Action Blog: Community Member

MENTEE student Hiram Lugo discusses the hardships of being undocumented in the United States and the value of supporting undocumented students. (English and Spanish versions available)

The word “citizenship” often floods out of our mouths in hot contention. We like to pair it with words like "immigration” or “asylum seeker.” But when we’re not putting two and two together, citizenship is seldom heard. Although the definition of a citizen is incessantly questioned for those who lack the title, constituents like myself don’t often receive the same examination. 

The group of mothers sitting in the sun in a village in north India was happy to chat. We talked about children and about their school. “Are they going to school?” I asked. “Of course,” said the mothers proudly. Some went further to say, “we even send them for private coaching after school.” “How are they doing with their education?” The common word for education in Hindi is the same as reading-writing. The chatter stopped. One mother looked at me sternly and said, “How do we know? We are illiterate. Anyway, that is the business of the school and of the teachers.” 

Today, we look a bit more closely into Reason #1 of the eight reasons from our joint RESULTS brief: Greater Impact through Partnership: 8 reasons to invest in the Global Partnership for Education now more than ever. The reason; ‘We cannot end poverty without investing in education’, is really one on which there is little or no disagreement.  Indeed, it is often stated that investing in education is the single most effective way of reducing poverty.

Finally. The world is watching. The horror of what is unfolding at this very moment for 276 schoolgirls still in captivity in northeast Nigeria led the nightly news for the first time. It was a big story on every channel on Monday and hundreds of thousands of tweets made it a trending topic.