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.

ZAKA, Zimbabwe, 28 October 2011 – “My mother was buried among those trees,” eight-year-old Esnat said solemnly as she pointed to her mother’s grave in Zaka district, in southern Zimbabwe. “I was then taken in by the neighbours – they say they can only give me food and shelter, but cannot pay my fees.”

Despite the turmoil in her life, Esnat is a cheerful and radiant young girl. Her proper manners and easy charm make her stand out among her peers at the Chipezeze Primary School.

Investing in education

Currently, there are 1.4 million orphaned children in Zimbabwe, facing uncertain futures and desperate financial circumstances. UNICEF is aiming to ensure these young people are provided with proper educations. Through the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), 514,000 orphans and vulnerable children were able to attend school.

Throughout Zimbabwe, students are receiving monetary support for school fees, as well as basic supplies. More than 13 million textbooks have also been printed and distributed to meet the syllabus requirements for mathematics, English, environmental science and a local language. At Chipezeze, Esnat and the other 447 pupils enrolled have all benefited from this support.

In a community often stricken by droughts, soaring death rates and a growing orphan population, this assistance is essential.

© UNICEF Zimbabwe/2010/Mutseyekwa
With support from UNICEF, Esnat has a full supply of text books, notebooks and stationery. She has also been assisted with her school fees.

Countries provide support

“We remain optimistic that most of the challenges which have beset Zimbabwe’s education sector will soon be a thing of the past,” said UNICEF Representative in Zimbabwe Dr. Peter Salama, “The Child Friendly Schools Initiative best complements other programmes in place to ensure that Zimbabwe’s education sector regains its top status and that Zimbabwe remains on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”

Vital support from the Governments of Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Commission has also helped the rejuvenation of Zimbabwe’s education sector, which had declined precipitously over the last decade.

This continued support will certainly help in boosting primary school attendance among the most vulnerable groups.

Related Links:
UNICEF Child Friendly Schools
The Global Partnership for Education
The Global Inititaive on Out of School

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.

“The floodwater took everything away from us, but gave our children the opportunity for better education,” he adds.

Last year’s unprecedented floods in Pakistan forced the bulk of the population in Mullanwala to relocate to safer areas. When the floodwaters receded and people returned, they discovered that not a single structure in the village was standing – not even the one-room Masjid school.

As Mullanwala’s residents started to rebuild, UNICEF and its implementing partner, the Jahandad Society for Community Development (JSCD), established a temporary learning centre, or TLC, in a tent in the village. The Punjab Education Department granted the TLC status as a Government Primary School, and enrolment soon exceeded 200.

‘Child-friendly’ approach

© UNICEF Video
Third-grade student Shahbaz reads a textbook at the UNICEF-supported Mullanwala Government Primary School in Punjab Province, Pakistan.

Now, a year after the floods, the TLC has turned into a transitional school housed in semi-permanent buildings. As part of its initiative to quickly improve education facilities for flood-affected children in Pakistan, UNICEF plans the construction of 500 such transitional schools by December 2011. Indeed, the process is already under way.

The transitional school in Mullanwala has all the essentials, including safe drinking water and sanitation, school supplies and learning materials. Its teachers use a ‘child-friendly’ approach to schooling that takes the needs of the whole child into account – including needs for protection, recreation, safe water and sanitation, and more.

Promoted by UNICEF and the Government of Punjab, this approach has resulted in a substantial increase in enrolment. The Mullanwala Government Primary School now has more than 360 students, many of whom had never been to a proper school before the floods.

‘We thank UNICEF’

Shahbaz, 11, a third-grade student, is one of them. Having received his early informal education in the Masjid school, he was first exposed to formal education in the UNICEF-supported Mullanwala TLC.

“Before the floods, I used to go to a one-room school,” recalls Shahbaz.

“When the floods came, we moved to high ground in Muzaffargarh. When we returned after the floods, our school had been destroyed. Then we got a tent school, books, bags and everything else. Later, they made us this school building.”

