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The Importance of Secondary Education

The Importance of Secondary Education
Secondary education is an important segment in every person’s life. It also serves as a means to potentially empower girls, raise a person’s economic status and reduce infant mortality rates as these listed facts will show. Here are the 10 facts about the importance of secondary education.

10 Facts About the Importance of Secondary Education

  1. Child marriage would reduce by 64 percent if all girls received a secondary education. Moreover, early pregnancies would lower by 59 percent.
  2. There are more than 226 million children around the world who do not attend secondary school. If these children were all to go onto secondary education, then the under-five mortality rate would fall by 49 percent. According to Ann M. Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF, evidence shows that girls who receive an education are more likely to take better care of their families, and in turn, reduce infant mortality rates.
  3. A person’s earnings should increase by 10 percent on average for each year of school they attend. As a result, education may help boost economies and bring populations out of poverty.
  4. In 29 countries around the world, children must complete secondary school. Some developed and developing countries will even pay for children to attend secondary school.
  5. In just 40 years, a country could raise its Growth Domestic Product (GDP) per capita by 23 percent through equal access to education.
  6. The attendance of all children to school would require $39 billion in funding every year.
  7. Children often start to drop out of school after primary school. The decrease in enrollment is as much as 10 percent worldwide and 34 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  8. In the year 2012, reports stated that there were 168 million child labor workers between the ages of five and 17. This is one of the reasons a child might be unable to attend school.
  9. In most developing countries, public school is not free for children to attend, as they must purchase books, uniforms and other school supplies. Even factoring out the costs of going to school, 67 million children still do not receive the right to attend. As a result, millions of children do not obtain a proper education, making it difficult to find substantial forms of employment. One solution to this has been Child Empowerment International, an organization that works to provide education to children across the world by setting up day schools for children without access to education, such as in refugee camps.
  10. While girls are less likely to be able to attend school in the first place, boys are more likely to repeat grades or drop out of school altogether. This is due to various issues within their countries, such as restrictions on education for women or early marriage.

There are many issues regarding education and while there are many projects working to decrease these issues, the issue is still at large. There is a need for an international presence regarding the importance of secondary education, and education itself.

– Alex Cahill
Photo: Flickr

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5 Fieldwork NGOs Fighting Global Poverty

Fieldwork NGOs Fighting Global PovertyFieldwork NGOs are non-government organizations that fight against global poverty directly within areas of need. Whether it be by building wells, establishing schools or educating local farmers, fieldwork NGOs take a hands-on approach to improve poverty-stricken communities worldwide. While there are countless organizations doing amazing work to fight against global poverty, this list highlights just a few. Here is a list of five fieldwork NGOs fighting global poverty.

