh has begun to enforce major reforms in hopes to make their nation a middle-income country by 2021 to celebrate their 50th anniversary of independence. Bangladesh’s Vision 2021 and the associated Perspective Plan from 2010 to 2021 lays out the steps Bangladesh is planning to take. Bangladesh is working to lower the poverty rate to 15%; this will lift millions of people from poverty in the next eight years. In order for this goal to be met, income must be maintained, public investment must increase agricultural productivity and industries and services need to promote growth in high salaries. The nation’s goal may appear far-fetched, but from 2000 to 2010, the poverty level has lowered from 63 million to 47 million people, a 23% decrease. These new policies, combined with the financial help of civilians, are allowing more children to rise above poverty.

– Nicole Hentzell

Photo: Flickr

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Narrowing the Gap: Investing in the Poorest Children


On June 28, the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) released its report “Narrowing the Gaps: The Power of Investing in the Poorest Children.” The new peer-reviewed report compiled data from 2003-2016 and supports the claim that investing in the health of the world’s poorest communities saves lives and is cost-effective. The following are 10 facts learned from the compelling report.

  1. This report is a result of UNICEF’s 2010 prediction that although the cost of reaching the poorest children is high, greater results would outweigh the cost.
  2. The key finding in “Narrowing the Gaps: The Power of Investing in the Poorest Children” is that for every million dollars invested in the most deprived populations, the number of lives saved is nearly double that saved by an equal investment in other populations.
  3. The number of lives saved is even greater for children under five. More than four more lives are saved per $1 million invested in poor communities compared with other communities.
  4. In this report, people living on an average income below $3.10 per day were considered to be poor.
  5. Children living in extreme poverty are twice as likely to die before five years of age than children living in better circumstances. Most die from preventable diseases.
  6. While progress was made to address the global under-five mortality rate, UNICEF discovered that until recently little to no progress was achieved to lower preventable childhood deaths, specifically among the world’s poorest communities.
  7. The report analyzed data from 51 countries and found that gaps in health coverage between poor and non-poor populations narrowed in 37 of the 51 countries by the end of the study. Coverage did not decrease for non-poor populations, coverage increased for both.
  8. In the final year of the study, UNICEF estimated that 1.1 million lives were saved due to increases in coverage, including 940,000 lives from impoverished populations.
  9. However, UNICEF’s prediction is that by 2030, 70 million children under the age of five will still die from preventable diseases unless action is taken.
  10. To prevent this from happening, the report suggests governments and organizations identify the poorest children and communities. Governments should then invest in proven, low-cost high-impact interventions, strengthen health systems, work with the private sector to spur innovation and monitor results to ensure equity between poor and non-poor populations.

While previous thought may have suggested that investing in the extreme poor is a hopeless cause, UNICEF’s report “Narrowing the Gaps: The Power of Investing in the Poorest Children” clearly shows that doing so saves more lives and is more cost-effective. Pursuing equity in health coverage between and investment in poor and non-poor communities is right not just in principle but also in practice.

– Sean Newhouse

Photo: Flickr

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Australian Aborigines and Barrel Train to Keep School Attendance

Barrel TrainIn the remote regions of Pilbara, Australia, a train snakes through red dirt tracks, but the cargo it carries is one of a kind. The Aboriginal community of Punmu, 700 kilometers east of Newman, have DIY’ed their way into converting a couple of metal drums into a unique barrel train.

John Reudavey, the chief architect of this novel school train, got the idea while holidaying in Perth, where he noticed a couple of drums being towed behind a ride – on the mower. He saw parents paying $2 for the kids to putt around the footy oval and an idea was born.

The Train

For the rugged and uneven terrain of Pilbara, Reudavey along with volunteers Donald Graham, Peter Doery and the Punmu community, linked barrels and attached them to a front tractor, which ultimately drives the entire system around. They mounted the drums onto metal framings with wheels and linked them together to form this 24-seater desert transit.

The carriages were decorated using design artwork from children and community members. Local industries like the Newcrest Mining, Telfer provided the necessary support for the successful creation of this project.

Reudavey’s Western Desert Express now serves around 40 Punmu children which go to RAWA community school which is an independent school catering to students from Kindergarten to Year 12.

According to the Principal Sarah Mortimer, the ride is safe and positive and is welcomed by parents with younger kids, who can now send their children safely and timely to school. While school attendance has never been an issue, the biggest challenge faced by Mortimer has been student arrivals. The principal hopes that the barrel train would help address the issue of late arrivals and encourage students to stay at schools for the entire day.

For Reudavey, the biggest driver is the eager look on the faces of young children as they wait for their unique barrel train ride each morning, rain, hail or shine.

The Punmu Aboriginal Community

Punmu is an Aboriginal community situated in the very heart of Western Australia, located 640 km southeast of Port Hedland in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia, within the Shire of East Pilbara. Punmu are considered to be the most isolated communities in Australia. The Punmu community has a population of approximately 180 people and Manyjiljarra (pronounced Mun-dul-jar-ah) is the spoken language. Two main reasons the Martu live out in the middle of the desert are: to return to their traditional land and to save the community from the ill effects of alcohol, petrol sniffing and drugs.

– Jagriti Misra

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How One Man Brought the Strength of Words to His Community

Strength of WordsJose Alberto Gutierrez, a garbage man in Bogotá, Colombia, turns trashed books into treasure for the children in his community. For the past 20 years, Gutierrez has collected discarded books in the trash of the wealthier neighborhoods in Bogotá. He takes these books to his home in southern Bogotá, where he turned the first floor of his home into a free community library called The Strength of Words.

Gutierrez’s family could not afford for him to remain in school beyond primary. However, Gutierrez said his mother would still read to him every night and he credits her with his appreciation for books. So when he found a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the idea sparked. He began taking 50 to 60 books home with him each day on the job.

The Strength of Words now holds more than 20,000 books, all of which were found in the trash. Before the library, the children in his neighborhood didn’t have easy access to reading material. Now, they have unlimited access to books that can help them with their schoolwork and fulfil their other interests. Either way, The Strength of Words has made it easier for the children in his community to learn.

The library is not just for school children. Adults also have access to the wide variety of texts. They can use the books to learn skills they otherwise did not have, which can help them get jobs or advance in those they already have. Gutierrez also provides books for Colombia’s peace process after being contacted by a fighter from the FARC rebel group, who wanted books to help transition fighters back into civilian life and prepare them for jobs.

No longer able to contain the whole collection in his home, Gutierrez distributes books to other poor and remote towns throughout Colombia. He believes that there should be multiple libraries in every neighborhood in all towns, cities and rural areas. And he is making strides to see his dream become a reality.

The success of The Strengths of Words is an inspiring story of how one man recognized a need in his community and sought to fix it. Because of Gutierrez, many children and adults now have easy access to educational reading materials in their own neighborhoods.

– Hannah Kaiser

Photo: Pixabay