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Teachers Without Borders

CARE: "Going to school should not be a luxury" - 0 views

  • "Going to school should not be a luxury, especially for the children in Dadaab. On the opposite, this is a powerful way to make their lives safer," emphasizes Stephen Gwynne-Vaughan, country director for CARE Kenya. "If children are left idle in the camps, they are most vulnerable to abuse, drugs and other threats."
  • When attending classes, children do not only learn how to read and write, but also build up their self-confidence by learning about their rights, good hygiene practices and other matters related to life in the camps. While schools are closed during the month of August, CARE has started an accelerated learning program for newly-arrived children, many of whom have never been to school before. In the first two days of the program, 1,100 children were admitted to class and are now getting up to speed to participate in regular school programs after the break. However, once classes resume in September, the schools' capacity to provide quality primary education for the growing number of children may be an impossible task.
  • CARE currently manages five regular schools in Dagahaley camp, reaching more than 15,100 children. Adults from the refugee population are trained as teachers and receive teaching material. Many of those teachers have been living in Dadaab since their early childhood themselves and were educated in the camps before becoming educators themselves.
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    DADAAB, Kenya (August 11, 2011) - As the influx of Somali refugees across the border to Kenya is increasing every day, CARE draws attention to the lack of sufficient primary education for children living in the refugee camps of Dadaab. The latest numbers of officially registered refugees issued by the United Nations on August 8, 2011, list 399,346 people currently living in Dadaab, a number that is expected to keep growing. Amongst the total refugee population, approximately 114,000 are children at the age of 5 to 13, and only 38 percent are currently enrolled in school.
Teachers Without Borders

For refugees in Kenya, 'education is the only thing we can take home' « World... - 0 views

  • In many ways, Kenya is an example of an African success story in education. According to the 2011 EFA Global Monitoring Report, growth in the number of children attending school has accelerated, the gender gap has narrowed and it is one of the few countries in the region expected to achieve the Education for All goal of halving adult illiteracy by 2015. Efforts are being made to ensure education quality does not suffer as the number entering school expands. The Kenyan government should be commended for its efforts in all of these areas.
  • Despite this progress, one marginalized group has remained beyond the radar: displaced people. Kenya is host to some of the largest refugee populations on the continent. The government is unable to stretch its limited resources to support their education, and education is not seen as a priority by international agencies in humanitarian situations – just 2% of humanitarian aid overall is allocated to education. This is part of the hidden crisis documented in the 2011 Global Monitoring Report.
  • Speaking of the Dadaab camps in northeastern Kenya, home to some refugees for as long as for 20 years, Mohamed Elmi noted: “Dadaab suffers from overcrowded classrooms, insufficient trained teachers, and too few opportunities for secondary-age students.”
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  • The challenges are indeed immense. The number of Somalis entering Kenya grows daily, but the resources available for education have not kept pace. “Education is the only thing we can take home,” refugees I met when I visited Dadaab last year told me.
  • Recognition by the Kenyan government of the challenges faced by refugees is an important first step in filling these unmet needs. The next step will be to ensure that refugee education is incorporated within the government’s strategic planning, and that pressure is put on aid donors to make sufficient funds available on a multiyear basis.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Kenya: Overcoming Cultural Obstacles to Girls' Education in Dadaab - 0 views

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    Dadaab - A mix of cultural practices, such as early and forced marriage, as well as child labour, are depriving girls of education in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya. Out of Dadaab's estimated population of 463,000 mainly Somali refugees, more than half are children under 18; of these about 38 percent attend school. The proportion of girls in the camps' primary and secondary schools is 38 and 27 percent, respectively, according to the UN Refugee Agency. A third of girls aged between 5 and 13 in Dabaab go to school; for those aged 14 to 17, only one in 20 are enrolled.
Konrad Glogowski

