Action Blog: Action and Advocacy

The READ Act has now been signed into law. This is a huge step forward to ensure quality education for all.

Please thank your Members of Congress for passing the READ Act!

GCE-US member and disability-inclusive education advocate Dr. Tom Sabella went to the 10th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In this blog, he notes his observations and insight from the conference.

A webinar hosted by USAID and The Global Reading Network on June 7, 2017 explained important work being done on inclusive education for children with disabilities in developing countries. It discussed USAID's disability and non-discrimination policies and the "All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development" program, which funds projects that use technology and science to improve literacy skills in early grade learners in developing countries . 

The Trump-DeVos proposed budget would lead to significant cuts in the International Affairs Budget and global education funding. These cuts would regress the work the United States has done to promote global education and assist those who need our support the most, including: girls, those with disabilities, people in crisis-ridden regions, and the impoverished.

On January 24, less than one month into the new legislative session, Congress showed that the goal of providing quality education for all children is still a bipartisan issue by unanimously passing the Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act through the House of Representatives.

Especially on this day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, it is vital to recognize that unequal access to quality education violates children’s rights and affects all of our futures. Dr. King said, “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” This is the day to rededicate ourselves to the cause of education and equality, and to do everything we can to level the playing field for children throughout the world.

Bidil Abdulahi has experienced joy and heartbreak in his attempt to send his children to school.

Every day, Bidil Abdulahi would farewell his oldest son, sent off on a one hour walk to the nearest school. “It was a long walk for a child,” he says, “but I didn’t want my child to be as illiterate as I am.”

The decision paid off, with his son Yunus now in college.

Bidil’s daughter was not as fortunate.

The theme of this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign was ‘make education safe for all.’ Over the course of the 16 days, Women Thrive Alliance shared the work – campaigns, capacity building techniques, and achievements – of our Alliance members that work relentlessly on gender-based violence that restricts girls from getting an education. Unfortunately, in many instances, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and rape were the common culprits preventing a girl from continuing her education. In the case of Afghanistan, however, a girl’s mere chance of being allowed any education at all was the baseline.

Just over a year on from the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its associated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Brookings Center for Universal Education, the Global Campaign for Education-US and the  Global Education Monitoring Report team hosted the launch of the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report)  and Gender Review. The GEM report – hosted and published by UNESCO – provides an analysis of SDG 4 targets and respective indicators (inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities) as well as a consideration of the interaction of SDG 4 with all other SDGs on the sustainable development agenda.

My father-in-law squinted. “Why on earth would you want to do that?” he said when I told him I was going to a remote part of Zambia to produce a virtual reality experience for Impact Network, the NGO I work for in New York.

Impact Network runs education programs in rural, off-the-grid communities in Africa. I explained that virtual reality, or VR, would allow us to tell our story in the most immersive way possible. Short of bringing people to Zambia, the experience would transport them to a rural village where they could explore the sights and sounds of a new environment. This would help people to better understand the context and purpose of Impact Network’s work and maybe even want to visit themselves.