A recent campaign in Nepal put cameras in the hands of girls and young women to document, up close and personal, all of the quotidian actions that they are prohibited from while having their menstrual periods. The resulting photos provide a stunning and troubling catalog of menstruation-related discrimination.
Libraries Without Borders (LWB) has partnered with the Colombian Ministry of Culture and the National Library of Colombia to leverage educational and cultural tools for peacebuilding. The design of this intervention is based upon the premise that educational and cultural programs are critical for individuals and communities who have faced crisis and conflict.
A familiar sight: a teacher stands at the head of the classroom with a book or a sheet of paper in hand. Her eyes travel down the page as she reads out loud, pausing every so often to allow the dozens of furiously writing students to catch up. The students will take their notes home for the night. They will study, review, and rehearse until they have memorized word for word the information. And the next morning, one by one, they will stand in front of the teacher and give an oral recitation. The teacher will ask questions. She will write down a final grade. And then she will move on to the next lesson.
Over the last twelve months, WAC-DC has engaged in a twist on educational exchange. Instead of a one-time, single experience, we wanted to see what happened when teachers, their students, and their schools embarked on a year-long, fully immersive duel collaboration where they truly traded spaces.
We love sharing stories of kids like Suhbat, who came to our center and spent time laughing and playing and working through the trauma of being displaced by ISIS through art and character building lessons.
We love talking about Shilan, and how our work was provoking her family to think through issues of respect and forgiveness.
We get excited to share stories about how the teenagers who came to our classes were inspired to study together and felt more confident going into their exam sessions.
This is Masa. When Masa was one year old, her family was forced to flee their home country of Syria for Turkey. Today, Masa is five years old, an age when many children around the world go to school. She is among the 1 million Syrian refugee children living in neighboring countries who are not in school.
My daughter was five-years-old when we discovered her learning disability. She loved listening to books and being read to, but when she tried to read by herself she struggled with even simple words. She was so discouraged, that by the time she turned seven, she stopped reading.
It's been nine months since the United Nations committed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals "to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all." It's a 15 year window of opportunity to achieve these goals, but how do governments, corporations, nonprofits, and individuals like you and me accelerate impact in each of these areas?
The remote Kenyan village I called home from 1999-2001 had just one reliable phone line located in a Catholic Church. The Priest there allowed me to accept incoming calls from my parents in New York every other Sunday at 7 p.m. If I missed that call, which happened on occasion, two long weeks would pass before that phone would ring again.
In 2012 Mfariji Africa began as a small project distributing sanitary towels to girls in villages and marginalized areas in Kenya to reduce class absenteeism during menstruation. Over time the vision has expanded to improving the lives of Kenyan girls by helping them to stay in school and complete their education though different programs.
