Teachers Without Borders

This document presents general practices of safe school construction and the retrofitting of existing school buildings through typical design and drawing of schools as developed and practised in Aceh and West Sumtra Earthquake Response programmes. The programmes aim to create greater awareness of safer school construction in new schools, while at the same time making sure that the existing school buildings are safe.

Nzomo was speaking Saturday at KIE when she received Millennium Development Goals Ambassador Awards by teachers without borders.

environmental lawyer Polly Higgins outlined the proposed law of ecocide, which she says should be recognised by the United Nations as a fifth crime against peace alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.

Jesús Emilio Tuberquia is a leader of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in Urabá, northwest Colombia. The Urabá region has lived a bloody recent history – a history that is yet to reach its end. It is a heavily militarised zone with a strong presence from guerrilla, army and paramilitary forces. Urabá acted as the launch pad for the savage paramilitary expansion across Colombia in 1997. In February 2005 the Peace Community suffered a now infamous massacre in which paramiltary forces combined with the Colombian army to brutally murder 8 civilians, including several children.

Legislators have predicted a catastrophic year epitomised by poor pass rates and falling standards in the education sector ahead of next Tuesday's official schools opening day as a result of poor funding.

"The ministry will have to drastically revise downwards its stated objectives for 2011 as reflected in the blue book. The impact of the downward revision will be catastrophic. The ministry envisages poor pass rates, low quality education, lack of or no supervision of the education delivery mechanism, inadequate teaching materials and the continual mushrooming of illegal schools operating on the sidelines of conventional schools," reads part of the Parliamentary report.

the committee said the funds were inadequate to address the plight of teachers whose salaries are currently being topped-up through a controversial teacher incentive scheme. The budget was also said to have not prioritised secondary education.

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.

Mexican officials are teaching school children how to dive for cover if they come under fire from gangs fighting over the Pacific beach city of Acapulco as drug violence reaches deeper into everyday life. At a drill in an Acapulco primary school this week, instructors used toy guns that simulated the sound of real gunfire. "Get down, let's go!" shouted an instructor as children threw themselves on the ground in classrooms and the playground and then crawled toward safety, burying their heads in their hands.

Most schools in Acapulco have not yet received the training and some civic leaders prefer to play down the violence.

Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World is a racing game that helps you to learn about HIV and AIDS prevention and takes you on a tour of some of the World's Heritage sites. The game aims to provide young people with accurate and reliable information about HIV prevention, intending to educate and entertain as well as promoting healthy behaviour. In this game, the player can race on circuits on five continents, and virtually visit some of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. It also presents images of sites and interesting facts about them as players race by.

Ms. McBride, who recently returned from three weeks in Haiti, said the children she spoke with who had moved from school tents into semi-permanent structures seemed “really happy to be back at school”. “One interesting thing about this,” Mr. Vasquez added, “is the fact that, believe it or not, children were afraid of going back to schools that were made out of bricks or reinforced concrete because they associate collapse with a certain type of construction.”

“That was also part of our initial design concerns when we were thinking about the semi-permanent schools,” Mr. Vasquez continued, “If you are able to pick on how children perceive space and how do they perceive the disaster, if you’re paying attention as an architect, you should be able to integrate their concerns into your design process.”

“On the surface of it the children seem very happy at school, learning, playing with their friends, interacting with their teachers, but one particular mother [I spoke with] told me that her children weren’t actually doing so well,” Ms. McBride said. “Her youngest daughter, who was about five,” Ms. McBride continued, “didn’t sleep well at night, they didn’t like to be separated from her for too long, and she, as a parent, didn’t like to be separated from her children.”