© Courtesy Helen Samuels

By Helen Samuels

NEW YORK, April 2011

The first day at Brooklyn International High School (BIHS), my first Unites States education experience, was different from what I would refer it today. I arrived to NY with my family from Thailand in June of 2008. With the limited English language I had learned in Thailand; I found life in New York wasn’t fun and easy at all. During summer of 2008, I was told from people who have been here ahead of my family that I have to continue my education in New York public high school, which later I learned would be attending BIHS in Brooklyn.

Before the fall semester of 2008 started, I had to be in summer school to prepare myself for the English language, the Unites States education system and getting used to a new environment. The Karen family, who lived in the same apartment where my family lived, guided us to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), New York resettlement office to find me a summer school. IRC helps refugees from many countries, diverse ages and life background for support to go through a process I would call “Building a new life”. Steps to build a new life starts from learning English, learning about the transportation system (subway), learning about going to the hospital, making an appointment, contact a bank, apply for social security card, state ID card, apply for public assistance and search for job/school.

At the 2008 IRC Refugees Youth Summer Academy, I was a high school student and studied with friends from all around the world. It was then when I learned what high school actually is- it is not the same high school you see in movies at all. There are no means girls or jealous girls or boys in the hallway all the time. High school, all it means is to learn to study, learn to have fun, learn to love each other and learn to know who you are and to reach what you dream of.

I have to say, I did not learn much or nearly perfect English from the IRC summer academy. That was not actually the primary purpose of the program as well. All subjects they taught were scary for me, subjects were all taught in English and I missed school for two years in the refugee camp, so these were almost like new things in my head. In fact, the primary purpose of IRC summer academy program is to help us, young refugees who have left our homes and come to new country to overcome challenges and know how to solve them – not to solve the challenges but know how to solve it. It would be wrong if I did not mention about my success at the IRC summer academy because my success was I became a learner about my environment, adaptability and learned how to build new friendship with friends from countries I had never heard about before. More importantly, I learned to overcome myself. I think these are the most powerful tools I need for surviving anywhere, everywhere I go.

In September of 2008, I started my first year of high school at BIHS as a “freshman” (9th grade). I did not know what freshman actually was (I thought it sounded like fisherman, and was too confused why older students were calling us “fisherman” and we called them “seniors” if they are not that old?). I did not like it, first year at this school. The school with almost no rules, we called teachers by their first names, and almost did not have to use Mr. or Ms. We could bring food in the classroom and dating, make up, coloured nails and hair and jewellery were allowed? Then how can students live with discipline and limitation?

Being the only student who speaks Thai as the first language in school gave me advantage to learn English faster than others. I was able to understand different accents and pick up English faster than I thought I would, but it was not always good. I missed the opportunity to enjoy my culture and traditions from my home. I missed the encouragement to express my culture to others. And the reason I think BIHS is the best in the world I should be right now. Not because there is not a lot of rules but because support and help I can find from BIHS community and because it is a place where everyone can find who they are (later, I learned that it was me who sat at the corner and did not do any outreach, there are plenty of places in school where I can share my culture.)

By the second semester of sophomore year (10th grade), I learned why rule is not the most important thing in the school. Rules are not the most important factor in school because it makes us only think that “have to do it” not “want to do it”. Because of support and understandings from BIHS community, it makes me think that the truth is “I want to be good here and I want to do good thing while I am still in this house not because I have to but because I want to.” If anyone at BIHS especially the “freshman” says they do not want to be in BIHS, I would not be surprise because for us to love this school we must first find the difficulty and then we will know why this school is so supportive. And One day they will know that they are lucky to have a chance to grow in BIHS’s fence.

Receiving unique ways of teaching and exploring subjects from teachers in BIHS help us understand about schoolwork better. Teachers teach us slowly and lay their trusts on us that we can do it. Students at BIHS have been in this country, USA less than four years and English is not our first language. So, everyone is new and everything is complicated for us. Learning what we have to know from school is not the only thing we need to know now but we must learn to survive in this country as well.

Together with supports from the IRC, BIHS community, other organizations and supporters (the list is really long) and of course, my friends and family have made me know who I think I want to become. This story from my school I want to share with everyone because I think it is important that we often talk about the positive and the help that we have rather than recognize only what we need or miss. Any change for good starts from small, passionate and positive movements and it must also often be talked about what we have so there will be enough encouragement and powerful will-power to keep fighting for good.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2008-1016/Nesbitt
Democratic Republic of Congo. Children at Kinkole Primary school near Kinshasa.

