Poverty- Educating girls focus of international NGOs

Child marriages in developing countries is harming the ability for people to climb out of the cycle of poverty, as reported in The Guardian.

Educating girls: the key to tackling global poverty

Ensuring girls enter and stay in the classroom is seen as crucial in the fight to eradicate global poverty, so how can obstacles such as child marriage be overcome?

Access to education shouldn’t be determined by a child’s gender, yet 130 million girls globally are out of school and 15 million girls of primary school age will never even enter a classroom.

Educating girls gives them the freedom to make decisions to improve their lives, which has deep social implications. Giving girls access to schooling is a central part of eradicating global poverty, according to the World Bank, which says better educated women tend to be healthier, participate more in formal labour markets, have fewer children and marry later. 

The UN’s sustainable development goals call for gender equality and a quality education for all by 2030. So what action needs to be taken to overcome the complex global barriers to not only getting girls into school but also providing them with a meaningful education?

These questions were tackled by a panel of experts from the non-profit, academic and private sectors, at a Guardian round table event in New York, chaired by Guardian journalist Anna Leach and supported by anti-poverty NGO Opportunity International.

Child marriage

A key obstacle to girls participating in school life is child marriage. Every year 15 million girls under the age of 18 are married.

The reasons for child marriage and a lack of education for girls are complex and interlinked, said Heather Hamilton, deputy executive of Girls not Brides. “Both come from the base view of girls as not as valuable as boys,” said Hamilton. “If we don’t have local values changing, and support girls as valuable people in their own right … we’re not going to see the shift in outcomes,” she added.

One project looking to tackle this is Girl Effect’s Yegna, an initiative using music and radio to spread awareness of girls’ rights in Ethiopia. It recently tackled child marriage through a radio drama. Research in the Addis Ababa and Amhara regions of the country found that while 53% of boys not aware of Yegna said they would report instances of child marriage, this jumped to 95% among boys who listened to the show. 

It’s not action taken yet, admitted Natalie Au, global gender director of Girl Effect, but it’s “an initial first step”.

While child marriage has cultural roots, poverty plays a huge role, said Dolores Dixon, executive director in Canada for Camfed, a non-profit working in African countries to support the education of marginalised girls. “Parents who can afford it would not necessarily hold back their children from going to school,” said Dixon, “but if you can’t afford it you will then have to make a choice … they feel [marriage] is the best option within the limited options.”

Young women who have been through Camfed’s education programme, who themselves may have faced child marriage, can be important advocates, said Dixon. “Communities can relate to the examples and their experiences and they can also see role models in front of them,” said Dixon.

Engaging these communities must be done sensitively. “It’s not trying to turn everything upside down, because you will immediately face resistance,” said Eva Halper, director of corporate citizenship at Credit Suisse, “it’s finding the right way to approach those challenges from the bottom up.”

Halper referred to a project run by education non-profit Room to Read in Tanzania. Girls in some communities there undergo lengthy initiation ceremonies when they reach puberty, after which they are considered adults able to work or marry. 

Room to Read’s approach with the community, said Halper, “is not to say: ‘Stop these initiation ceremonies – you can’t do that’ ... but to reach a compromise of please delay it.”

Menstrual health management

The onset of menstruation is another key pressure point for girls’ schooling, especially in the developing world. A lack of gender separate bathrooms, no access to sanitary products, teasing from classmates, unsupportive teachers – all can disrupt a girl’s ability to participate in school.

“There is shame, there’s fear, there’s embarrassment,” said Marni Sommer, associate professor in sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. “I’ve been in countries where girls thought if they told anybody [they were menstruating] they’d die.” Sommer helped develop puberty books in Ghana and Ethiopia for girls to understand what’s happening to their bodies, while also building literacy.

Columbia University and Unicef joined forces in 2014 to map out a 10-year agenda for menstrual health management (MHM), to help girls to manage their periods in school “in a comfortable, safe and dignified way”. One of its achievements is to include MHM in all of Unicef’s school Wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) programmes across 48 countries.

The project’s inclusion of the private sector, social entrepreneurs, donors, researchers and governments has been key to its successes, said Nora Fyles, director of the secretariat for the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI): “This is actually a story of how to do advocacy and come up with an agreement of what is reasonable in 10 years to achieve.”

The value of working with different sectors was emphasized by Halla Holmarsdottir, vice-dean, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo and Akershus University: “So often in education we talk to ourselves and there is such a need to talk cross-sector.”

India, for example, has had a policy on MHM since 2013, said Archana Patkar, programme manager at the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), but through the ministry of water and sanitation, not health or education.