Shahbaz adds: “We are getting a good education and we are very happy. We thank UNICEF for this.”

‘The hub of learning’

JSCD Project Coordinator Hina Farooq has been involved with the transitional schools project since September 2010. She’s proud of what has been achieved.

“Mullanwala Government Primary School is more than just a primary school. It is the hub of learning. With UNICEF’s support, we have introduced the concept of ‘child-friendly schooling’ to students, teachers and community members,” says Ms. Farooq.

“Teaching without corporal punishment is something new in this environment,” she notes. “Since children don’t get beaten up in school, parents are also learning that physical punishment is detrimental to a child’s upbringing.”

© UNICEF video
Shahbaz drinks water from a UNICEF-installed hand pump at his school in a flood-affected district of Punjab Province, Pakistan. Provision of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are part of the school's 'child-friendly' approach.

Prototype of success

Ms. Farooq explains that early childhood education at the Mullanwala transitional school prepares children from three to five years of age for formal education. Youth groups composed of adolescent boys and girls help out with school management and encourage parents in Mullanwala and surrounding villages to send their primary school-age children to school, she says.

UNICEF Education Officer Yasir Arafat considers the Mullanwala school a true prototype.

“This school is a great example to be replicated in other flood-affected areas,” he says. “It has motivated the entire community towards education. The increase in enrolment has convinced us to build two more rooms here. Work on these will be starting shortly.”

Mr. Arafat says the provincial Education Department has also appointed another teacher to work at the transitional school in Mullanwala.

© 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.

“If the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved by the 2015 deadline, we must step up efforts to ensure that more girls and women have the opportunity to learn,” says Susan Durston, UNICEF’s Associate Director of Education. “We have ample evidence that investing in girls’ education yields high returns.”

Girls with access to education not only vastly improve their own lives but also bring change to their families, economies, and societies. Providing girls and women with a quality education is a highly effective tool to address poverty and fight disease.

A woman is more likely to get a job and earn a higher wage if she has a basic education: one percentage point increase in female education raises the average level of GDP by 0.37 percentage points. Every additional year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 – 20 per cent, and an extra year of secondary school by 15 – 25 per cent.

Access to education has increased over the last two decades. Today, more children, and girls in particular are in school than ever before. The number of out-of-school children has decreased from 115 million to 67 million between 1999 and 2008, with notable increases in enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Countries such as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Nepal, Tanzania and Yemen have combined rapid increases in enrolment with improved gender equality. As a result, between 1999 and 2008 the gender gap in the out-of-school population narrowed from 57 per cent to 53 per cent globally.

UNICEF and its partners are working to overcome barriers preventing access to education through Back to School campaigns, school fee abolition, child-friendly schools, and early childhood education. The Back on Track programme works to bring educational opportunities during and after crises, including by establishing child-friendly spaces, which create an environment where children are protected from sexual exploitation and other kinds of abuse.

“Getting girls into school demands concerted action and political leadership. In addition, the rights and needs of girls also have to be addressed to ensure that they stay in school and receive a quality education,” Durston said. “Bolder steps must be taken on all fronts to ensure the successful transition from primary to secondary education and to make sure that girls can complete a full course of learning.”

© 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.

Individual segments shot in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Southern Sudan show how child-friendly schools help heal divided societies.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Coming Together

More than a decade after the Bosnian war ended in 1995, Džemaludin Cauševic primary school in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is helping rebuild and reconcile a divided society. The school has adopted a new model of inclusive, child-centred education known as child-friendly schools. It provides a safe haven for children and looks after their health and well-being, providing free meals to those who need them and even a dentist for regular check-ups. It also actively seeks out children living in the neighbourhood who are not attending school. While some schools are still divided by ethnic origin, this one brings children of all ethnic origins together, giving them equal opportunities to learn and thrive.

