Education: Finding ways to help young people reach their potential in developing countries.

After health, education is the cornerstone of a young life. Education allows people to achieve their potential as human beings. Societies depend on an educated population for their survival and growth. In some places where the education system is weak or nonexistent, living conditions tend to be poor and societies become fertile ground for despotic rule. Where education is missing, misery usually follows. And it’s such a shame.

In the world today, millions of children do not have access to basic education. A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study, published about 10 years ago, concluded that about a quarter of the world’s children are currently not attending school. The highest illiteracy rates are found in the developing nations of Africa, Asian and South America.

UNICEF writes in its web site that “if we took a snapshot of the state of education across the globe, the image would shock many of us. Current estimates place the number of out-of-school children at 93 million – more than the entire population of the Philippines. The majority of these children are girls, and almost 80 per cent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Indeed, quality education remains a distant dream for many of the world’s children, even though it is a fundamental human right enshrined in international commitments.”

Fortunately, things are slowly improving. Thanks to global efforts, school attendance rates are rising. But the needs are great.

An American and Canadian organization, Schools for the Children of the World, is committed to building new schools in developing countries. In recent years, they’ve focused on projects in Honduras and have dramatically changed the lives of not only the children in small communities, but also of the volunteers. The Canadian branch of the organization produced a short video that provides a good overview.

See the Schools for the Children of the World video here.

Large corporations like Microsoft, are also committing resources to provide “social and economic opportunity” for young people. Microsoft recently launched an initiative to bring new products and programs to help an estimated 5 billion people who do not have access to today’s information technology.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is working on initiatives to help more girls in developing countries. It is also working on projects to extend education to children with disabilities.

There is much work to do. It’s essential that it continue and that well-developed countries find ways to support it. As the saying goes, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

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The photo of a school in Honduras is courtesy of Ben Kaye-Skinner, who made it available at http://www.sxc.hu/.

A disturbing trend

The recent violence in North American schools is setting a sad and unprecedented trend that may be scarring young people everywhere.

Some experts suggest that today's youth are exposed to much more violence than previous generations: it's in films, in videogames, in television news coverage and scripted drama, and - unfortunately - also present in real life in some neighbourhoods. Places that were once considered safe, like schools, now can become scenes of unpredictable, random acts of terror. Normal life is turned instantly on its head.

Sandy, a friend and colleague of mine, alerted me to an interesting story on WebMD about how the rash of school shootings may actually be marking an entire generation. The story is here.

I'm sure some very intelligent people are studying these events in depth and are going to give us a better idea about why some young people choose such outrageous and tragic ways to end their lives and to take the lives of others. I don't know if we can group these individuals into one category, but again I have to wonder about what kind of pain or perceived pain they are responding to, and what role deeply-wounded, tortured egos and runaway thought-processes are playing in this insane behaviour. We need to solve this mystery.

My admittedly amateurish post on theories about the ego from last Sunday is here:

AIDS: grandmothers helping grandmothers

In the face of a daunting challenge, it helps to look to your friends and neighbors. Start small and tackle the problem a little bit at a time.

This is one of the few philosophies that seem to yield results when it comes to the AIDS pandemic in Africa. The challenge is so massive, many are easily discouraged in the face of it.

The statistics are staggering. Millions of people in the Sub-Sahara region are infected with HIV/AIDS. Entire generations are being wiped out by the ravages of the illness. 13 million children have lost their parents to AIDS. 13 million.

In many cases, orphans can only turn to their grandmothers for help. These same grandmothers, who have had to bury their own children, are taking up the challenge of trying to raise their grandchildren in some of the most deprived areas of the world. These are the silent, unknown heroes of the continent.

Stephen Lewis, the former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, is one of the few who champions their selfless work. Drawing on the principle of people helping each other, the Stephen Lewis Foundation launched the "Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign" last year.
Its goals are simple: raise awareness, build solidarity and mobilize support for Africa's grandmothers.

Today more than 150 grandmother groups in Canada have connected with an equal number of groups in Africa.

Canadian grandmothers have raised more than $1 million to help the Foundation bring financial support to grandmothers in 14 African countries. According to the Foundation website, the money goes to food, schools, income-generating projects like communal gardens, counseling, and "coffins and dignified burials for their loved ones."

The grandmothers initiative has become a movement. The movement has become an example of successful grassroots activism. So successful, in fact, that it is now sparking hope for a similar campaign to bring together the world's youth.

According to the Foundation, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 represent half of the new infections. Stephen Lewis and his team now see the possibility of high schools, colleges and universities working together to support the young people of Africa. It's still an idea in its infancy, but any campaign that works at a grassroots level provides hope. And hope is essential to keep up the fight against AIDS.


For more information on the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, see: http://stephenlewisfoundation.org/grassroots/grandmothers.htm.

For an overview of the Youth Making a Difference idea: http://stephenlewisfoundation.org/grassroots/index.htm

For United Nations information on world AIDS: http://www.unaids.org/

Reasons to play and support soccer

I'm a big fan of soccer, more from the point-of-view of a player than as an observer. Here's an item I wrote for Helium.com on why people should consider playing or supporting soccer:


It's not called "the beautiful game" for nothing, you know.

Soccer is a sport that combines so many positive attributes into one activity that it's hard to list them all.

Here are just a few reasons why the game deserves our support:

First, it's accessible, regardless of the players' status in society. As organized sports go, it's relatively cheap, and many of the game's brightest stars have risen from very humble roots. Think of Pele. Think of Zinedine Zidane. Unlike American football or ice hockey, for example, the equipment required is very basic and registration costs are low. Some professional players actually started out as children kicking around balls of rags on dusty village squares. It's a game that can be played by everyone.

Second, it's a simple sport to learn and play. Youngsters play soccer naturally, with very little initial instruction. One of the beautiful aspects of the game is that, as the players' skills rise, so does the strategic level of the game, until one reaches the professional level, where the sport exhibits tightly balanced moves and counter moves, and the game becomes like a spectacular form of chess, played in a vast arena. Players must think creatively and strategically and adapt to rapidly changing conditions; but at the heart of it, it's still a very simple game.

Third, soccer is a perfect combination of individual activity and team strategy in which players hone their skills and find ways to exhibit personal style, while at the same time, work closely as a team if they hope to achieve any measure of success.

Fourth, soccer is a game where scoring is not the only thing that matters. Smart, creative, heads-up play is just as important to coaches, players and spectators. In South America, for example, spectators cheer innovation and grace under pressure, qualities we can all appreciate in life.

Fifth, it requires and produces exceptional player fitness. It's a game in which players move constantly at various speeds and in various directions for ninety minutes, with very few interruptions. Players accelerate forward and move laterally all the time.

Soccer is a game that was born well before the age of television, and as such, is a game of fluidity and constantly changing pace. It's a game that is a pleasure to watch because it does not require constant huddles, consultations on the sidelines or time-outs for commercial breaks.

These are just some of the reasons to play and support soccer. Soccer is fun and exciting. It's accessible to all, develops a high level of aerobic endurance and muscular ability and requires good strategic thinking.

Oh, and kids take to it with the same innate sense of joy as playing tag in fields of wheat on a windy day.