Educators in Exile - 0 views

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    Much of the literature surrounding education in emergencies focuses on the impact of armed conflict on children. Surprisingly little focuses explicitly on teachers, and yet it is commonly acknowledged that the biggest influences on the education a child receives are the knowledge, skills and attitudes of their teacher. Through field research from Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, the study examines the role and status of teachers in emergencies. It identifies the issues refugee teachers face and makes recommendations on how policy can better address their particular needs and protect their rights, and thus improve access to and quality of education to populations affected by an emergency. The research findings also include data on South Sudan and the status of teachers returning there from exile.
Teachers Without Borders

IRIN Africa | BURUNDI: Helping returnee students overcome language barrier | Burundi | ... - 0 views

  • MAKAMBA, 24 February 2011 (IRIN) - Unversed in Burundi's official languages of French and Kirundi, children of refugees returning after decades spent in Anglophone countries, such as neighbouring Tanzania, often find it difficult to continue their studies and some drop out.
  • To ensure such students continue learning, a group of returnee teachers has set up an education centre in the commune of Mabanda in Makamba Province, near Tanzania. The teachers work without pay. "We couldn't just sit back while our children faced a lack of education due to a language barrier," Norbert Bitaboneka, the principal, told IRIN. Swahili and English are the languages of instruction at the facility, the Centre Prévisionnel de l'Afrique de l'Est (East African Planning Centre), in line with the Tanzanian curriculum. The language of instruction in Burundian schools is French.
  • Most of the returnee students affected by the language barrier are those whose parents fled Burundi during civil war in 1972.
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  • "When I returned from Tanzania, I hoped to continue with my studies but I had no chance of doing so because I didn't understand French or Kirundi," Imed Hakiza, now a small-scale trader at Mabanda market, said.
  • “The situation is complex. The school is not recognized by Burundian law but teachers and the principal are doing something good, which made us decide not to close the school even though we were asked to do so," he added.
  • "Besides language training, we are adopting a holistic approach in providing returnees with life skills like sports for integration, culture and arts, awareness-raising and discussions of youth-relevant issues such as HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, environmental awareness and conflict resolution," Zeus said.
  • According to RET, some 690 students are enrolled in intermediate level courses to learn French and Kirundi and culture clubs have been set up in 37 secondary schools across the provinces of Bururi, Makamba and Rutana.
Teachers Without Borders

INEE | Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies - 0 views

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    This e-learning module uses the example of the Darfur refugee crisis to demonstrate how the Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery-the foundational tool of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)-can be used as a framework for designing quality education programmes in conflict-induced situations.  Throughout this module, you will watch short video clips, look at photographs, and read relevant articles and reports.  A series of questions will help you understand how the INEE Minimum Standards can be used to improve the quality of education assistance.
Teachers Without Borders

Palestinian pupils at UN schools form group image as dove of peace - 0 views

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    25 November 2011 - Hundreds of children from United Nations-run schools in the Jericho area of the occupied Palestinian territory today created a massive aerial image jointly with the renowned artist John Quigley to send out a peace message to the world. The children, who attend schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), gathered at the foot of the Mount of Temptation, outside Jericho, to form the shape of the Peace Dove created by the artist Pablo Picasso. They were directed by Mr. Quigley, who has created mass images from groups of people for over a quarter of a century.
Teachers Without Borders

My Life as a Refugee - UNHCR - 1 views

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    "Every minute eight people are forced to flee war, persecution or terror."
Teachers Without Borders

IRIN Africa | ETHIOPIA: Drought, floods hit education | Ethiopia | Children | Education... - 0 views

  • ADDIS ABABA, 18 January 2012 (IRIN) - Parts of Ethiopia are still reeling from the effects of recent drought, flooding, conflict or a combination of the three, resulting in increased numbers of children dropping out of school, say officials. At least 385,000 school-children need "emergency education assistance this school year", Alexandra Westerbeek, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) communication manager in Ethiopia, told IRIN. "In addition, 70,000 children among [the] refugee population also need emergency education assistance." 
Teachers Without Borders