Watch full-length film at ViewChange.org

Watch 2-minute advocacy video and read the full story

SOUTHERN SUDAN: Moving Forward

After decades of conflict, four years into a regional peace accord, school enrolment in Southern Sudan shot up, and children – including hundreds of thousands of girls, who were previously excluded – swarmed into overcrowded classrooms. The government’s priority in moving forward is improving quality, so that schools like Buluk A Basic School can become child-friendly schools. Mark Maluil Garang is 19 years old. When he was 11, he was separated from his family and, like thousands of other displaced boys in the Sudan, became a child soldier. Deserting from the army after three years on the run, Mark came to Juba to complete his education. He is among more than a million students who missed out on education during the war, when schools were closed, but are now making up for lost time.

Watch full-length film at VideoChange.org

Watch 2-minute advocacy video and read the full story

Learn more about child-friendly schools

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ViewChange.org launched by the US television network, Link TV, is the next generation Web site that uses the power of video to tell stories about real people and progress in global development. The site combines powerful video stories with the latest semantic web technology, highlighting videos, articles, blogs, and actions about efforts to eliminate hunger, poverty, and disease in the developing world.
]]> http://www.educationandtransition.org/resources/child-friendly-schools-documentary-series-rising-voices/feed/ 0 http://www.educationandtransition.org/resources/video/a-multi-cultural-school-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina-brings-out-the-best-in-children-2/ http://www.educationandtransition.org/resources/video/a-multi-cultural-school-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina-brings-out-the-best-in-children-2/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:21:41 +0000 mkamimura@unicef.org http://www.educationandtransition.org/?p=3915 Many schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina still reflect the ethnic tensions that triggered the 43-month siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s. During that time, schools were destroyed and classes were held in basements and shelters. Today, some Bosnian schools house ‘two schools under one roof,’ with separate curricula for different ethnic groups.

DžemaludinCauševic Primary School is exceptional as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural institution open to all students. The school, which was rebuilt with support from UNICEF, its partners and the Danish Government after the war in the region ended, has adopted a new model of inclusive child-centred education known as child-friendly schools. The school also made a special effort to reach out to Roma families who often miss out on education opportunities in the region. The school that brings children of all origins together, giving them equal opportunity to learn and thrive is helping to rebuild and reconcile a divided society.

A multi-cultural school in Bosnia and Herzegovina brings out the best in children from UNICEF: Back on Track on Vimeo.

See related story

© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0156/Shehzad Noorani
Rose-Laure Gedeon, 13, and Windelyne Milford, 15,(left-right) walk past rubble with items they received during a distribution of newly arrived care packages for children, at the UNICEF-assisted Foye Zanmi Jezi orphanage, in the Lilavois neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The quake destroyed both the orphanage building and the adjacent primary school but the children were playing outside at the time and all survived.

When Columbus first arrived in the new world, he established his first settlement on what is today Haiti. The first university, hospital and the first cathedral in the Americas were built on this island; Española.

I was scheduled to fly to Port-Au-Prince on Sunday the 14th from the airport in Dominican Republic, after having checked my backpack I was told to gather my belongings and go back to the UNICEF office in Santo Domingo. The orders from UNICEF were for me to attend meetings and review materials for potential prefab structures.

We started the day at six am today in order to drive to Port-Au-Prince. The journey unfolds like a story that gets worse as we leave kilometers behind us.

By the time we got to Jimani on the Dominican Republic’s side, I was debriefed about the 2004 floods during which many people died in this town as well as an entire village wiped out on the Haiti side, in the village of Font Vellettes.

At the Dominican Republic’s border, we meet with government officials who tell us that more than 20 per cent of the population increased at that same village on Haiti after the earthquake. People who are leaving PaP come to this mountainous area. Rapid assessment reports show that the poverty levels are worse in this part of Haiti are worse than in places like Sudan or any Latin American country.

The only road that connects both nations is at lake level. With the first rains this life line is at risk of being lost, cutting off Haiti completely. I was able to confirm the environmental degradation first hand including what my friends Isaac and Maggie had told on Saturday night at their home in Santo Domingo; the mountain side is being excavated to build up the road that runs along the lake creating a precarious situation and potential landslides for the next rainy season.