By Helen Samuels

NEW YORK, March 2011

Death and gunshots are not the only things we should be concerned about when we discuss the effects of conflict. When war happens we often think about death, damages and how to end the war, but do we forget about long-term damages and long-term solutions?

At Columbia University on Tuesday, March 1st in New York, United States the Education for All Global Monitoring Report was launched. The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education was the theme for 2011, and the report is another one focusing on the damages left behind by conflicts. The speakers discussed about the high rate of education being taken away from youth because of conflicts, and the economic crisis that also relate to conflicts. Key fact: 28 million primary school age children are out of school in 35 countries. For a summary of the report and the launch you can visit http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/reports/2011-conflict/

The launch was opened with a short video that takes place in three countries: Columbia, Chile and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is a message telling testimonies of young children who witnessed the tragic impact of violence and armed conflict on their families. A young girl from DRC said she wants to become a doctor – I immediately looked at myself, I do not know what I want to achieve and why I want it but I do have opportunities to do anything to educate myself. She was my age-perhaps, while I have the right but why she can not have the right be the educated?

© UNICEF/2011/Kamimura
New York. The launch of the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011.

Attending this event was another great experience for me to hear great leaders in our world stand up and talk for us, fighting for us. Nevertheless, I still have unclear questions in my mind. We are youth, who are affected by conflicts and/or related crises that some adults established. We have the right and duty to help solving the problems and secure our rights, but what are the available channels for us to be part of solution? Every day we see numbers, graphs and statistics from reports, media and adults but where are the recommendations, effective resolutions and/or examples that adults can establish for us to follow in reality? Would it not be nice if we can have conversations to discuss with our governments and exchange what “You and Me”, we can and will do?

As a young person I would like to encourage adults and my peers to look around and think about what we can do to help solve problems and stop adults from creating them. Education for All Global Monitoring Report The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education, is another tool for us to learn what has been wrong in the past and will affect our future. Also, I really anticipate that one day everyone will understand the principle of using education to solve problem and youth will have more roles in solving these problems.

And my question that goes to you is what you do you think we as a group of adolescents who want to change the pattern of crisis should do to make our government keep their promise and save our fellow friends from the damages?

© 2010 Carlos Vasquez
Mr. Haji Sohrab is the elder leader of a village in northern Sindh, Pakistan where 90 per cent was destroyed by the floods in August 2010.

Carlos Vasquez

27 November 2010, Sukkur district, Sindh Province, Pakistan

N 27d 58.89”
E 67d 54.62”

These numbers may not mean much to people here in Pakistan or elsewhere in this ever shrinking world. To information technology people these are clearly the coordinates for a geographical location, also known as Global Positioning System, or GPS.

Behind these numbers there is just one more story, out of many, that are part of the complex and monumental devastation that the waters of the Indus River left behind during August 2010. These numbers will take you to a small village in northern Sindh.

The floods began August 3rd as I sat in Bangkok in a workshop for school design and construction. The numbers kept escalating as the workshop went on, but it all seemed so removed and difficult to embrace; millions of people affected, thousands of agricultural land lost or damaged. By the time I returned to New York part of the reality was settling in; 20 million affected and the land coverage was that of the size of Italy. Available media outlets were not really covering the story to reflect the magnitude of the disaster.

Like any other disaster this was in many aspects a man-made event with far reaching effects and long term impacts. Some of the interconnected anthropogenic events are common to the region and other parts of the world; rampant deforestation, short-sighted national water management, severe damage to the hydrologic cycle, climate change patterns, lost of agricultural land and river banks to urbanization.

The late arrival of the monsoon season brought large amounts of rain water. High temperatures melted mountain snow and ice creating strong flash floods north of the country. The combination of the waters oversaturated the capacity of rivers and flood plains. Large amounts of water began to move at high speed; cut trees that were lying on river banks moved downriver taking bridges and structures along the way.

Punjab sits between the Indus River and the Chebad River. This land is technically part of the natural flood plains of both rivers, making this province a very fertile land. The capacity of the Indus River in the province is 670,000 cubic feet/sec. By the time the flood waters reached the district to Multan in Punjab, the amount of water was 1.3 million cubic feet/sec. The Chebab River was carrying more than 500,000 cubic feet/sec. Both rivers meet right before entering Sindh province. Local authorities knew that if Punjad was not flooded by stopping the water of the Chebab River, Sindh would have been washed away completely.

