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.
Learning the sciences enhances a student’s success and has a powerful impact in particular on girls. Africa Schoolhouse recently raised funds to assist communities in Tanzania to add three new science laboratories and sanitary composting latrines in secondary schools.
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.
A few months ago I met a grandmother.
That’s not so remarkable, until I tell you that she is only 25.
No matter how you calculate the math and circumstances that result in a young lady becoming a grandmother at age 25, it is horrific. There is no instant panacea that will make instances like this history. In this particular case, I can point to a long civil war, with its attendant atrocities, as well as child marriage, poverty, and other factors as contributory, but I really started the story this way to make the point that in our drive for accurate statistics with which to make decisions, we must never lose sight of the fact that those statistics point to real people, with real stories, and with very real barriers to overcome.
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.
It was 5 years ago that two brothers, Bibhuti and Nabin Aryal, embarked upon what seemed like — at the time — a simple idea. Knowing that a family’s economic condition was one of the key reasons why many girls in rural areas of Nepal were missing out on education, they wanted to help a few families by providing economic support so that money alone does not keep girls out of school. If they could help a few girls this way, they felt it would be a worthwhile cause.
At Rise Up, we enable girls to stand up, raise their voices, and advocate for their rights. We have built a global network of over 400 leaders who have advocated for laws and policies impacting 115 million girls, youth, and women. One of these inspiring leaders is Achie Gezahegne of Ethiopia. In the blog below, Achie talks about how she raises her voice for Ethiopian girls and shares her vision for a future where girls are at the center of development.
