Back on Track » Southern Sudan

Tereza’s story: I want to be a pilot

Njinga Elisabeth — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:49:40 +0000

Youth journalist Tereza Kitale, 17, in attendance at the radio workshop sponsored by UNICEF Radio, Southern Sudan Radio and UNICEF's Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition Programme. " title="Thereza" width="300" height="200" class="size-medium wp-image-1823" />

© UNICEF-NYHQ/2009/Kavanagh
Youth journalist Tereza Kitale, 17, in attendance at the radio workshop sponsored by UNICEF Radio, Southern Sudan Radio and UNICEF's Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition Programme.

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In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – a landmark international agreement on the basic human rights of all children – UNICEF is featuring a series of stories about progress made and challenges that remain. Here is one of those stories.

JUBA, Southern Sudan, 21 August 2009 – When Tereza Kitale looks up at the sky over the town of Juba, Southern Sudan, she sees her future.

"I want to become a pilot," she says. "But here in Southern Sudan it's very difficult to find a female who has become a pilot."

The 17-year-old student at Juba Day School hopes to change that.

Juba radio workshop

In June, Tereza was one of the participants in a week-long radio production workshop for 10 young people from Juba. UNICEF Radio – in partnership with UNICEF's ‘Back on Track’ programme on Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition, the UNICEF Southern Sudan Area Programme and Southern Sudan Radio – conducted the workshop with five boys and five girls chosen from local schools.

The young people learned how to record, edit, write and produce a radio report of their own.

Interview with a female pilot

For her story, Tereza interviewed Justine Takoki, a Kenyan female pilot based in Juba for the World Food Programme.

Ms. Takoki said that a major obstacle for women pilots is that the profession is dominated by men. "For a woman to come in and start flying, it was very difficult," she said.

"My advice to Sudanese girls is to follow their passion – and if they really want to become a pilot they should follow their passion and dreams and realize them and work very hard at it," she told Tereza.

Ms. Takoki said that Tereza reminded her of when she was in high school and she met a female pilot – the only female captain in Kenya – who became an inspiration to her. “And I went and talked to her – just like you're doing – and she encouraged me and showed me exactly what I needed to do."

Tereza Kitale interviewing Kenyan female pilot for the World Food Program, Justine Takoki, who is based in Juba. " title="Sudanese-girl2" width="300" height="200" class="size-medium wp-image-1827" />

© UNICEF-NYHQ/2009/Kavanagh
Tereza Kitale interviewing Kenyan female pilot for the World Food Program, Justine Takoki, who is based in Juba.

“I wish to do the same thing as Ms. Takoki,” Tereza said. “And I wish to fly with her one day.”

Tereza’s report was produced to commemorate the Day of the African Child on 16 June.

Youth perspectives

UNICEF Radio and the Back on Track programme will conduct a series of similar workshops in other countries in the coming months. Their aim: to bring young people’s perspectives into the debate around education in emergencies and post-crisis situations and to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the CRC.

Meanwhile, UNICEF’s Southern Sudan Area Programme is working with Southern Sudan Radio to involve the new youth journalists in its programmes, empowering young people by giving them the chance to broadcast their voices throughout the region.

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Radio Workshop: Youth from Southern Soudan

Njinga Elisabeth — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:04:16 +0000

© UNICEF-NYHQ/2009/Kavanagh
Michael Lual, 17, is a student at Juba Day School in Southern Sudan. Despite a government promise that top students would receive help with their school fees, Michael and his family are still struggling to pay for his education.

In June, UNICEF Radio, in partnership with UNICEF’s Back on Track programme, UNICEF’s Southern Sudan country office, and Southern Sudan Radio, conducted a week-long workshop for ten young people from Juba, Southern Sudan. Five boys and five girls were chosen from local schools and learned how to record, edit, write and produce a radio piece of their own.

Michael Lual, 17, chose to do a piece about the school fees that students in Southern Sudan pay. Dorothy Lurit, 15, recorded a story about the struggles she and her sisters have finding enough support to attend school ever since their father died. Other workshop participants produced stories about topics that ranged from whitening cosmetics to early marriage to trash collection to Tereza Kitale’s personal story about her dream of becoming a pilot when she grows up.

