Archive for category: Education

Information and stories on education.

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What is the Global Education First Initiative?

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The necessity for global education has always been present, but what many may not know is that worldwide, 61 million primary-aged children are out of school, of which more than half are girls. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeks to remedy this with the Global Education First Initiative – a program that works to raise awareness of the necessity of education as well as to provide better access to education, as well as to improve the quality of learning for every child the program puts into school.

In order to put every child in school, some major goals for development include eliminating cost barriers to attending school, identifying and aiding those that need nutrition and health support, eliminating the gender disparity, and building millions of new classrooms around the world, especially in rural and crisis-affected areas. The second focus of the initiative, to improve quality of learning, is going to be met by training of teachers and improving learning materials. These measures will insure that children are more ready for further education as well as for life outside of school – with proper education come far more opportunities for success in life.

The last major focus of the initiative is to foster global citizenship, or in other words, promote peace, community, and innovation throughout the world through education. In the words of Ban Ki-moon, “The world faces global challenges that require global solutions. Education must cultivate an active care for the world and for those with whom we share it”. Ki-moon sees education as a driving force for human development that will drive down inequalities and improve health while fostering solidarity around the globe.

This push for education has been heartily embraced by education rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who has volunteered with the UN to speak on July 12 in favor of the right to education for girls, and for all those who may desire it. As a survivor of extreme violence because of her advocacy, Malala’s message is clear: “…that all students should be given the chance to attend school with adequate safety. Obtaining education is every man and woman’s birth right and no one is allowed to take away this right from them”.

In honor of Malala’s efforts, and in part encouraged and inspired by the Global Education First Initiative, the UN will be launching a global petition called A World at School – Stand With Malala as an effort to establish universal primary education by December 2015. It is the hope of the United Nations that someday universal education will be achieved and that because of this the world will become a more stable, healthier, and happier place.

– Sarah Rybak

Sources: Global Education First, Women News Network
Photo: Global Education First

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A Small NGO on a Big Mission in Bangladesh

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Founded in New York in 1998, the Volunteers Association for Bangladesh is a small NGO on a big mission: to change public education for the poor in Bangladesh. The organization, whose members are mostly expatriate Bangladeshis living in the U.S. and Canada, has devoted itself to providing the funds, technical resources, and training necessary to improve Bangladeshi public schools, particularly those in rural areas where most of the country’s poor people live.

Their task could be seen as a daunting one. Statistics from 2009 put the literacy rate among Bangladeshi males at 54%, and among females at only 32%. According to more recent studies, the literacy rate for people in Bangladesh over age 15 is just under 60%. Dropout rates for high school students are estimated at 42%. Figures like these speak to the great educational need that the Volunteers Association for Bangladesh seeks to address.

The VAB has taken a comprehensive approach to meeting these educational needs and tackling the problem of inadequate schooling. Programs in 60 schools across the country are designed to help students from preschool through university. They provide free preschool with a nutritious meal, tutoring for 6th-grade students to help them pass entrance exams for high schools, and scholarships to help high school students pay for tuition and other necessary materials.

The group has also donated supplies like computers and science equipment in order to help 15 public schools better serve their students. In 2005, VAB started a college scholarship program, which has since helped 201 students pay for tuition and textbooks. In addition, they train local university students to work as tutors in the public schools.

All of these efforts are making headway in helping to open up doors to real opportunity for the poor in Bangladesh. The VAB is working to keep expanding its programs, and most recently they have partnered with Microsoft Southeast Asia to start a computer literacy and training program. To learn more about VAB and all of its efforts, visit www.vabonline.org.

– Délice Williams

Sources: Volunteer Association for Bangladesh, The Financial Express
Photo: Voice of America

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Varkey GEMS Fights for Global Education

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Despite the importance of global education, donor agencies and major developed countries have decreased their federal budgets and funding. Developing countries like India are working hard to get children into school and are increasing enrollment rates, but the fact remains that attendance rates and general accessibility to education in developing countries are lower than they should be.

