Education: Changing the Future of Peru

10×10 is built on a foundation of partnerships with NGOs, corporations, policy makers, and grassroots organizations – all working to change minds, lives, and policy. 10×10′s coalition of NGO partners provide life-changing services to girls every day, and are among the best practitioners of their kind. They include: A New Day Cambodia, CARE USA, UN Foundation’s Girl Up, Partners in Health, Plan International USA, Pratham USA, Room to Read, and World Vision. We are proud to present our weekly Partner Series, where we highlight the wonderful work that they are doing on the ground.

The Peruvian branch of CARE, a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, has been working to improve education in the country for the past 7 years.

CARE Peru, a 10×10 Partner, focuses its work on empowering the South American country’s most vulnerable groups, including women, indigenous people and rural populations. The group runs programs whose goals are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through programs tackling climate change, economic development, education, emergency and disaster risk reduction, gender equality, health, HIV & AIDS, nutrition, Governance & Dialogue in Extractive Industries, and integrated water resource management.

10×10 spoke with Elsie Ralston, CARE Peru’s Commercial Manager, and Gabriela Ayzanoa Vigil, CARE Peru’s Communications Advisor, about their work in the country and the 10×10 collaboration.

Q: CARE has been working for decades to improve education in Peru. Could you describe some of your programs?

Elsie Ralston: CARE is the oldest NGO in Peru, with presence in all of the regions. The Intercultural and Bilingual Education Program started as it is, around seven years ago with a strong focus on girls, as part of our transversal gender approach. We are trying to have all children learn in their first language, whether it’s Spanish, Quechua, Aymara or one of the others, because they learn better in their native language. We are also a multicultural country, so we try to get curricula that include the best parts of the children’s culture along with the best parts of our national culture in one Program.

 It began to be a priority for the Peruvian State not long ago, and we are supporting the right of children to have the proper educational program, whether they live the highlands or rainforest or the coast.

We’re also working closely with a group called the Florecer Network, to spread the idea that girls should finish school on time and appropriately. Many don’t because they stay home to take care of their brothers and sisters or because they become moms.

Q: What are the sources of Peru’s problems achieving educational goals and gender parity?

Gabriela Ayzanoa Vigil: There are several difficulties mostly seen in rural, isolated areas, like in the Andes or the Amazon. Extreme poverty means families work at home instead of sending girls to school, which are often very far from home. High Schools can be insecure places for girls where they experience psychological violence and discrimination. In some cultures, there is also a preference to send boys to school instead of girls. A CARE study found that around 150,000 girls don’t finish high school on time and properly in Peru.

That’s why we work in Puno [A program to improve the quality of education for 7,900 Quechua-speaking rural children of primary school age in the highlands of Southern Peru. –Ed.]. We are working with schools and trying to change the situation.

We hold workshops to make teachers conscious of the problem and train them that boys and girls should be treated equally. We give the teachers technical assistance and provide science, math and communication books with intercultural perspectives. In the south, for instance, we provide books in Aymara and Quechua because those children speak those languages.

Q: Do you have any special plans to recognize International Day of the Girl on Oct. 11?

Elsie Ralston: We will launch our national campaign on Oct. 10, the first-ever International Day of the Girl, that will last until next March. We’ll launch the campaign in a public event with public figures that are joining us in this effort and our special invitees: girls from Puno.

At the event, we’ll screen a 10×10 short documentary made for CARE USA in Puno-Peru. There will also be music, art and the presentation of our public petition asking the Education Minister to include in the next year’s agenda the important issue: all girls in our country should finish high school on time and properly.

Q: Why have you joined 10×10 to raise awareness about the importance of girls’ education around the world?

Elsie Ralston: We agree with 10×10’s position that educating girls prevents or helps many problems like malnutrition, violence, discrimination, illiteracy, and ultimately, extreme poverty. As a young woman, is not hard for me to see the difference between the opportunities I got thanks to my high school education and the ones I could have gotten being born someplace else in my country. At CARE, we think Peru has both the obligation and possibility to bring every Peruvian girl the education they deserve.

Gabriela Ayzanoa Vigil: Our national government has put social inclusion in its agenda and education is important for social inclusion. Many talk about the problems with education but they don’t look at the center of the problem, which is poor education for girls. Peru’s first lady also sees the problem and agrees with us. We think that the power of videos like 10×10 is doing is very important to have for a campaign. This is the first time we’ve been part of a video campaign, but we’ve seen from other countries how powerful it can be.

We’re happy to be working with 10×10 because we need to have more visibility in the work we do for girls.

 

77.6 Million Girls Are NOT Going Back-to-School


School. What comes to mind when you think about school? Close your eyes and think for a second.

