Education Under Attack

Political and military violence targeting educational systems is depriving a growing number of children of the right to education, according to “Education under Attack”, a UNESCO report launched today at the Organization Headquarters in Paris.

The study is dedicated to the life of Safia Ama Jan, a champion of efforts to get Afghan girls into school, who was shot and killed outside her home in Kandahar in September 2006. Its purpose is to raise awareness and understanding of the extent to which those involved in education, whether students, teaching staff, trade unionists, administrators or officials, are facing violent political and military attacks, and to suggest paths of action to address the problem.

Call that "Justice"

Every day, tens of thousands of children around the world wake up behind bars. Many of them will have committed no offence. Almost every country in the world has committed itself to respecting the human rights of children. But in reality, the signatures on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, are not worth the paper they are written on.

A three part audio series looks at Pakistan, the US and Kenya.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6090608.stm

In Pakistan
Six years ago, the government of Pakistan introduced new laws to protect the rights of children in conflict with the law. Yet far from obtaining justice, many such children still fall prey to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of police and adult prisoners. They are victims of a justice system that is inefficient, corrupt and uncaring.

In the US
In the US, notions of the 'super-predator' and 'teenage time-bomb' have persuaded 40 states to adopt legislation which moves more children into the adult criminal system. This new legislation encourages ever harsher punishment regimes. Punishment, rather than rehabilitation is becoming the norm, and increasingly, juveniles are being sentenced to life without parole.
Kenya
In the final part of this landmark documentary we're travelling to the African continent. The BBC explores the fate of some of the most vulnerable youngsters on the planet, Kenyan street children who come into conflict with the law.
Here is what they are ignoring....
http://www.unicef.org/crc/index.html Click on the photo essay for a review of all the articles... totally beautiful and hardhitting
http://www.unicef.org/crc/
http://www.unicef.org/magic/briefing/uncorc.html http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm http://www.amnestyusa.org/children/crn_crc.html

NB... The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely accepted human rights treaty - of all the United Nations member states, only the United States and the collapsed state of Somalia have not ratified it.

Global Action Week....Education As a Human Right

Education As a Human Right
A basic education is a right inherent to being human, each child's birthright and thus constitutes an end in itself. However, education is also a means to an end: it is required to ensure all people can live in a dignified manner and participate effectively in society. It also enables human beings to exercise all the other human rights (enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights). Unfortunately there is often a gap between the language of "rights" and the setting of "development goals" (which are often more influential in defining the actions of governments). The Education For All Goals, that were reaffirmed at the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000, were unusual in recognising the right to education: … all children, young people and adults have the human right to benefit from an education that will meet their basic learning needs…Ensuring that by 2015 all children…have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality' .

Next year, 2007, is a crucial year as it is the mid-point towards the EFA goals. Time is running out to achieve these. It is an important moment for demanding more urgent action towards achieving education rights. Rather than being a distant ideal these rights need to be converted into a reality now – and the EFA goals gives us a deadline.

http://www.campaignforeducation.org/action/2007/action.html

http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/wef_2000/index.shtml

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2000/20000426.sgsm7369.doc.html

May 2, 2007... Conflict Disrupts - Lives and Futures

On May 2nd, representatives from many of the world's wealthiest countries will meet in Brussels to discuss a long unrecognized casualty of war and conflict – the education of children. More than half of the 77 million children who do not attend school today live in conflict-affected countries.

Today, some 30 armed conflicts rage around the world, with children and youth suffering disproportionately. More than 30 million people are displaced because of war, 50% of whom are children.

More than 43 million children affected by armed conflict are facing a future without education — without hope. During times of conflict, families split up and survival, not school, becomes the most urgent concern.
Children and young people face injury, trauma and death, but also face the prospect of being forced to become soldiers or sex slaves. They face new responsibilities such as earning a living or caring for siblings.Conflict can destroy school buildings and supply systems for teaching materials. Teachers and administrators are often among the dead or displaced. Those children who have access to school often receive very poor quality education. Even when conflict had ended, their futures are damaged because of the learning time they've lost.
The UN Report on the Impact Of Armed Conflict on Children

Child Injuries in Conflicts

- 6 million children have been wounded in armed conflicts in the last 10 years

Child Soldiers

As of 2007, Africa has the largest number of child soldiers with up to 200000 believed to be involved in hostilities.

Children as Sex Slaves

The most conservative figures available put the number of children involved in the sex trade at about a million, but experts say the true number could be five times that or more.

List Of Countries Visited by the UN Office of the Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict
*Afghanistan
*Angola
*Burundi
*Colombia
*Democratic Republic of Congo
*East and West Timor
*Eritrea
*Ethiopia
*Guatemala
*Kosovo
*Liberia
*Mozambique
*Northern Ireland
*Russian Federation and Northern Caucasus
*Rwanda
*Sierra Leone
*Sri Lanka
*Sudan

Help
REWRITE THE FUTURE
Add your name to the
Global Blackboard

Mapping of a Genocide... Understanding Darfur

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth. Crisis in Darfur is the first project of the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative that will over time include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments, and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.

"Educating today’s generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth. When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most."

— Sara J. Bloomfield, Director, USHMM

Learn About the Situation in Darfur

April 7- World Health Day

World Health Day is celebrated on 7 April, and this weekend, countries around the world are hosting events to mark the occasion. In today's mobile, interdependent, and interconnected world, threats arising from emerging and epidemic-prone diseases, climate change, and natural disasters affect all countries. This universal vulnerability creates a need for collective defences and for shared responsibility. Therefore, this year's theme is international health security with a focus on urging governments, organizations and businesses to invest in health.