Vikas Pota, CEO of Varkey GEMS Foundation, interprets this as “a major setback for children all over the world”, and states that “we need innovative solutions to make sure children have the opportunity to attend school”.  The Varkey GEMS Foundation attempts to imrove the standards of education for underprivileged children, with one of their major goals being to impact 100 underprivileged children for every child enrolled in a GEMS school. In order to ensure that “every child has a chance to prosper”, the foundation provides scholarships and leadership development, as well as builds schools throughout the developing world. Another core goal of the foundation is to promote gender equality and provide for girl’s and women’s education as well.

At the launch of the foundation in December 2010, Bill Clinton had this to say, “There will rarely be people who launch something with so much potential to lift the hopes and spirits and dreams of children as this Foundation has done tonight. The benefits from an educated child will affect not only the child itself, but his or her family and the wider community… the world is depending on it”. By focusing on education of underprivileged children, it is the hope of Pota and of the foundation that those children will be able to lift themselves from poverty into a life of better opportunities and independence.

Pota believes that the biggest crisis we face in education “is that of not investing enough in our teachers”. Over the next ten years, the foundation hopes to train over 250,000 teachers globally, with the help of government aid. Another problem is that the majority of aid to basic education is not allocated to the lowest income countries where the most aid is needed. Pota calls for collective responsibility and action, which starts with the citizens. Calls to congress people and legislators are the most effective way to show support, and will increase the likelihood that budgets for education-based aid will increase.

– Sarah Rybak
Source: Huffington Post, Gems Education
Photo: A Celebration of Women

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The Nowhere Children: Global Child Labor

The Nowhere Children: Global Child Labor
Below the boom of Asian economies are millions of child workers. These children are working in dangerous, unsanitary and often times degrading conditions. They are the “Nowhere” children. Neither enrolled in school nor officially employed, these children live in the in-between space as children in a very adult world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there may be around 48 million of these Nowhere children.

South Asia has the largest population of children in any region. Consequently, it is also home to some of the largest numbers of children involved in underage labor and exploitation. The ILO has also estimated that there are 21.6 million children, out of a population of 300 million between the ages of 5 and 14, who are working in South Asia.

Children who do not attend any form of schooling are more likely to wind up in child labor for more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with very little pay. Children in these conditions are also in harm’s way as they can be easily exploited and become the victims of violence.

What causes child labor is complex and multifaceted causes. Poverty and income inequality along with the lack of education and social protection are among the key causes. Many children are also trafficked into bonded labor. Additionally, culture in South Asia often dictates that children are often perceived as adults much earlier in their lives. Thus, Children are expected to work as hard as adults when they are as young as ten years old.

For this year’s International Day Against Child Labor, the humanitarian agency World Vision has called upon governments, businesses and civil society to take action to end child labor in the Asia Pacific.

Abid Gulzar, World Vision’s Advocacy and Justice for Children Associate Director in Asia and Pacific have stated that “Child labor doesn’t just take away childhood from children, it also triggers a vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation.” Thus he calls for increased access for these “Nowhere” children to education, proper nutrition and health services.  World Vision is the Co-Chair of the South Asia Coordinating Group on Action against Violence towards children (SACG).  World Vision has worked and continues to coordinate with the United Nation agencies and international Non-profit organizations for children’s rights in South Asia.

– Grace Zhao
Source: Thomas Reuters Foundation, International Labor Organization
Photo: Sunset Blogging

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Birth Rates and Poverty in Niger

Birth Rates and Poverty in Niger
Niger is the seventh poorest country in the world. It is an example of the multitudinous effects of extreme poverty. With high political instability, high levels of gender inequality, high birth rates, high levels of malnutrition and ethnic conflict, attempts to lift Niger out of poverty have often failed because of the magnitude and multitude of problems to be faced.

The population of Niger works largely in fishing and farming. As a result, they are unusually susceptible to natural disasters and climate conditions. A 2005 drought that led to a massive food shortage had devastating effects on the people and the economy, with the IMF forgiving 100% of the nation’s debt, roughly $86 million USD. In 2010, famine wiped out many people and the country reported the outbreak of multiple diseases, with deaths due to diarrhea, starvation, gastroenteritis, malnutrition and respiratory diseases.

Education levels in Niger are among the lowest in the world, with many children unenrolled and children often forced to work instead of study. Nomadic children often do not have access to schools.

The high birth-rates in Niger are a problem, as they contribute to an expanding population whose families cannot support them. This is partly as a result of the belief that the greater the number of children one family has, the greater the chance that a family will be lifted out of poverty when one finds success.