Mr. Haji Sohrab is the elder leader of the village located in this GPS location in northern Sindh. The village was 90 per cent destroyed by the waters of the Indus River that in part had already flooded Punjab to save Sindh. The village lost almost every home, both the boys’ and girls’ schools; there is no drinking water available due to saline contamination, open defecation is common practice, food is distributed every 15 days and the last drop off will be in 10 days.

Children in the village have not attended school since August and the government calculates no permanent school will be rebuilt in the next 5 years due to lack of funding, capacity and federal priorities; available funds will be spent in communication (roads, telecommunications), infrastructure and hospitals. Education is last on the list. The lack of drinking water, sanitation facilities, food, psychosocial support and basic health services are putting children and the community at risk every day that passes by.

When I shook hands with Mr. Sohrab before leaving, he looked at me and holding the hand of a small girl, he said, “Thank you for coming to my village and meeting my people”.

We should be able to do much more than this.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2008-1288/Josh Estey
An elementary school in Banda Aceh. The entire city was devastated by the tsunami. The school is one of 160 quake-resistant, child-friendly schools built with UNICEF assistance in Aceh and Nias.

Current externalities affecting the environment – such as deforestation, climate change, migration, poverty and food insecurity – will have a great impact on communities across the globe. People everywhere, especially children, will face monumental, interconnected challenges that will alter their ways of life at the most basic level.

School design and construction

© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-1801/Ahed Izhiman
Students walk home after a day of class at Khan El Ahmar Basic School, in Area C of the West Bank.

Reviewing CAP (Consolidated Appeals Process) Education Cluster Response Plans and associated projects recently, it struck me that despite my constant mantra to education practitioners that ‘gender’ is not just another word for girls, it may have come to be erroneously understood as such.

Let me explain: The analysis in this particular CAP indicates that 22 – 40 per cent of children (boys and girls) attend school and less than 25 per cent of girls are enrolled. You’ll agree that this is a pretty dismal picture for both girls and boys, with girls marginally worse off than boys in most regions of the country. However, with no explanation of what prevents girls and boys attending and staying in school, 10 of the 20 projects in this appeal included, what I see as, meaningless phrases, such as ‘with particular attention on girls’ enrollment’; ‘with special attention to girls’; ‘with more emphasis on girl-child enrollment’, etc. (By the way, that’s not to say that the other 10 projects contained meaningful gender analysis and response; unfortunately some of them were just entirely silent on the issue altogether!)

There is absolutely no doubt that the challenges for girls’ enrollment and retention in school are plentiful and, depending on the particular context, may include cultural beliefs and practices, including son preference; early marriage or pregnancy; social attitudes; practical issues related to non-segregated classrooms and appropriate toilets and hand wash facilities; ; the lack of female teachers and teaching assistants; protection issues related to the journey to and from school and within school grounds (sexual exploitation and abuse); to name but a few. BUT, the challenges for boys, while different. are just as plentiful. Again, depending on the context, these may include recruitment to armed groups, greater risk of arbitrary arrest, harassment, detention and extra-judicial killings, child labour, agricultural chores such as pastoralism, and the lack of positive male role models in schools, etc.

Now, I’m not saying for one moment that there shouldn’t be targeted action on girls’ education. We have any number of organizations – UNESCO, UNICEF, UNGEI, – and initiatives – The Girl Effect, Half the Sky Movement – who remind us in no uncertain terms of the life-cycle and inter-generational merits of getting girls into school. What I am saying is twofold: firstly, that we cannot allow the important focus on girls’ education to distract us from ensuring that we look at the often very different constraints to access, drop-out and learning achievement for boys in basic education too, i.e. we must complete a gender analysis; and, secondly, that we cannot allow ourselves to believe for one moment that phrases like ‘particularly for girls’ tick the gender box because they clearly do not – saying it doesn’t make it so!

- Siobhàn Foran, GenCap Advisor with the Global Clusters

Related link: Ask the Gender Expert

© UNICEF/NYHQ2006-1759/Michael Kamber
Students attend class at Ayany Primary School, a free government primary school on the outskirts of Kibera, a slum area of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

Nairobi, August 13, 2010 — Friday evening and I was flicking through the Daily Nation catching up on the post-mortem of the recent (August 4) Constitutional Referendum, when photographs of dancing and singing Somali girls from Mandera Arid Zone Primary School and a Kenyan boy from Friends School Kamusinga playing a recorder caught my attention.