I think of books full of knowledge waiting to be devoured. I think of teachers standing in front of the class, doing the best they can to shape lives every single day. I think of cramming for tests, homework assignments I procrastinated, and that anxious feeling the day before I stepped back into those halls after a summer that went by too quickly. I think of my peers, and I smile and think of my friends and the endless memories that I will have forever. I think of the skills and confidence and knowledge that I gained, to prepare me to stand on my own as a positive contributing member of society.

I spent the better part of 13 years of my life inside a classroom and I honestly can’t imagine where or who I would be, without that. But though my formal schooling has ended I am still a student. We are all students. And it’s time that the citizens of this world educate themselves on the status of girls’ education.

As you read this sentence, millions of people around the world, young and old, male and female, are sitting in classrooms. But what about the 77.6 million girls around the world who are NOT going back to school this fall? What happens to them? What happens to us? 

Most people don’t realize that globally, education is still far from equal. And though there are thousands of people on the ground trying to turn the tide, currently 86 countries are still at risk of not achieving the Millennium Development Goal of gender parity by 2015.

Why is it so difficult to make progress? Most people—most nations–aren’t aware of how big of an issue this even is. Most people aren’t aware that by not educating girls, everyone is effected. Today, when international development funds are allocated, less than 2 cents of every dollar is directed specifically to girls.

So why aren’t girls getting to school?

  • Because their families can’t afford the school fees, or need their daughters to work to help support the family. Around the world, 250 million adolescent girls live in poverty
  • Because they’re married off as children. One in seven girls in the developing world is married before her 15th birthday.
  • Because getting to school is dangerous - an estimated 60 million girls are sexually assaulted at or on their way to school. 
  • Because they don’t have access to clean facilities – 1 in 10 school-age African girls do not attend school during menstruation, or drop out at puberty because of the lack of clean and private sanitation facilities in schools. 
  • Because there are no laws to protect them, or the laws that exist aren’t being enforced.

Because girls education is not looked at as something that’s of value. BUT research has proven time and time again, that when you educate a girl, you can break cycles of poverty in just one generation. Ultimately, 65 low and middle income countries are losing approximately $92 billion per year by failing to educate girls to the same standards as boys

Here are the facts:

  • When 10% more girls go to school, a country’s GDP increases on average by 3%
  • An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10-20 % An extra year of secondary school: 15-25 %. 
  •  When a girl in the developing world receives 7 or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
  • Children born to educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of 5.
  • Women who are educated are 50% more likely to immunize their children.
  • A girl who completes basic education is three times less likely to contract HIV.

In the words of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, “We must remind ourselves that ensuring the rights of women and girls is not only a matter of justice. It is a matter of enhancing global peace, progress and prosperity for generations to come.” Educating girls is not just the RIGHT thing to do, it’s the SMART thing to do.

Help us educate these girls. Because they will change the world.

Raise your voice for girls education. Share this with everyone you know. Now.

Join us to spark conversation on raising the value of the girl on October 11th: the world’s first International Day of the Girl.

 

10×10 Weekly News Digest

Welcome to 10×10′s weekly News Digest. In case you missed them, here is a sampling of some of the week’s most interesting articles on girls’ education and women’s empowerment. Happy reading!

Education For All: The Only Job for Boys and Girls is to go to School: In honor of World Day against Child Labor- a reminder that the only place kid’s belong is in the classroom.

Sierra Leone: ‘More Girls in Schools Mean Better Families, Better Communities and a Better Nation’, President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma: President Koroma disclosed that apart from all other things, he was a living example of how education can transform not just the life of an individual, but also the lives of those around him.

CAMFED: Girls Education to Beat Poverty: Secretary of State champions girls’ education programs to beat poverty.

Afghan Girls’ Long Road to Education: Like any girl around the world, Afghan girls want the freedom to pursue an education and gainful employment ─ but for many of them, that is not possible without threats to their lives.

India: The Orphanage Giving Girls a Future: One wants to be a singer, one an astronaut, one a maths teacher. For girls at this pioneering orphanage in Mumbai anything seems possible

Best and Worst G20 countries to be a Woman: The poll, released ahead of a summit of G20 heads of state to be held in Mexico June 18-19, showed the reality for many women in many countries remains grim despite the introduction of laws and treaties on women’s rights.

India Advances, But Many Women Still Trapped in the Dark Ages: ”It’s a miracle a woman survives in India. Even before she is born, she is at risk of being aborted due to our obsession for sons.”

Africa’s Female Presidents Say They Offer Different Kind of Leadership: “Women tend to make better leaders because they are more directly connected to the needs of their people.”

Meet Aparna, Mumbai’s Teenage Sex Educator: Aparna is member of a nongovernmental organization called Kranti, meaning “revolution,” which strives to give young women rescued from prostitution access to education and new opportunities.

White House Blog: How will we save five million children’s lives each year by 2035?: In one of the greatest humanitarian achievements of the past 50 years, child mortality has dropped by 70 percent world-wide.

