By Sivatheepan Kajanika

Ten-year-old Sivatheepan Kajanika reports on her child-friendly school in Sri Lanka. UNICEF supports child-friendly schools, which provide trained teachers and quality learning materials in a safe, inclusive environment. These schools improve learning and attendance while promoting the fullest realization of a child’s rights and potential.

The Global Partnership for Education has helped more than 19 million children go to school for the first time. A campaign to renew support for these efforts will culminate in a pledging event in Copenhagen on 7-8 November. This series of stories seeks to highlight the Partnership’s work in the lead-up to this event.

By Tapuwa L. Mutseyekwa

© UNICEF Zimbabwe/2010/Mutseyekwa
Esnat was left all alone with the few possessions her mother had.

Pakistan flood crisis, one year on

Children and families continue to cope – and rebuild their lives – a year after devastating monsoon floods struck Pakistan. This is one in a series of stories on their situation, one year on.

By A. Sami Malik

PUNJAB, Pakistan, 3 August 2011 – “Before the floods, this village had a one-room Masjid [mosque] school. Most of the children sat under a tree. We now have this beautiful school, and the children love it,” says Mukhtar Ahmad, Headmaster of the Government Primary School in Mullanwala village, located in the Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan’s Punjab Province.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2011-0077/Noorani
A girl holds a wooden writing board at a UNICEF-supported temporary learning centre in the flood-affected Rajanpur district of Punjab Province, Pakistan.

NEW YORK, 4 May 2011 – Making sure girls and women have equal access to quality education is key to sustainable economic development, UNICEF said today, as the world celebrates Global Action Week on Education.

This year’s Global Action Week focuses on Education for Women and Girls, as 53 per cent of all children out of school remain girls denied of the right to learn. Poverty, exploitation and armed conflict magnify the risk girls face even as they go to school, forcing many to stay home or drop out in fear of their safety. In countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, sexual violence and mass rape – a clear violation of their rights – continues to terrify and severely harm women and girls, ultimately denying them access to education.

© UNICEF/2009/Robbie Campbell

Young people today will face challenges that require them to be more creative, more adaptable and more resilient than ever before. Poverty, climate change, conflicts, natural disasters and the economic crisis call for more sustainable solutions. Education is the key to solving the problems of the global community. This series features six documentary films focusing on the personal stories of students in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Egypt, Ghana, Nicaragua and the Sudan and contexts in which child-friendly school policies are being implemented.

Many schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina still reflect the ethnic tensions that triggered the 43-month siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s.