UNICEF has established a 20 km service buffer zone between the two countries in order to provide much needed help to IDPs and existing poor communities along the border. Water, food and health are the main services being implemented and education will follow. For years all humanitarian response have focused on Port-au-Prince neglecting the conditions of thousands of others around the country. Taking a more global, inclusive or decentralized approach to the social well-being of all people is necessary this time around to improve the lives of all.

Being on the road now it seems hard to believe that Haiti was the first country to gain independence from a colonial power. In early 1800’s, Haiti won the independence war against Napoleon’s army becoming the first self determined nation in Latin America. Only the French and American Revolution pressed Haiti’s independence.

Carlos Vasquez
Architect
UNICEF, Education Section

Monday Feb. 15. 2010, 1:45 pm

Related link: Ask the Architect

© UNICEF/NYHQ2006-0553/Noorani
Children play outside a child-friendly school in Sudan.

By Pi James

NEW YORK, USA, 10 December 2009 – This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet challenges remain in ensuring that its promise becomes a reality for all of the world’s children.

UNICEF Radio moderator Amy Costello spoke with two experts – Prof. Roger Hart and Rebecca Chandler – about the role of ‘Child-Friendly’ schools, spaces and communities in protecting the rights of children in crisis situations.

Listen to the podcast in RealMedia

Click here to listen to podcast – Protecting Rights through Child-Friendly Schools

Prof. Hart teaches at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York and is Director of the Children’s Environments Research Group. Ms. Chandler is the International Rescue Committee (IRC) Coordinator for Child and Youth Protection Programmes in Emergencies

Prof. Hart stressed that individualism is an important factor in protecting child rights, speaking to criticisms that the Convention emphasizes ‘western’ notions of individual autonomy over the more collectivist views of many cultures.

“The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,” he said, “and its emphasis on children’s capacity to be independent actors and thinkers, has really been important for helping them to protect themselves and … develop more completely, and to be prepared for situations like conflict and war.”

‘The trees of our future’

Ms. Chandler spoke about the importance of fostering education for children in conflict-affected areas such as Darfur.

“[We’ve heard] one of the community leaders say that children are the trees of our future. If we cut them down too early, no one is going to provide us shade when we’re old,” she said. “So however they conceptualize it, I think, especially in Darfur, they’re really seeing education as a way to move up in society.”

Prof. Hart agreed, citing this point as “another example of where a school begins as something which is dealing with the conflict and protecting children, but moves on to more long-term sustainable goals for the society in dealing with future conflicts.

“We should not only be concerned with what we have, but the conflicts to come, and child friendly schools are ones that help children to deal with the changes that so many communities are going to experience,” he added.

Tackling climate change

Both guests emphasized the need for child-centred development in combating the effects of climate change.

“Climate change will result in more displacement than we’ve had,” Prof. Hart said. “There’ll be more disasters, there’ll be a growth of this problem before we resolve it, so that does concern me and we need more children more ready to deal with this.”

Ms. Chandler spoke of Myanmar and Darfur as two countries that are being directly affected by climate change. “In Darfur, the less resources you have, the more chance people are going to fight over those resources, [and] children are involved in a lot of ways. They are the ones collecting water, they are the ones who are affected by disease,” she said.

Since Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in May 2008, according to Ms. Chandler, the focus has been on disaster risk reduction, rebuilding schools and finding ways to “make children feel safe.”

Prof. Hart noted that child-friendly schools foster resourcefulness and flexibility in children. If they are raised in communities and schools where they feel confident to take initiative themselves – and competent to work together to solve problems – their communities will likely to become more flexible and better able to adapt to change.

Click here to listen to other podcast in the “BEYOND SCHOOL BOOKS” series.

The government of Myanmar has taken the leadership in the reconstruction efforts regarding
schools and improving the existing educational system. UNICEF was invited to participate in these
efforts capitalizing on a long presence and knowledge of the country. Seven new CHILD FRIENDLY
SCHOOL models will be some of the end results of this collaboration.

Read the full report

Myanmar Final Report