And we mustn’t forget the role of men and boys when it comes to menstruation, added Patkar. Men in the governments of countries in Africa and south Asia, where WSSCC works, have been some of their biggest champions. “If you can actually talk about it with men and women, girls and boys, and replace that stigma, the silence and shame, with information and therefore dignity and pride … this gives us an opportunity to really open up the space for conversations.”

Once girls are in formal education, said Au, “that’s better than being out of school, but what’s that actual educational journey like for them?”

Keeping girls safe in school

Part of ensuring the education environment benefits girls is about making schools safe, supportive learning spaces. “Gender-based violence in and around school is a reality,” said Fyles. The international education sector has spent so long trying to get children into school, especially in the developing world, only to realise girls are facing dangers there, she added. “[Girls] don’t think about learning when they’re trying to figure out what the next exit is or whether they can go to the toilet and be safe.”

The global community has recognized the issue, said Fyles. The UN, for example, has included a commitment to address gender-based violence in its Education 2030 initiative.

“We know that there are some really, really negative experiences around school”, said Bourne, who referred to a report that revealed female university students in Liberia were often harassed and pressured into “sex for grades” - where lecturers pressure students to perform sexual acts in return for good grades cards or passing assignments. “But we also need to remember that schools are also really powerful places to help challenge some of the gender norms and some of the social norms that we see around.”

Part of that puzzle is providing teachers with the right training. “Teachers have their own agenda, their own experiences,” said Holmarsdottir.

She described a school in South Africa where students had chosen a girl as head prefect only to be overruled by teachers who decided it was a boy’s job. Teachers need to say to girls: “We do see that you have a role to play, we do want you to continue on, you are important,” said Holmarsdottir.

More creativity is needed when considering how to reach girls in remote communities, such as in northern Nigeria, who simply cannot access formal education, said Au. “It’s not just bums on seats in schools; we need to be a bit more innovative and progressive about how we go to where the girls are while also getting them into formal processes.”

For Girl Effect this meant a project giving girls in northern Nigeria mobile phones to access stories on topics such as safety, relationships and friendships as well as connecting them with trained mentors. “It’s a very alternative way for girls to be able to access information and explore their curiosities about growing up,” she said.

Life skills such as communication, persistence and negotiation, also have a role to play, said Heather Simpson, chief programme officer of Room to Read. But it’s an area often overlooked by ministries of education, she added. The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) in Malawi is one organisation implementing life-skills education with women mentors, who are also providing menstrual pads. “This is the kind of really integrated approach that we need to be supporting,” said Hamilton.

“Girls are central to the global poverty story,” said Dana Rice, managing director of philanthropy for Opportunity International. But change will be held back until there is a shift in cultural ideas of what a girl is. “It’s about how girls value themselves, the voice that they have to articulate what they think, and communities really valuing them as contributors to their own development,” said Au.

At the table:

Anna Leach (Chair) Deputy editor, Guardian Global Development Professionals Network, Guardian News & Media

Archana Patkar Programme manager, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council

Natalie Au Global gender director, Girl Effect

Halla B Holmarsdottir Vice-dean, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo and Akershus University

Jo Bourne Chief of education, Programme Division, Unicef

Gemma Wilson-Clark Education Adviser, Department for International Development

Nicole Brzeski Co-founder and executive director Global First Ladies Alliance

Dolores Dickson Executive director, Camfed Canada

Nora Fyles Director of the Secretariat for the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative

Eva Halper Director, corporate citizenship, Credit Suisse

Marni Sommer Associate professor, sociomedical sciences, Columbia University

Heather Simpson Chief programme officer, Room to Read

Dana D Rice Managing director, philanthropy, Opportunity International

Heather Hamilton Deputy executive director, Girls Not Brides

Hajra Zahid Programme manager, education and learning, Mastercard Foundation

Electrical power in third world developing countries

Mother Jones magazine reports on how a Tanzanian is using solar power to generate enough electricity to power a small television for the purpose of watching the news.

(It occurs to me, the nations of the world where electricity is a luxury are often where support for terrorism grows. Meanwhile, ordinary people create social networks and cottage industries to access communication technologies.)

When my family lived in the Philippines for three years, during the 1970's, we appreciated the support of a domestic woman "maid" named Norma.  

Norma worked hard. She was dedicated to a goal of having her only son qualify for enlisting in the US Navy. Prior to qualifying, her son had to pass a written exam, but he needed an electric light to allow him to study, especially into the evening hours. Norma had to pay bribes to municipal officials to receive a permit to have one electric line extended from the grid into her modest house. Then, she had to pay for someone to install one electric bulb with a switch. After the installation, she paid expensive electric bills. Nevertheless, Norma was determined to see her son qualify for enlistment in the US Navy, so she worked tirelessly to earn money to pay for one electric light bulb.