5 Fieldwork NGOs Fighting Global Poverty

  1. The Water Project
    The Water Project provides clean drinking water to communities across sub-Saharan Africa. Importantly, the group focuses on creating reliable sources of clean water that are easy to access in terms of proximity. This includes building wells for groundwater, constructing dams to create larger local deposits and other similar processes. Once a resource is built for a community, the Water Project also makes sure to do maintenance checks to keep that resource functional. Currently, the Water Project is maintaining 1,294 clean water resources across sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the organization’s efforts are impacting 462,000 people worldwide.
  2. Child Empowerment International
    Child Empowerment International brings education to wartorn areas of civil unrest. This NGO makes its intent clear on its website: “Our Mission [is] to reduce poverty through education and empowerment.” To achieve this mission, Child Empowerment International establishes schools in areas of need, teaching leadership skills and ways to contribute to their local communities. Child Empowerment International primarily focuses on children in areas traumatized by war. So far, its efforts have been stationed across Sri Lanka and Uganda, with the intention of spreading aid elsewhere as the NGO grows. In Sri Lanka alone, there are 80 CEI schools and programs teaching more than 6,800 children in need. In Uganda, CEI programming provides 300 students with quality education services.
  3. Build Health International
    Build Health International is an NGO that builds health infrastructures in impoverished communities worldwide, all within the constraints of locally available resources. Build Health International creates architectural plans for hospitals, designing them to be cost-efficient while still high quality. In addition, this NGO focuses on using renewable resources, such as solar panels, to keep facilities energy efficient. While Build Health International primarily focuses on building hospitals, it also aids local workforces by providing short-term construction jobs. Build Health International emphasizes the importance of maintaining close relationships with assisted locals, adjusting health infrastructures to best suit community dynamics. Today, Build Health International has completed over 50 major projects across African, Haiti and Latin America.
  4. One Acre Fund
    One Acre Fund addresses the irony of a global phenomenon — that the majority of the world’s hungriest people are farmers. In remote communities across sub-Saharan Africa, the One Acre Project has a multi-step process in eradicating hunger and empowering rural communities. One Acre Fund not only provides seeds and tools to communities in need but also educates local farmers on agricultural techniques and market facilitation practices. This hands-on approach builds up communities for long term success, setting them on a self-sustaining path for sustenance and a chance for economic prosperity. Through the One Acre Fund’s aid, 809,900 rural families were assisted in 2018; as for 2019, the project number of families assisted is 925,000.
  5. Mercy Corps
    Mercy Corps is an NGO that applies an array of fieldwork to in-need communities all over the globe. This NGO was originally founded as the Save a Refugee Fund, determined to assist Cambodian refugees fleeing from the nation’s war and genocide. Over the course of nearly four decades, Mercy Corps has assisted over 220 million people worldwide. Mercy Corps educates farmers about agriculture and self-sustaining methods, helps local communities start and maintain viable businesses, provides programs to decrease inequality between women and men, and many, many more outlets for assistance. Mercy Corps provides these services to over 40 countries across the globe, from the islands of the Philippines to the war-torn regions of Iraq.

With thousands of NGOs providing fieldwork aid to communities worldwide, these five mentioned are just a small fraction of the overall picture. Improving one’s quality of life is a multi-faceted effort, as seen by these fieldwork NGOs fighting global poverty.

– Suzette Shultz
Photo: Wikimedia

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Child Empowerment International Provides Education in Sri Lanka

Child Empowerment International provides schooling for underprivileged children in Sri Lanka
Children living in areas in Sri Lanka affected by war commonly do not have access to the resources and funds needed to receive an education. Many of these children suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder and issues due to their harsh living conditions. Child Empowerment International works to help children who have been negatively affected by war and other violent experiences overcome difficulties, cope with reality and receive an education.

Child Empowerment International establishes day schools in the refugee centers and communities these children live in. Over the past 17 years, the organization helped increase an individual’s future earnings by ten percent through education and training. Their staff of over 200 teachers prepares students for testing in Sri Lanka, which is based on the British education system. Studies conducted by Child Empowerment International have shown students graduating from their program score in the top five percentile on these standardized exams.

Students are taught basic school subjects like grammar and biology and receive career training to become carpenters, seamstresses, chefs, mechanics and hotel managers. Many students are also taught English and computer skills.

Child Empowerment International was started in 1998 to provide children living in war ridden zones holistic care. The organization started with 17 schools, but by the following year they were up to 29 schools. Child Empowerment International began by training teachers and counselors to mentor children who had suffered from sexual abuse and other traumatic experiences.

Founder Adam Salmon worked to establish a textbook-exporting company in Sri Lanka in 1994, but decided to change his line of work when he realized there were large numbers of abandoned children not receiving aid from other organizations. As the founder, he manages the hundreds of teachers working for Child Empowerment International and dedicates his time to improving the lives of the 6,800 children impacted by the organization.

The organization also dedicated themselves to helping the survivors of the tsunami that struck Sri Lanka in 2004. Several hundred students were orphaned by catastrophe and Child Empowerment International lost 126 of their students. The organization worked to find homes for children, provide resources and rebuild the schools lost to the storm.

Today, Child Empowerment International has over 80 schools established in Sri Lanka and other impoverished communities. Their newest project enacted in 2010 is working to provide education and healthcare to children in Uganda.

Students at their schools have successfully graduated from university and gained professional experience in the profession of their choice, with many of them becoming teachers or health professionals. Child Empowerment International is gathering quantitative data of the impact of their work on an individual’s success. Publication of this is set for 2017.

– Julia Hettiger

Sources: Child Empowerment, Global Giving, Matador Network
Photo: Porticus