It was a report on the Schools and Colleges National Music Festival at Masinde Muliro University, Kakmega. Aha, I thought – a good news story! But by the fourth paragraph of the article, my mood darkened as I read the following – “Another poem, Slow down my teacher, is also causing ripples as it addresses teacher-student sexual relationships”.

I felt that this small reference to this big problem, as well as the inclusion of the subject matter by students in a national choral festival suggested both the enormity of the issue but also its normalisation.

This titbit of information raised both my hackles and my curiosity to understand more, especially as I am here in Nairobi to support both the Kenya and Somalia humanitarian communities with the integration of gender and gender-based violence (GBV) response and prevention in the analysis and associated projects in the Kenya EHRP/Somalia CAP 2011.

A bit of digging and I discovered that, at the end of April 2010, concerned “with the increasing cases of violence (physical, psychological and sexual) against pupils/students”, the Kenyan Teachers Service Commission (TSC) issued a Circular on the ‘Protection of Pupils/Students from Sexual Abuse’ (see www.tsc.go.ke).

According to media reports at the time, complaints of sexual abuse brought against a teacher were previously handled by simply transferring the teacher to another school. Also, school outings provided “predatory” teachers with an opportunity to take advantage of students. To respond to this latter issue, the Circular directs all Head Teachers to ensure that, during activities outside the school, at least one teacher of the same sex accompany students.

The Circular defines sexual abuse by a teacher as including sexual intercourse, sexual assault, touching, use of suggestive language or gestures, any form of inducement, threats or violence to force students to give in to demands for sex and exposing students to pornographic material or any form of flirtation with or without the student’s consent. The Circular states it will be prohibited for any student to visit a teacher’s house for whatever reason.

Where abuse is suspected inside or outside the school, a teacher is mandated to report it within 24 hours. A teacher, a TSC employee or agent who fails to report a case or suspicion of sexual abuse against a student will be disciplined and a teacher who facilitates a cover-up of abuse shall be considered an accomplice and face disciplinary action.

While the Circular does not specify what action would be taken, the Minister for Gender and Children’s Affairs, Esther Murugi said that the Children’s Act and the Sexual Offences Act are “more than enough to deal with any errant Kenyan bent on abusing a child”.
So, looking forward, the question now is how partners in education in emergencies in Kenya can support the effective implementation of the terms of the Circular?

Reviewing the Kenya Education Sector Working Group’s needs assessment for the 2010 Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan, I noted the following:

• There is no sex- or age-disaggregation of learners

• There is no sex-disaggregation of teachers and other education personnel

• There is no indication that a gender analysis has been undertaken for Early Childhood Development, primary, secondary or vocational training levels, which would give practitioners an understanding of who is attending school, who is not or is dropping out and why, who – girls and/or boys – are engaged in casual and domestic labour activities that keeps them from attending school, etc.

• Given the widely reported increased levels of sexual violence in the aftermath of the post-election (2008) violence and in increasingly crowded refugee camps, the conditions are right for continued or increased sexual abuse in schools. However, there is no indication in the Education Sector Working Group’s analysis or associated projects that sexual abuse in learning environments has been considered.

Thus, I would strongly suggest that the Kenya Education Sector Working Group include measures to prevent and respond to sexual abuse in schools in which they are working in line with the provisions of the April 2010 Circular. Support on this is available in the Pocket Guide on Gender Equality in and through Education in Emergencies (July 2010, S.2.2, pgs. 39 – 42).

Kenya is not alone in experiencing this vile problem in its schools. I would encourage readers to contribute their own experiences of the nature and extent of the issue in their location and how it is being addressed.

- Siobhàn Foran, GenCap Advisor with the Global Clusters

Related link: Ask the Gender Expert

© Manoocher Deghati/2009
Somalia 2009.

Systematically Addressing Gender in Funding Appeals – How the Education Sector can get Full Marks

The Gender Marker Initiative was launched by the Sub-working Groups on Gender in Humanitarian Action and on the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) to improve humanitarian programming and to make humanitarian response more efficient.

The gender marker will be mandatory in 10 countries in CAP (and CAP-like appeals) in 2011 – Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, DRC, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, oPt, Yemen, Pakistan and Haiti. GenCap Advisors are working with all 10 Humanitarian Country Teams to support the implementation of the initiative in CAP 2011. Guidance on the implementation of the gender marker initiative will be included in the CAP Guidelines 2011.