Reuters AlertNet - DRC: Where schools have flapping plastic walls - 0 views

  • KIWANJA, 19 July 2010 (IRIN) - It is a sunny day at the Mashango primary school in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC's) North Kivu Province. That is good news for teacher Dusaba Mbomoya who is holding a geography exam under a roof filled with holes in a classroom where flapping pieces of plastic do duty as walls. Even the blackboard has holes large enough for students to peer through. "When it rains we allow the pupils to go back to their houses," said Mbomoya.
  • Most classrooms are dark and crumbling with limited teaching materials. With the government opting out, Save the Children estimates that parents are forced to finance 80-90 percent of all public education outside the capital Kinshasa, though under the DRC's 2006 constitution elementary education is supposed to be free. Teachers' salaries go unpaid which means parents must contribute to their wages via monthly school fees of around US$5 per pupil. Large families and an average monthly income of just $50 means such fees are entirely unaffordable for large swathes of the DRC population - with serious consequences. Estimates from Save the Children and others suggest nearly half of Congolese children, more than three million, are out of school and one in three have never stepped in the classroom.
  • Save the Children's research shows that teachers' pay is so low and so irregular that many take on other jobs, such as farming, taking them away from their classrooms and students. The situation is particularly bad in North Kivu where hundreds of thousands have been uprooted by years of war. Some like Laurent Rumvu live in camps for the internally displaced. None of his five school-aged children are in regular education.
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  • Ransacked Schools in the area were closed for several months in late 2008 and early 2009 when fighting between rebel soldiers in the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP - now a political party) and the DRC army brought chaos to North Kivu. Children were forcibly recruited from schools by militia groups and the army and students and teachers were shot and abducted, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Schools were ransacked and many were occupied by either soldiers or IDPs.
  • After the war, he said 120 fewer pupils returned to classes. At Kasasa, CNDP soldiers occupied the school for several weeks, taking books and causing damage. Some pupils were killed during the fighting, and Nkunda said others were traumatized. "Of course the war has had an effect," he said. "Imagine going to school after your parents have been killed." Getting displaced children back in school is a priority for international agencies including the Norwegian Refugee Council.
  • "Education is extremely important to the future of Congo," said Mondlane. "With large numbers of displaced children it is extremely important to invest in education in this humanitarian crisis." "Bad government" Kasasa student Shirambere Tibari Menya, 22, lost four years of his schooling to war. Most recently, he fled to Uganda during the fighting in 2008 and is now close to finishing secondary school. But one obstacle remains - a one-off series of final exams which all DRC pupils must take before graduation. Tibari is confident he will pass and would like to go on to study medicine but says his family does not have the $12 he must pay to take the tests. "I don't accept that I'm going to lose another year, but you can see that we are studying in bad conditions," he said. "For our parents the main activity is to go to the fields, but they are raped and attacked so we have the problem of food and no money. "I blame the government. We are in a bad country with a bad government."
Teachers Without Borders

HaitiAnalysis.com Haiti's Earthquake Victims in Great Peril - 0 views

  • According to a February study by the Inter-American Development Bank, the cost of physical damage from Haiti’s earthquake ranges from $8 billion to $13 billion. It says, “there are few events of such ferocity as the Haiti 2010 earthquake.”
  • The study looks at natural disasters over the past 40 years and concludes that the death toll, per capita, of Haiti’s earthquake is four times, or more, higher than any other disaster in this time period.
  • The Partners In Health agency estimates some 1.3 million people were left without shelter by the earthquake. The majority of those people still do not have adequate emergency shelter nor access to potable water, food and medical attention.
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  • According to US AID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Sanitation conditions in the camps remain a grave concern. With heavy seasonal rains fast approaching, the population is extremely vulnerable to exposure and water-born disease.
  • Two leading directors of Doctors Without Borders have called the relief effort to date "broadly insufficient." In a March 5 interview, they say that, “The lack of shelter and the hygiene conditions represent a danger not only in terms of public health, but they are also an intolerable breach of the human dignity of all these people.”
  • Conditions are also critical outside the earthquake zone. Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city located 120 km north of Port au Prince, has received an estimated influx of 50,000 refugees. Its mayor, Michel St. Croix, recently told the Miami Herald, “We need housing, sanitation, security -- we need everything.'' He said the city has received next to no assistance from the United Nations nor the International Red Cross.
  • In an interview with Associated Press on March 5, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive repeated his government’s growing concern with the international aid effort. "Too many people are raising money without any controls, and don't explain what they're doing with it."
  • Farmer warned against the “trauma vultures” descending on Haiti. He asked why so many years of aid and charitable funds going to Haiti has left the country poorer than ever.
  • Canada was one of the few large countries in the world that did not send civilian emergency rescue teams to Haiti. Its official aid mission arrived one week after the earthquake in the form of two warships and 2,000 military personnel. They pitched into the relief effort and earned praise for their work. But most of the assistance brought by the military, including its field hospital in Léogâne and its emergency health center in Jacmel, have now been withdrawn.
  • “The Canadian military is not a relief agency. It helped out with short-term needs. Aid and reconstruction is a long-term process. Who is going to pick up where the military’s work left off?”
  • Prior to the earthquake, Cuba had some 350 health professionals volunteering in Haiti. That number, including graduates and students from the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba, has expanded considerably. Since 2005, 550 Haitian doctors have graduated from ELAM. The school received its first Haitian students in 1999. Currently, there are 570 students from Haiti attending the school.
  • Timely and informative articles and videos are also posted to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network (http://canadahaitiaction.ca/) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (http://ijdh.org/).
Teachers Without Borders