10×10 Weekly News Digest

Welcome to 10×10′s weekly News Digest. In case you missed them, here is a sampling of some of the week’s most interesting articles on girls’ education and women’s empowerment. Happy reading!

 

 

An Education Revolution

At last week’s Open Forum 2012–provocatively titled “Money, Power & Sex: The Paradox of Unequal Growth,” Africa’s leading activists, academics, artists, businesspeople, and policy-makers gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss the factors influencing and driving change on the African continent. During a “Google Zone” panel to discuss the role of storytelling in spurring a global movement for girls, 10×10′s Egyptian writer, Mona Eltahawy, and eL Seed, 10×10 Global Champion, discussed the ways in which their writing and “calligraffiti,” respectively, attempt to create revolution through art.

As it happens, this was not the only opportunity for us to discuss revolution during our few days in Cape Town — to me, revolution was the most powerful idea that emerged from the time I spent at the Open Forum. Of course, it was relevant during a plenary on the ongoing legacy of the Arab Spring on the eve of the Egyptian elections, but underneath these events capturing the world’s attention lies a less visible, but no less critical revolution: the efforts of young people all over the world to demand a quality education.

As a case study, take Equal Education, a grassroots movement of students, parents, teachers and community members working for high-quality and equal education in South Africa. This organization has tackled a number of persistent infrastructure and other challenges for schools in townships throughout Cape Town, including insufficient textbooks and poorly maintained libraries. But rather than charging in with a model for development and imposing it upon the schools and their students, Equal Education arms students themselves with the information and tools to advocate for the changes that they want to see happen. In 2008, for example, Equal Education asked students in Khayelitsha to go into their schools and take photographs of anything that they thought affected their learning. One young woman, Zukiswa Vuka, came back with a photograph of her school’s broken windows. It turned out that there were more than 500 broken windows at Luhlaza High School, which made it difficult for students and teachers alike to concentrate and moreover, to be proud of their learning environment.

Through a combination of meetings with school management, petitions, press, and the tireless efforts of students who mobilized their friends to raise awareness of the broken windows in their own schools, all of the windows at Zukiswa’s school were eventually fixed. There are many more schools and many more broken windows, in Khayelitsha, and in townships and slums and villages all over the world. But this small victory illustrates the power of students around the globe who are working to demand what they know is right; what they are entitled to, no matter what their circumstances: the chance to learn.

And what do these passionate and committed students call themselves? The Equalizers. Talk about revolutionary!

Thirsty for water, thirsty for an education

Women collecting water

Women collecting water in Mossobo, Ethiopia. Photo by Richard Robbins, 10x10.

This morning I woke up feeling really thirsty. You know, that kind of thirst that makes it hard to swallow and your mouth feels all cotton-ball dry. I turned on my kitchen faucet and gulped down two big glasses of water before continuing with my morning routine: I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and took a shower. I then filled my water bottle, watered my plants, and made coffee. I used water to do all of those things.

I often take for granted such easy access to clean, safe, drinking water and forget what a pivotal role it plays in our day-to-day lives.  Today, on World Water Day, we recognize that one’s access to clean water should not depend on where they live in the world; it is a basic human right.

According to water.org, 884 million people lack access to clean water around the world – that’s almost three times the population of the United States. But this reality has a particular impact on girls. In one day, women spend 200 million work hours collecting water for their families – this is the equivalent of building 28 empire state buildings every day. This laborious task, among other domestic chores, often falls on the shoulders of young girls. Every hour spent finding clean water, often walking miles and miles for one jug, is one less hour spent in school. Investment in drinking-water and sanitation would result in 272 million more school attendance days a year.

Besides the tragedy of being deprived of clean water, girls are often subjected to sexual violence when travelling long distances alone to fetch water. No access to water also means worse hygiene and sanitation. A lack of  sanitation is the world’s number one cause of infection – 2.2 million people die each year from diseases associated with unsanitary conditions. When the task of cleaning bathroom facilities falls on women, they are often the ones getting infected or exposed to such illness.

Even if girls are afforded the opportunity to attend school instead of staying home to fetch water for their families, they are subjected to unbearable conditions. Charity:Water tells the story of one young girl in Bangladesh who would leave school to walk nearly a mile home – just to use the bathroom. Another problem presents itself when girls are experiencing menstruation but do not have separate bathroom facilities – if any facilities at all. Most opt out of school on those days due to shame and discomfort.  A survey in Tanzania found that school attendance increased by 12 per cent for girls in homes located 15 minutes or less from a water source than in homes one hour or more away. Attendance rates for boys did not seem to be affected by distance from water sources.

So on this year’s World Water Day, when I pour myself a nice big glass of cool clean water, I recognize that it is not just quenching my thirst. Clean water has afforded me my health, my education, my dignity.

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