Yesterday, June 20, marked World Refugee Day, an opportunity to draw attention to the record 68.5 million people who are displaced around the world. The statistics are stark, but the resilience of refugees and others who are forcibly displaced is palpable as they journey to find safety, security and build a better future for themselves and their families.
According to UNHCR figures released this week, Syria continues to top the list of refugee-producing countries with more than 6 million individuals who have fled the country. Inside Syria, more than 6 million people are internally displaced and 13 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, including basic aid and protection.
Global Kids is wrapping up an incredible 2017-2018 academic year in which we worked with over 3000 youth leaders in New York City and Washington, DC! As an organization, we are committed to educating, activating, and inspiring youth from underserved communities to take action on critical issues facing our world today. For nearly 30 years, Global Kids has reached more than 150,000 young people and educators, harnessing and empowering leaders to demonstrate the values and attitudes of global citizens and to make change locally...Global Kids uses an approach to positive youth development that incorporates dynamic, interactive, culturally-relevant and inquiry-oriented workshops that meet young people where they are at and works with them to cultivate their knowledge of domestic and international politics, to strengthen their leadership skills and to increase their civic engagement.
It is often said that children and youth are the future. They are thought of in terms of their potential—to become the next leaders, peacebuilders, business gurus, and scientists. To realize their potential, quality education is vital, and a considerable amount of attention is given to how to achieve this outcome. With conversations on the topic coming to a fore, the World Bank this year even released its first ever World Development Report devoted entirely to education. The problem, however, is that this mindset often misidentifies youth as mere beneficiaries in the educational system, around which other components must cater and mold themselves, rather than as empowered change makers who play a critical role in shaping that system itself.
There is no clearer justification for youth engagement than when we consider the challenges facing global education. Unlike other issues contributing to extreme poverty, like health, famine/hunger and barriers facing girls and women, the education community has not had a ‘spotlight’ moment in the past 10 years and was almost relegated to the ‘decidedly un-sexy’ realm.
“As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can rest”, said Nelson Mandela.
I often think about this quote as I reflect upon my life as a Syrian-Palestinian refugee and my work as an education advocate in Lebanon. Many milestones have been reached in global education, including the GPE Financing Conference in Dakar in February, with high level political commitments to education.
But from where I stand, as a young refugee seeking to realize my potential, the fight for education for all the children of the world is an uphill but worthy struggle." ~ Mahmoud Khalil, Youth Advocate for Global Partnership for Education
Today’s youth need skills in innovation, cross-cultural collaboration, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The World Smarts STEM Challenge pairs high school teachers and students from different countries on gender-balanced, collaborative teams.
Last week was a good one for advocacy on behalf of children. As GCE-US encouraged people and policymakers to take action in support of global education, ChildFund International also used the week of April 22 to activate child protection advocacy experts from six country offices and U.S. staff to press the issue of protecting children from violence in schools, homes, and communities.
Around the world, there are between 93 to 150 million children with disabilities (UNICEF, 2013). An estimated 80% of people with disabilities live in low and middle-income countries (Barron & Ncube, 2010) where they are among the most marginalized people in the world - more likely to live in poverty and less likely to be in school (Filmer, 2008; Mitra, et al, 2013). Many are “invisible,” even to their neighbors, because they do not leave home, receive social services, attend school, or participate in community life.
Global Action Week for Education has arrived! April 22th to April 28th is the week to highlight the actions that you take to promote global education & encourage others to take action to address the urgent need for universal quality education. Please join us in taking action to support global education. You can be a hero to children in need!
Education is a basic human right and often a way out of poverty. Thus, governmental policies and other agencies emphasize access to free or low-cost education. While providing free education is a worthy goal, access alone is not sufficient. What happens when students are too poor to take advantage of it? Can anyone be really too poor to afford “free” education? If such a scenario exists, what does it mean to provide holistic educations for a community? To change the conversation from seemingly distant “future value of education” to immediate “what I will get today,” or more importantly, “why should I go to school today?” We in the Rukmini Foundation realized that we need to think differently and come up with innovative solutions. Through this post, we will summarize our key efforts that shed lights on these vexing questions, which are common to all underdeveloped nations in the world.