– Farahnaz Mohammed
Source: Richest.org, DW.DE
Photo: Niger Delta Rising

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Design a Condom to Improve Contraception Access

Design a Condom to Improve Contraception Access
In 2013, 222 million women in the developing world still do not have access to modern contraception. That is 222 million women unable to responsibly plan their families; without the ability to control their own fertility, they are unable to plan a stable future for themselves.

In developing countries, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are leading causes of death for women. Responsible family planning would not only significantly impact maternal mortality rates, but would also provide the opportunity for millions of girls to stay in school and potentially lift entire communities out of poverty.

Global Poverty Project and Women Deliver have partnered to launch It Takes Two, a campaign focused on improving access to sexual and reproductive health information and services around the world. The campaign will use the Global Citizen online platform to extend its message and generate support. It Takes Two hopes to capitalize on the game-like atmosphere of Global Citizen’s points rewards system to attract a substantial crowd of supporters.

How has It Takes Two managed to turn modern contraception into a game?

Design your own condoms.

It Takes Two is sponsoring a contest in which participants submit a condom wrapper design by July 21st, and the 10 winning designers will receive free condoms featuring their personalized wrapper. Everyone who enters will have their design profiled in the It Takes Two condom gallery, and be entered for a chance to win tickets to concerts to over 70 participating artists such as Kings of Leon, Beyoncé, Tim McGraw or One Direction.

It Takes Two wants everyone, creative or not, to step up and help spread the word that everyone has the right to plan their lives because a woman’s choices shouldn’t be made for her based on her socioeconomic level or her country of origin.

– Dana Johnson

Source: Artist Direct, It Takes Two
Photo: Global Giving

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Profile: the Better World Fund

Profile: the Better World Fund
The Better World Fund was founded in 1998 by media mogul, philanthropist, and humanitarian Ted Turner.  The man who brought us the cable station CNN started the Fund as an umbrella organization to facilitate public-private partnerships to address a range of global concerns, including health crises and environmental problems.  The fund also serves as an advocacy and outreach organization to support the work of the United Nations and to lobby for the US Government to provide political, financial and sometimes military support for UN humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts.

The major initiative of the Better World Fund is the Better World Campaign, whose publicity and advocacy work currently focuses on what the organization calls its “key issues.”  The top three of those issues are climate change, global health, and international security.

In each of these areas, the Better World Fund and the Better World Campaign work to build support for UN initiatives.  On climate change, they advocate for the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord, which establishes a registry to keep track of the ways that different nations are responding to climate change. The Accord also commits developed countries to provide up to $100 billion per year by 2020 to reduce emissions and take other measures to address climate change.

In the area of global health, the Better World Fund supports UN education and treatment efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria, and it supports vaccination efforts to eradicate polio.  In the area of international security, the Fund advocates for UN efforts to end nuclear proliferation, to combat international terrorism, and to enforce maritime laws governing the activities of governments and businesses, and the management of marine natural resources.

The Fund’s Board of Directors includes former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, civil rights leader Andrew Young, and Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan.

– Délice Williams
Source: Better World Campaign, Charity Navigator
Source: Glogster

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Adopt an ECD

Adopt an ECD
Early childhood development (ECD) is an aspect of life that kids in Africa can’t afford to take for granted. Only 43% of children under five in South Africa have access to these crucial programs either at home or in a specialized center. Exposing children to ECD programs is an important factor in their ability to grow into intelligent adults, and also plays a crucial role in lifting them out of poverty.

To change the vicious cycle of poverty, the National Development Agency is launching the Adopt an ECD campaign to allow more kids the chance to participate in early childhood development programs. The most prevalent reason children do not have access to these programs is because their families simply cannot afford them. And without early childhood development programs, most kids will grow up without the education and skills necessary to raise themselves out of poverty, thus continuing the cycle.

The Adopt an ECD campaign allows individuals and organizations to donate money, supplies, or work hours to help create more accessible programs for kids. The donations will go toward building new schools and daycare centers, buying school supplies, or renovating buildings to be more child-friendly. When individuals and businesses help contribute to the campaign, they are not only helping educate children, they’re also helping end global poverty.