Unfortunately, little has changed regarding the allocation of electricity in third world countries, like the Philippines.  

Nevertheless, entrepreneurial efforts have created opportunities for developing nations to participate in using modern technologies.

When my husband and I visited Cambodia a few years ago, we commented on how many people used cell phones. In fact, it seemed like every person had use of a cell phone. How did these telephone batteries access electric charges in a nation where most people didn't have electricity? It so happened, people could afford cell phones because the Cambodian government offered subsidies to promote the service. Those who owned a cell phone participated in gas powered generator co-ops, to provide the electricity needed to charge the phones. Each user paid a charging fee, thereby spreading the cost of the generator across the number of people who accessed the electrical service to charge their cell phones.

Mother Jones: There's a Place in the World That Is Fighting Poverty with Solar Power. Solar power is taking off in villages where connecting to the grid is seen as a bad joke. (I remember how much graft Norma paid to access one line off the grid.)

Lusela Murandika just wants to be able to watch the evening news.

The 76-year-old farmer lives in Kanyala village in northern Tanzania, 60 miles from the nearest town that's connected to the electric grid. For years, he's powered a tiny TV set in the dim sitting room of his concrete house here with a diesel generator, spending roughly $10 each month on fuel—money that could otherwise buy more than 20 pounds of rice in a country where the per capita GDP is $695.

Earlier this year, on the advice of friends, he invested $400 in a small, 80-watt solar system. After charging all day under the East African sun, it can run his TV for two hours. The system was a pain in the neck to install, he says, and the battery is unreliable, but it's still an improvement over the generator. And here, as in most of rural Africa, there aren't many options.

"It's a joke to think we'll all be connected to the grid," he says with a rueful grin.

Nineteen percent of the global population lives without access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. In Africa, that number is 58 percent. The vast majority of those without power are in rural areas. In Tanzania specifically, 86 percent of the population has no electricity, a fact that was illustrated when the lights cut out at President Obama's hotel in Dar es Salaam during a visit he made there last year to dedicate $7 billion for energy access improvements across the continent.

Tanzanians still get 76 percent of their energy—mostly for heating and cooking—from charcoal, wood, and other biomass. So there's more at stake than turning on the lights: Indoor air pollutionkills more than 4 million people every year, more than AIDS and malariacombined. Increasing access to clean energy is literally a matter of life or death.

In Tanzania, the population is predominantly rural and scattered in small villages across vast reaches of terrain, while the state-owned utility is chronically cash-strapped and urban-focused. So Murandika's pessimism about the grid is almost certainly justified. But, just as the mobile phone revolution in Africa dramatically reduced the need for telephone landlines, solar power is now leapfrogging the electric grid. Like Murandika, thousands of rural Africans are turning to solar as the solution, in a clean-energy boom that development experts say could become a catalyst for widespread economic empowerment.

These aren't the oceanic fields of solar panels some German entrepreneurs have proposed to build in the Sahara, nor the grid-connected rooftop systems that power entire American homes. Instead, these are small kits that come complete with the necessary panels, wiring, power converters, and batteries to power a few lightbulbs, a small appliance, or a cellphone charger.

The ingenuity of developing nations' populations to create access to electricity is impressive. Yet, it remains to be seen whether or not these ambitions will mobilize them to oppose pervasive government corruption and destructive terrorism networks.

Unity in Africa: Two First Families Meet in Africa = One Nation

Mrs. Michelle Obama and Mrs. Laura Bush - Angels of Diplomacy in Africa: In a continent where tribal acrimony permeates politics and neighborhoods, the joining of two stunning American First Ladies must be as educational about American unity as it is entertaining to watch. 

America looked fabulous to the world when our two stunning First 
Ladies of the United States sat side by side in Tanzania, in Africa, to speak candidly about living in the White House.  Their non-verbal message was unifying and beautiful. Their joint public appearance told the world how America is one nation.  Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Obama are two intelligent women from opposite sides of America's political spectrum.  Yet, as they were interviewed, they were both beautiful, articulate and gracious to each other. In other words, Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Obama represented all the women of America to the citizens of the world and they gave a magnificent presentation.

Michelle Obama and Laura Bush shared a stage Tuesday at the African First Ladies Summit in Tanzania. They smiled and joked while also highlighting the importance of strengthening women.

Their husbands followed in the shadow of these First Ladies by joining together in a sad Memorial for those who were killed in the 1998 Al Qaeda attack on the U. S. Embassy in Tanzania.

Americans are politically polarized by difficult social and economic issues, but at the end of the day, we pledge to be One Nation Under God.  President Obama and former President George Bush and their charismatic wives put a face on our Pledge of Allegiance and we thank them for this impressive show of national pride and unity.