UNITED NATIONS GIRLS EDUCATION INITIATIVE

 

Girls' education and empowerment in Zimbabwe ²
Hurungwe, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2006 - Ten -year-old Mitchell Gwatidzo shudders as she retells the story of her little friend who was abused by her uncle. In her crisply ironed blue uniform, Mitchell boldly raises an issue that more and more Zimbabwean children are speaking out about.

 

Turkey: 'Hey Girls, Let’s Go to School!' ³
VAN, Turkey – In hundreds of villages here, in schools and homes and coffee houses, the same question is being asked by teachers, journalists, local activists and religious leaders: “What will it take to get your daughter in school?”

 

Botswana: ‘Telling the Story’ of girls’ education ⁵
GABORONE, Botswana – For 21-year-old Boipelo Semere, a third-year student at the University of Botswana, the law degree she will soon receive is only one measure of success.

 

Senegal: Successful partnerships open school doors for girls ⁸
DAKAR, Senegal – It is early in the morning and not all the children have arrived yet, but the school yard at Ndiarème B primary school in the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, is already bustling. Girls and boys are busy sweeping dusty floors and filling plastic bottles with water for the flowerbeds outside their class rooms.  

South Sudan: New struggle for former rebels  ⁹
RUMBEK, South Sudan, 31 May 2005 – For six years, Reuben Meen fought on the front lines of Africa’s longest-running civil war.

 

School feeding programmes encourage children to attend school ¹²
There are 300 million chronically hungry children in the world. 100 million of them do not attend school. The majority are girls.

 

Angola: Postwar reconstruction helps close gender gap in education ¹³
MATETE, Angola, 15 June 2005 - Awakened by the sunrise, 15-year-old Branca rushes to the nearest water pump, almost a kilometre away from her family’s mud hut. Before the start of her school day, she must carry a twenty-litre water bucket back home and help her mother and sister prepare breakfast.

 

Nigeria : UNICEF and partners create a model child-friendly school ¹⁴
Model Primary School, New Owerri, Nigeria, is a bold testimony that initiatives to make schools child-friendly can succeed.

 

Gambia: Zeal of communities gets girls into school ¹⁶
SARE SAMBA & JATTABA, The Gambia, 27 June 2005 - The young actor steps forward. “My daughter will not go to school. There is no value in these western teachings. She will stay at home, do the cooking and find a husband.” He stamps his foot; the audience laughs.

 

Philippines: Girls are equal to boys in Philippine schools. Or are they? ¹⁷
MANILA, 14 June 2005 – “In my class, it’s mostly boys who drop out,” said Vernelou Kidro, 16, during a recent theater rehearsal at a community centre in Tondo, a Manila neighbourhood with thousands of tiny, ramshackle houses.  

Jamaica: Gender-fair schools stem boys' anger ¹⁸
KINGSTON, Jamaica/NEW YORK, USA, 14 November 2005 – School life for boys and girls at Children First in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, is very different from most other schools.

 

Villagers in Papua New Guinea pool resources to pay unaffordable school fees ¹⁹
KUNDIAWA DISTRICT, CHIMBUTU PROVINCE, Papua New Guinea, 25 May 2005 – Today is a special day at Gaglmambuno Primary School, located in a remote area of Papua New Guinea’s highlands.

 

Swaziland: A teacher returns home to confront barriers to girls’ education ²⁰
Sibili Nsibande is ready to tackle head on the challenges that children, girls especially, encounter in staying in school in Swaziland that has the highest adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the world.

 

Mozambique: Early pregnancy threatens a girl’s chance to go to school ²¹
Carolina Florência tenderly rocks her two-year-old daughter as she talks about her plans to leave her rural homestead in Gondola, in the central province of Manica, and try her luck in the provincial capital of Tete.

Kenya: Regional disparities threaten progress towards education for all ²²
LOKICHOGGIO, Kenya, 17 November 2005 – Far from the gleaming skyscrapers of downtown Nairobi, children in this remote corner of Kenya spend their school days wondering if they will eat a single meal.

 

Parents' determination keeps girls in school ²³
Ardo, Djibouti, June 2005 – While in many of Djibouti’s rural villages poverty, lack of educational facilities and cultural constraints prevent girls from going to school, in others these obstacles have only reinforced the community’s determination to do what is best for its children.

 

Girls in rural villages missing out on education ²⁴
DJIBOUTI, June 2005 – Aisha Mohamed Hassan may not know how old she is, but she knows how much she likes school. One of very few girls to go to school in the remote rural village of Koutabouye, this six- or seven-year-old is still in her first year and, if given a chance, would certainly like to finish her education.

 

A day in the life of a determined schoolgirl ²⁵
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, 8 November 2004 - Fifteen-year-old Haitza Ortiz lives with her mother and younger sister in a poor suburb of Managua, Nicaragua’s capital. Haitza’s school starts in the afternoon, so she uses the morning to do chores around the house.

 

Nicaragua: New national education model counteracts gender discrimination, often linked to domestic violence ²⁶
LIMAY, Nicaragua/NEW YORK, 28 October 2005 – Victoria Rayo primary school in Limay, Estelí province, northern Nicaragua, has undergone remarkable changes since it joined the country's Child-Friendly and Healthy Schools Initiative in 2003. Water and sanitation facilities have been fixed, children are being served a daily meal and the classrooms are nicely decorated with learning materials.

 

Children map a brighter future for schoolgirls in Uganda ²⁷
KAMPALA, Uganda, 13 May 2005 – As the 2005 target for gender parity in primary and secondary education comes due, children across Uganda are busily charting their nation’s progress toward education for all.

 

Making strides towards gender equality in the Punjab ²⁸
On a steamy day at the Shahpur Government Girls’ Primary School Sidra Yasmin rises before her classmates, a group of attentive six-year-olds, and confidently counts to one hundred. “I used to stay at home with my elder sisters to look after my sick father,” says Sidra.

 

‘Fair Play for Girls’ campaign uses cricket to promote development ²⁹
Fair Play for Girls uses women’s cricket to promote key development messages in Pakistan for girls’ education, equality, and access to sports and recreation.

 

‘Girl-to-girl strategy’ helps girls stay in school in Madagascar ³⁰
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar, 15 April 2005 – In Madagascar, UNICEF is advocating for girls’ education through an alliance with its most important partners: children.

Project helps child labourers return to school ³¹
DHARMAPURI DISTRICT, Tamil Nadu, India, 26 May 2005 – Their young hands should have held pencils and crayons. Instead, they touched deadly chemicals in matchbox factories, handled worms in silk farms, or were scalded by hot tea while serving customers in tea stalls. Instead of going to school, these child labourers lost precious months or years of their childhood earning paltry wages to support their families.

 

Girls demand equal access to education ³²
NEW DELHI, India, 11 April 2005 – Girls in India are demanding greater, sustained support for equal access to a good education. At a workshop organised by UNICEF in the Indian capital New Delhi on 7 April a group of around fifty girls from seven Indian states came together to discuss and share their experiences of schooling.

 

Communities unite around education ³³
MOGADISHU, Somalia, 7 April 2005 - In war-torn Somalia, where a devastating civil conflict has fractured families and ravaged national institutions, communities are finding common cause in the drive for education for all.