NAIROBI, 15 July 2010 – Recently, I arrived in Nairobi to work with the Somalia and Kenya humanitarian teams in developing their humanitarian funding appeal, which is known as a Consolidated Appeal Process or CAP (in the case of Kenya, the EHRP) for 2011. A CAP is a document that maps out the humanitarian needs, strategies, response plans, and associated projects and funding requirements and includes project sheets that reflect how each agency working in the sector proposes to work to achieve these.

Earlier in the year, together with some other GenCap colleagues, we reviewed five 2010 CAPs, which provided some interesting and useful insights, and which may assist education project designers in developing new projects or reviewing existing ones;

• Very few project sheets in the CAP included meaningful sex-disaggregated data, which therefore ruled out the possibility of including a gender analysis.
• From talking to project teams, we became aware of a great deal of good gender work that was not captured in the CAP project sheet proposals. Notwithstanding the space restrictions in the single-page project sheets, project designers need to improve the articulation of gender within their project needs analysis, activities and outcomes.
• A number of education clusters/sectors identified gender dimensions in the needs analysis but seldom followed through into strategy with consequences for informing activities and related outcomes in the project sheets, i.e. the Needs Assessment – Activities – Outcomes continuum was not complete.

What does gender analysis in the needs assessment look like?

The foundation for a good gender project is having insightful gender analysis in the education sector needs assessment. It should always be possible to have at least one strategic, evidence-based sentence or paragraph that describes the needs or situation of men compared to women and/or boys compared to girls, which then serves to justify or shape project activities.

Gender analysis in the education sector needs assessment can include:

• the distinct needs of female and male learners, teachers and other education personnel
• the different risks that female and male learners and teachers face in accessing and staying in formal and non-formal education, and in travelling to and from and within the learning environment
• what women, girls, boys or men say they can and want to do, or see done, to solve what they see as their most important problems in accessing education.

Applying a Gender Code to an Education Project

Code 0
A project codes 0 when there are no signs that gender issues are considered at all in the project design.

A project that contains cosmetic gender language such as ‘especially for girls’ or ‘particularly for preparatory boys’ is still a code 0. This is not meaningful. Meaningful gender analysis in the needs assessment explains ‘why’ or ‘how’ the situation is different for women/girls or men/boys, quantifies gender gaps or explains sex-specific needs, risks, roles or capacities in education.

Code 1
Code 1 projects have only one or two of the three essential components. That is, we see meaningful gender analysis in only one or two of the (a) needs assessment, leading to (b) one or more activities, and (c) related outcomes. In a Code 1 project, we see some of these three elements but not the needs-activities-outcomes flow. A Code 1 project signals that effort is only being invested in gender equality in isolated ‘bubbles’. This most often leads to a limited response to the needs and realities of women, girls, boys and men.

Many code 1 projects signal that the project team is aware and trying to advance gender equality, but still needs to invest more effort in project design.

Code 2a
A code 2a would be awarded if the needs of women, girls, boys and men are identified in the needs assessment and it is clear that this information subsequently informs and shapes activities and outcomes. This is what “gender mainstreaming” means: the project is designed to contribute significantly to gender equality.

A project will be awarded code 2a if there is gender analysis in the needs assessment and at least one activity AND at least one outcome. This needs assessment-activity-outcome continuum is critical.

Code 2b
The principal purpose of code 2b projects is to advance gender equality. Code 2b projects are targeted actions that are based on a gender analysis. There are two types of targeted actions; the first includes projects that identify one sex or a subgroup of men, women, girls or boys that has special needs or is being acutely disadvantaged (examples include an identified group of boy combatants or pastoralists, girls at risk of early marriage and/or pregnancy who do not or cannot attend school); the second includes projects that build gender-related services or better male-female relations. An example of gender-related services is a support and counselling service for girls and boys who are survivors of sexual violence. Projects that nurture better relationships often strive for more equal decision-making or more two-way communication between women and men, girls and boys. More equal and respectful relations between women and men and girls and boys are vital to cohesive families and communities.

Gender Inequality in and through Education - INEE Pocket Guide to Gender

Tip sheets and other gender marker materials are available at gencap.oneresponse.info.

- Siobhàn Foran, GenCap Advisor with the Global Clusters

Related link: Ask the Gender Expert

© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0207/Noorani
Haiti, 2010.