– Katie Brockman

Source: Mail & Guardian
Photo: World Vision

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Childhood Malnutrition Affects Literacy

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A recent study by the organization Save the Children indicates that there is a direct  link between childhood malnutrition and literacy. The Food for Thought study followed 3,000 children in Ethiopia, India, Vietnam and Peru throughout their lives and interviewed them at key points to determine their educational abilities, confidence, hopes and aspirations. The results indicated that children malnourished from an early age are severely hindered in their ability to learn. In comparison to their healthy counterparts, malnourished children score 7% lower on math tests, are 19% less likely to be able to read a simple sentence at eight years old, are 12% less likely to be able to write a simple sentence, and are 13% less likely to be in the appropriate grade for their age at school.

The adverse effects of malnutrition carry over into later life, affecting a person’s chances for success. The Save the Children study showed that malnourished children are 20% less successful in later life, which could prove to be a barrier to ending global poverty, and a hindrance to economic growth.

A quarter of the world’s children are estimated to be malnourished, and that number is not expected to improve if more funding is not delegated to the cause. Currently, just 0.3% of global development spending funds nutrition programs.  On June 8 the G8 global nutrition summit in London will give attending leaders and leading authors a chance to address the issue of childhood malnutrition. Julia Donaldson, a bestselling author of children’s books, is urging world leaders to give attention to childhood malnutrition and its effects on literacy:  “The devastating impact of malnutrition shouldn’t be underestimated,” Donaldson says. “It stunts a child’s development, sapping the strength of their minds as well of their body, depriving them of the chance to be able to read or write a simple sentence.  Leaders attending this summit have a golden opportunity to stop this. They must invest more funding to tackle malnutrition if we are to stop a global literacy famine.”

– Kira Maixner
Source BBC , Save the Children
Photo VOA News

More than a Tourist: O’Sullivan’s Travels

O'Sullivan's Travels
Chris O’Sullivan may not be a celebrity, but he definitely is not your average wait-for-the-employer-to-call college graduate. O’Sullivan’s Travels is much closer to Gulliver than Sullivan. Unlike Gulliver, however, he not only reaches out to the world but lets the world reach back—the world of South African students struggling with disadvantages and the world of donors given the opportunity to really make an impact and watch their money make a huge difference.

After graduating with a degree in Education from Shippensburg University, O’Sullivan traveled to the Stellenbosch region of South Africa to aid a school of 1,800 students divided amongst only 40 teachers with few supplies at their disposal. Despite the creativity, passion, perseverance, and best intentions, one teacher can only do so much with 50 students and limited resources.

O’Sullivan taught English and math to 6th grade students and experienced first hand the disadvantages these students and their teachers faced. In a world numbered one to three, first world students have pencils, pens, markers, crayons, posters, desks, charts, graphs, computers, iPhones, and 20 peers. In the second world students have pencils, pens, maps, graphs, paper, a few posters, a computer, mobile phones, and 35 peers. In the third world students have a pencil, some paper, their creativity, ambition, determination, and their teacher’s knowledge to rely on.

Two years later, 2 months from now, O’Sullivan is returning to Kayamandi to again lend his skills and experience. O’Sullivan is not returning empty-handed. He is bringing his network of support. His goals for this trip are twofold: First, he wants to give South Africa to the South Africans. Having a slim-to-none chance of ever going on vacation to a domestic or foreign destination, O’Sullivan wants to bring the beauty and wonder of South Africa to the students of Kayamandi. “Imagine living on the doorstep of Disney World and never being able to step inside.” So many of the students have never ridden in a van, slept in their own bed, eaten in a restaurant, or even seen the ocean (South Africa has 2,798 km of coastline!). His second goal is to stock the school with supplies. Pencils, paper, posters, books and magazines will go a long way towards improving the education the students receive.

The count down has begun. Two months to go. O’Sullivan has spent the last year working numerous part time jobs to pay for his trip and received support from friends, family, and a larger network.

Chris O’Sullivan is not a celebrity. Not by television standards anyway. But, ask any student in Kayamandi, South Africa, and you can bet they’ll know who he is.

– Katherine Zobre

Sources: O’Sullivan’s Travels, CIA World Factbook
Photo: O’Sullivan’s Travels