In all, the students produced more than fifteen stories in both English and Arabic, and many aired on 16 June on Southern Sudan Radio to commemorate the Day of the African Child.

UNICEF Radio and UNICEF’s Back on Track programme will be conducting a series of similar workshops in the coming months to bring young people’s perspectives into the debate around education in emergencies and post-crisis transition, and to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees the rights of all children, all around the world.

UNICEF’s Southern Sudan country office will work with Southern Sudan Radio to continue involving the new radio journalists in its youth radio programs, helping to empower young people by giving them the chance to broadcast their voices throughout the region.

School Fees

Michael Lual is a 17-year-old student at Juba Day School in Juba, Southern Sudan. Michael’s father died during Sudan’s civil war, and he now lives with his uncle so that he can attend school in Juba. Michael is one of the top students at his school, but he struggles to pay his school fees, even though last year the overnment announced a policy that would reward Southern Sudan’s best students with free education. Some of his friends can’t afford to go to school at all. “The government should give money to the top students because it can encourage others,” he says.

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School Fees

Alfred Malish

Practice Of Early Marriage

Alfred Malish, 15, is a student at Juba Day School in Juba, Southern Sudan. Alfred is worried about the practice of early marriage, in which young people – usually girls – are married at a very early age. These girls usually stop attending school, and Malish discusses this problem with his friend Stella, a 16-year-old who is pregnant. “It is paining for me,” Malish says. “Let them go to school.”

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Early Marriage

Education Under Attack

unicef — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:22:13 +0000

A man teacher addresses a class of girls, in a temporary classroom in the Kassab IDP camp near the town of Kutum, 116 km from capital of North Darfur." title="sundan-girls-class" width="300" height="199" class="size-medium wp-image-1097" />

© UNICEF/NYHQ2004-0269/Christine Nesbitt
A man teacher addresses a class of girls, in a temporary classroom in the Kassab IDP camp near the town of Kutum, 116 km from capital of North Darfur.

NEW YORK, USA, 16 November 2007 – Providing education to children in regions and societies affected by conflict – or emerging from it – is a major challenge.

Yet communities in conflict-affected areas consistently rank education as a high priority. And they demonstrate astounding resourcefulness and resilience in seeking out and providing schooling for their children.

Educating children in conflict zones

In Iraq, as in many other conflict zones, schools may be targets of violence and must operate in increasingly tense security situations.

UNICEF Colombia Representative Paul Martin and UNICEF Iraq Deputy Representative Geeta Verma with podcast moderator Amy Costello at a discussion on education in conflict-affected countries.

“Examinations that took place recently saw, for the first time, a decline in the number of children who sat for the exam and, further, those who were able to pass,” said Geeta Verma, speaking of Iraq last week during a discussion about the role of education in countries affected by conflict or natural disaster. “The learning levels are going down rapidly, which means that the quality of education is in rapid decline,” she added.

“In Southern Sudan, you find that … the adult literacy rates are very low, the lowest in the world,” said Sibeso Luswata, noting the challenges of working in an area that recently emerged from conflict.

Paul Martin cited the difficulty of providing education to vulnerable and excluded children in middle-income countries such as Colombia – especially in remote areas. The problem is “particularly acute in Colombia because of the situation of violence, which is affecting large areas but not all of the country at once,” he said. “A lot of the problems in those isolated areas are quite similar to the things that have been described in Sudan and in Iraq.”

A tool for social transformation

Ms. Verma, Ms. Luswata and Mr. Martin made their comments in the third segment of ‘Beyond School Books’, a series of discussions that are distributed online and through UNICEF Radio podcasts.

UNICEF has launched the series – hosted by Amy Costello, a former correspondent for Public Radio International – to help advance the discussion on the role of education in countries affected by conflict or natural disaster, or emerging from crisis.

About this Podcast

Voices from the Field. A discussion about educating children in some of the world’s most challenging contexts, featuring these guests:
Sibeso Luswata, UNICEF Southern Sudan Chief of Education; Paul Martin, UNICEF Representative in Colombia; and Geeta Verma, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Iraq.

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Education Under Attack – Podcast 3

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