22 June 2010 – Prioritising gender equality in educational systems is vital to addressing the needs and concerns of women, girls, boys and men alike. Programmes that integrate gender equality are also effectively undertaking issues of access to power and resources. Ignoring gender equality, particularly in times of crisis, can hinder a students’ ability to learn and engage, and thus negatively impact broader recovery efforts, not only within education systems, but also for entire communities.

Gender equality in education in emergencies seeks to:

• Acknowledge that all girls and boys have a right to quality education, without discrimination.
• Address gender-based barriers to accessing education at all levels.
• Respect differences based on gender and to acknowledge gender, together with age, ethnicity, language, disability, status, religion, as a part of a learner’s identity.
• Enable education structures, systems and methodologies to be sensitive to the needs and concerns of all girls and boys.
• Close gaps on gender disparity in education as part of a wider strategy to advance gender equality in society.

What happens in emergencies?

Gender roles change dramatically in times of emergencies. Women, girls, boys and men respond differently to resist violence, survive and support their families. A gender analysis of education helps us to understand how gender roles have changed or are changing, so we can address the specific needs and concerns of female and male learners, teachers and other education personnel.

Getting girls and boys, young women and men, back into supportive educational activities as soon as possible after an emergency provides them with a routine, and a stable and protective environment. Without this, fear and intimidation can lead to poor concentration and attendance levels at school and an increase in drop-out rates. A code of conduct that addresses the school’s and individual teachers’ role in preventing sexual exploitation and harassment must be in place.

How does education help?

Access to a quality, relevant and participatory education provides girls and boys with knowledge and skills that can help them to contribute to the development of their community and society. Further, this can improve individual and community resilience to future crises.

An emergency response may offer a ‘window of opportunity’ or a chance to improve education provision and address previously ignored gender equality issues (e.g. a review of curriculum as part of an emergency response may identify gender bias which can then be rectified).

Education spaces should be designed to meet gender-specific needs for access and protection, for male and female learners and staff (e.g. separate latrines with internally lockable doors and washing facilities, ‘Purdah/privacy walls’).

Women and girls are deprived of equal access to education opportunities more often than men and boys, but we should still look out for the inequalities and barriers to education that boys and young men may be facing (e.g. boys may be pressured to take on adult roles providing for and protecting their families, which can affect education access and opportunities).

Girls and boys need positive female and male role models in their learning environment. The presence of female teachers can improve girls’ enrolment, retention and sense of safety. Ensuring the presence of positive male role models at early childhood development (ECD) and primary levels is also extremely important.

Girls and women are disproportionally affected by gender-based violence (GBV), in particular sexual violence and exploitation. Often girls and boys are at risk of GBV travelling to and from school, within the school system, and in the broader community. These risks must be addressed as part of strong prevention and protection interventions, which are key to creating a safe and enabling environment for all girls and boys to access and continue their education.

Some Common Misconceptions about Gender Equality Programming in Education in Emergencies:

1. ‘It is too difficult to address gender equality issues in education during an emergency.’ Emergency responses are focused on saving lives and delivering supplies and in some cases response personnel may feel they are not equipped, mandated or motivated to integrate gender issues into their work. However, ignoring the different needs of women, girls, boys and men may impact their ability to protect themselves from danger and threats to their safety and, therefore, reduce their chances of survival.
2. ‘Gender is only about girls’/women’s issues.’ Gender is often thought to relate only to girls and women, but it also about boys and men – their specific needs, concerns and capacities and their inter-relationships regarding access to resources. Analyzing discrimination experienced by boys and men, and girls and women, as well as the positive contributions each can make to improve gender equality, ensures more effective and safe education programmes.
3. ‘Once a programme addresses issues such as participation and protection, it will automatically create equal opportunities and address the different needs of girls and boys, young women and young men equally.’ Without consistent analysis of the gendered barriers to education, as well as systems of accountability and measurement of performance, we cannot be sure that programmes meet everyone’s needs and concerns, and therefore measure their effectiveness.
4. ‘Gender is too complicated, difficult and culturally sensitive to approach, especially during an emergency.’ Resistance within the affected community, within social and political structures, and even among national and international humanitarian workers, can strengthen the feeling that gender is too difficult and/or politicised to address. National and international staff may be reluctant to address gender equality and GBV (including issues such as sexual and domestic violence, early/forced marriage, etc) because they do not want to be seen as interfering, culturally insensitive or imposing different value systems. They may also not want to build resentment or even hostility within the local population. However, a good analysis of existing structures and culturally-sensitive engagement with individuals and communities can ensure that attitudes, behaviors and laws relating to gender equality in education support all women, girls, boys and men.
5. ‘I checked the ‘Gender Box’ in the checklist so I have done my part.’ Key stakeholders, duty-bearers and decision-makers by personnel who do not understand or believe in working toward gender equality in education in emergencies may just be ‘going through the motions’ to satisfy an agency’s/organisation’s/donor’s conditions or checklist. Gender-equality education programming is more than just checking a box. Senior officials, agency heads, and managers must ensure that staff are not going through the motions, either for lack of motivation or lack of analytical skills.