Invest in health,
build a safer future

Improve the Lot of Children; End Violence Against Women

Why?
Because violence at home affects children...
It teaches girls how they can be treated...
It teaches boys how they can treat others...

An excerpt from The Secret Lives of Children- Tiyana- The Defiant Colt

Life in the inner city is tough. Let us not kid ourselves about it. The horrors that these kids are exposed to at such an early age are so horrendous, so egregious that not only does it warp the children, but most sadly, robs them of a childhood, a time of innocence and wonder. That it worst crime we who stand by the wayside commit against these children.
Tiyana came to school one Monday morning looking rather morose. She lined up at the Media Center without any incidents, did not utter a single word as we walked to class, and then took out her homework without being prompted.
“Okay everyone! Good morning! I know I missed you guys a lot this weekend and I am so looking forward to our week together!” Blank hungry stares from my audience. “So do you guys want to share any thing about your weekend with the class?”
And immediately several hands shot up. Every one wanted to talk about the swimming pool and Boomers. But Tiyana who always has something to say, usually in the middle of some one else’s story, remained motionless, staring out in front of her. After several stories, I called on Tiyana. “Dear, do you have anything you would like to share with the class?”
“I am very sad!”
“I can tell that, honey. Why don’t you tell us why you are sad maybe we can cheer you up?”
“My daddy had moved back to Georgia!” she said as she fought back her tears.
“Well I am sure he is going to come back soon.”
“No, he isn’t” She growled with such vehemence. “He is going to live with his son and I will never see him again. He had told..”
“Say told dear, you don’t need to say had!’
“He had… I mean he told my mom that he was never coming back!”
“Why is that dear? Did they have an argument? I’m sure when he feels bett…”
“No, my mom had got mad at him because he pushed her, so she had took a knife and stabbed him… like this” and she started stabbing wildly at the desk with vengeance.
“Oh dear!” I was speechless. How could I turn this into a positive experience? “Well, that is why we keep telling you not to hit each other in the playground because you can really hurt each other’s feelings.”
“But he has to come back next week.”
“See and you were worried that you were never going to see him aga…”
“Because he has to turn himself to the police and go to jail.”
Now she had me stumped.. What was I to say to this?
During “Say No To Drugs” week she stunned us all once again. We practiced how we would say no to a person who would offer drugs to us. Then we had a fantastic discussion about just who would be offering us drugs.
“My uncles are in jail.” She blurted out during the discussion. “My little uncle Thaddeus had gone…”
“Don’t say had gone dear, just went!”
“Oh my bad!” she said as she continued all in one breath, “My uncle Thaddeus had went to jail ‘cuz he is a baser and was selling crack to some people on our street. So now he is in jail and he had missed his own birthday and he had missed mine too. And I am sad ‘cuz he used to play a lot with me.”
“Hmm” was all I could think to offer to the girl.
She took another breath and said, “And my uncle Lamar had gone to jail because he roughed up some one who had owed him a lot of money, even more than fifty dollars. He’s going to be there for a longest time because that guy had died in the hospital. And now there is no one to play with me at my Nana’s house, so I have to go to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club.”
And what is there to say to a child who shares this about their family background with you? What other than thug mentality could she have?
The problems within her family continued. A few months later, I asked the children the same innocent question again, “Tell me bout your weekend, but this time write about it.” Some children jumped at the chance to write. Others hemmed and hawed, until finally Bruno volunteered, “But Ms. Bahrami, I had a terrible weekend.”
“Dear, I didn’t ask you to write about your fabulous weekend, I just want you to write about your weekend. I personally had a lousy weekend. I was very sad because I missed all my family and friends. I cried even. But you know that was
With that little story, the rest of them perked up. Yes, they had permission to tell me about their lousy weekends. Just how lousy, we were about to find out.
The
first few volunteers read about waterslides, ice cream and their swimming feats. Tiyana once again sat in silence. She hadn’t written a single word.
“Tiyana, do you want to read what you have written?”
“I am very sad because my weekend was very bad. My mother and father had got into a fight and my mother had got so mad at my father that she had picked up scissors and had tore up all of his pictures. And then my father had got mad and… and.” She started to tear up.
“It’s ok, dear. Take a deep breath. Tell us and maybe we can help you feel better.” Tears now started rolling down her face as she shook her head. The children started to be loving and encouraging to her. “Come on, Tiyana, we will help you to feel good,” Bruno promised her.
Tiyana looked up and looked at all of us. Then she took a deep breath. “My father had got mad and then,” she started to cry,” and then he punched my mother in the eye so hard and now… and now,” She started to sob, “And now she is blind and cross-eyed out of one eye! And she told him to get out and he’s going away for ever and I will never see him for as long as I live.” and then she started sobbing. I went to her and put my arms around her. “Shhhh, baby! It will be fine.”
“No it won’t! She is blind out of one eye!” she sobbed.
“No, honey. The doctors can help her. Has she gone to a doctor?”
“ No she will go today.”
”I bet she’ll have good news for you when you get there.” And yet what if it wasn’t true, she would think of me as a liar forever.
That set off a flurry of different stories. It seemed like all the fathers in the class were beating up on the mothers. It seemed that all the children had tried at various times to rescue their defenseless mothers from their fathers.
We spent the rest of the day talking and sharing and ended it by drawing a safe place where nothing bad could happen and our safety could be assured. Bruno even drew a picture of me driving an ice-cream truck!
I took Tiyana aside as the others were drawing their safe places.
“Listen, honey. I know that tonight is going to be a rough night for you because it is the first night without your father. So how about if Mr. Snugums comes home with you for this week to make sure that everything goes smoothly.”

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/violence/

http://www.madre.org/