Charity Report: Water - A Child's Right - 0 views

  • Imagine, for a moment, that you had to walk for miles to find clean water. Imagine again, if you lived in a country devastated by civil war and humanitarian disaster, and your only source of water was contaminated by the runoff from refugee camps—garbage, human excrement, and people bathing.
  • UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon issued a statement today. “Water is the source of life and the link that binds all living beings on this planet,” he said. “It is connected directly to all our United Nations goals: improved maternal and child health and life expectancy, women's empowerment, food security, sustainable development and climate change adaptation and mitigation.” There is good news: there have been vast improvements in water and sanitation—so much so that 87% of the world population can now access safe drinking water, and is on-target to meet the targets identified in the Millennium Development Goals. The majority of these improvements have been in rural areas.
  • 90% of the 1.1 billion people forced to defecate in open areas due to a lack of toilets or latrines are rural dwellers. Conditions such as these are the primary cause of the 1.5 million deaths of children under five years old due to diarrhoeal diseases, the UN reports. Such needless deaths have been called “an affront to our common humanity” by Ban Ki-Moon. In addition to faecal contamination risks, poor personal hygiene, agricultural and livestock runoff, and inadequate garbage disposal services can spread water-borne diseases.
Teachers Without Borders

CRIN - Francia Simon wins the International Children's Peace Prize 2010 - 0 views

  • Monday it was announced, during a ceremony in the Hall of Knights in The Hague, that Francia Simon is the winner of the International Children’s Peace Prize 2010. Francia, who is 16 years old and lives in the Dominican Republic, campaigns for the right of children to registration, name and nationality – both for children born in the Dominican Republic as for refugee children from Haiti. It is only after official registration that children can gain access to essential rights such as health care and education. Francia found herself faced with possible exclusion from education.
  • She has already helped over 130 children to receive an official name and nationality. By doing this, Francia increases the children’s own self-esteem and gives them the chance to lead a more secure and fulfilling life.
  • Every year, children from all over the world are nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. The winner of the prize is given a platform to help him or her voice out the message on the right, for which the child is fighting.
Teachers Without Borders

IREX Europe - SAF Drama for Conflict Transformation Somali Communities - 0 views

  • Kenya: Learning theatre to promote peace and understanding among Somali communitiesOverview IREX Europe, in partnership with the Kenyan-based NGO Somali Aid Foundation (SAF), is implementing a project aimed at disenfranchised youth which uses theatre as a vehicle for youth to express their views and frustrations on key issues including poverty, lack of access to education and gender issues, among others. The project targets the Somali youth population in the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh and in the refugee camp of Hagadera. The theatre technique used is Drama for Conflict Transformation (DCT), which promotes understanding and tolerance in different societies. IREX Europe and its partners have successfully implemented the methodology in Somaliland, Indonesia and Central Asia.
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