For more information check out the gender page on the INEE website at
http://www.ineesite.org/index.php/post/gender/ and the gender webpage of the OneResponse website at http://oneresponse.info/crosscutting/gender/Pages/home.aspx

In addition, in the next few months, the INEE, together with the IASC Global Education Cluster and the IASC GenCap Project will publish a new Pocket Guide on Gender Equality in and through Education in Emergencies.

- Siobhàn Foran, GenCap Advisor with the Global Clusters

Related link: Ask the Gender Expert

© UNICEF Haiti/2010/Van den Brule
Haiti. 2010. A group of students at L'Ecole des Infirmieres in Belval, Léogâne.

By Arnaud Conchon

La Vallé Bourdon, PORT-AU-PRINCE. 14 April 2010 – I watch in awe as a boy of 5 tinkers with a kite he made out of an old plastic bag, sticks and muddy string. Almost half of the population of Haiti is under 18 years of age and more than a million children have been touched by this disaster. Many of them are living in make-shift settlements, without parents to help promote their full development potential. Still, these children find amazing ways to create toys and invent games in an attempt to socialize with those living in the tents next to them, to get to know their new neighbours.

UNICEF’s tasks here are daunting: supporting the provision of safe water and adequate sanitation as well as safeguarding the health and nutrition of affected children. Many of these children have lost a parent during the quake and if they are still alive, they are too busy trying to meet basic survival needs to respond to the essential developmental needs of their children. This is also the moment to reinforce good family models which build resilience in families and prepare them for future disasters. Enabling Early Childhood Development is the key to improving school enrolment and success does not require lots of financial investments but rather skills, competencies and knowledge, and can have such a great return not only on the child, but on the entire society. In Haiti, prior to the January 12 earthquake, only 20% of children under 5 were enrolled in preschool, or approximately 590,000 children. In Haiti, the ECD needs are great. A parenting programme supporting young children was developed in Creole and used between 80s and early 90s but had not been updated since. Less than half of school aged children attended school before the quake and private institutions accounted for 80% of the education system. In terms of preschools, only 5.5% were from the public sector, and served only 4.7% of preschool aged children. This imbalance between the public and private sector induced educational inequalities at all levels (e.g. monitor-child ratio could vary from 1:20 to 1:40). Typically, preschools were lacking health and school feeding services and most of the 20,000 preschool teachers were not equipped with updated preschool teaching techniques.

Just a few weeks following the disaster, UNICEF established an ECD Task Force in Port-au-Prince, with the participation of ministry officials, civil societies, INGOs and UN Agencies in order to reactivate the network of partners that had been working on ECD in Haiti over the past couple of decades. The ECD Task Force was set up to promote a harmonized response aimed at addressing the holistic needs of young children both in the immediate aftermath and in the longer term. There is a core working group divided into 3 sub-groups including Education, Child Protection, and Health & Nutrition. With the full support of UNICEF and under the lead of the BUGEP (The Ministry’s Bureau of Preschool Education Management), the ECD Task Force has now been handed over to an inter-ministerial committee at the occasion of the school/preschool re-opening campaign.

As part of this process, an outline has been developed with ECD objectives over the next 6 to 12 months has been formulated and presented to the PDNA (Post-Disaster Needs Assessment). These objectives are in alignment with the development of a national policy paper on Integrated Early Childhood Development.

Over the past few weeks I have worked with colleagues to distribute 1,546 Early Childhood Development (ECD) Kits through variety of partners, not only in preschool settings, but also in baby nutrition tents, orphanages, child-friendly spaces, and pediatric/ baby clinics, serving over 120,000 young children. I am amazed to see how children love these kits. Today UNICEF is exploring possibilities for local production and/or procurement of these kits, setting the stage for longer term empowerment, ownership and sustainability. But positioning ECD Kits across the country is not sufficient. What counts more than the kit itself, is the ability of caregivers to organize positive and interactive environments for young children. In the interim, an activity guide for caregivers was developed to temporarily replace training, because during the acute phase of the emergency, training is not a priority and not appropriate to implement. Today, during this phase of humanitarian response, we are trying to ensure that caregivers have enough capacity to implement quality activities so that young children get the best chance to develop their full potential. For this reason, we recently began a 2-week ECD and psychosocial support training of master trainers with one of our partners. At present, 25 Master Trainers are benefiting from this course that hopes to ensure quality and scaling up of ECD interventions across the country. Each of them will then be responsible for training other trainers and contributing to the knowledge, skills and competencies of caregivers at a larger scale, starting with the use of ECD Kits.

In addition to ECD Kits, UNICEF also distributed numerous tents to serve as temporary preschool settings. We have been working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education on the list of priority preschools in the West and South East Department, beginning with those attached to the primary schools known as fundamental schools. “Fundamental” denotes a cycle of 9 years of schooling, starting at the primary level.

Today, I worry, as do many of us about the impending rainy season and what this will mean for the youngest and most vulnerable children. This country has already been weakened by 3 cyclones and a hurricane in 2008 and education indicators prior to the earthquake were among the worst in the Western hemisphere. The rains and flooding will only exacerbate an already dire humanitarian crisis. Relocation has begun for some of the camps but many people are living in muddy and unsanitary conditions that are only expected to worsen. Our partners in camps continue to ask for materials and training for early childhood development, for these materials lay the foundation for building more resilient children capable of coping with crisis. I am acutely mindful of the competing needs in an emergency involving the protection, well-being and development of the most vulnerable members of society. These children are Haiti’s future. Ensuring their growth and early childhood development is about building the foundations to carry forward an entire nation. I am reminded as I watch a small baby walk through the camp that baby steps are essential…

Arnaud Conchon, ECD Specialist reporting from Haiti
April 2010

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©2010 Carlos Vasquez
Victor and Father Louis, Montagne Jaquot-Merlin, Haiti.

23 Feb 2010 – Victor Vincent Kinyanjui, from Kenya and WASH specialist for UNICEF Sierra Leone, and I set out early in morning to visit a rural school on top of mountain Jaquot-Merlin. The school is run by Father Louis Marrie from France. In order to get there we had to cross a dry river that shows clear signs of bank erosion due to heavy water flow during the rainy season.

Far away you can also see landslides manifested as white scars on the side of the mountains. The road up to the school was handmade by the local village to allow World Food Programme trucks to deliver much needed food supplies. After the earthquake the local community saw an increase of 20% of people over all. So far UNICEF has provided this village one tent for the school and one for the medical facilities. Both tents were delivered by helicopters three mountains away. Father Louis told us how difficult it was to get the pilots to drop the tents in the right place and the difficulties they had carrying the tents back to the community.

Once at the site we quickly drew a schematic site plan on the ground to locate 2 more tents, toilets and a water point. The wind movement and sun orientation were considered to make these decisions. We noticed the presence of what looked like volcanic rocks or lava in substantial quantities.

After exploring two separate fresh water springs, we decided to select the second water source down the hill, to make our proposal for the water collection system and transport of water up to the school premises. The main issue that Victor stressed was the need to 1) establish a community water committee and 2) encourage behavioral change for the consumption and management of water. We also stressed the need to implement a hygiene program through the school.

The water spring serves approximately 10 families with around 60 people total. The school population will be roughly 480 students in double shift system.

Main agreement to provide water to the school has the following components:

• Do not disturb the natural flow of the spring
• Build reservoir (3 cement bags of 50lbs) at source of water spring location
• Install walls and roof to capture the water; rough calculation shows 10lt of water/minute. Water level never to be higher than spring source
• Spring will provide 7,000 lt of water over night (12 hrs)
• Provide 4” PVC pipe below water source to water tank and 1” overflow pipe also below the level of the spring source
• 4” pipe to follow contour of hill to lower flat area to connect to two interconnected water 5,000 tanks
• 1 tank for the school, 1 tank for the community
• Provide solar pump to move water from tanks to school over the hill
• Provide third tank at school site with taps for hand washing and drinking water, close to latrines
• Solar panel and switch to be located at school site
• Community to provide 2 extra tanks to collect rain water
• Community to establish a “water committee” to manage water

UNICEF will provide all the materials and technical drawings. Father Louis will mobilize the community for both the construction and water committee group.

Carlos Vasquez
Architect
UNICEF, Education Section

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