#hiv positive girl mobile number

[ettie1-blog]

The big bad wolf still strikes

“I thought AIDS was a gay disease,” said a man interviewed by USA Today in October 1985, “but if Rock Hudson died, it could kill anyone.”

On July 25, 1985, Rock Hudson - this mythical American actor, idolized by women and admired by his peers, as a Second World War hero - announced that he was affected by AIDS. Rock Hudson was a handsome man. He was the symbol of manhood and strength, consistent with the image of the ideal American, Hollywood conveyed. He was a sex symbol. But Rock had to sacrifice his personal life to reach the top. He had even been married unwillingly, to an obscure secretary, for three years. Yet, Rock Hudson was homosexual. After being a sacred monster, disease finally allowed him to be a man. Courageously, Rock decided on confessing his penchant for men and pronounced the word AIDS, which was to become the scourge of the next centuries, definitely associated with the gay male community, henceforth and forever.

That was 34 years ago. Rock was to die in October of the same year, relieved anyway, for he wanted to draw everyone’s attention to a disaster. He wanted to warn humanity that it should fight a battle that was not won in advance. Because AIDS is not only a mass killer, it is also the shame killer. Talking about it was already a victory over it, he thought, should he dare confess his sexual preferences, as if it were a crime.

HIV/AIDS was a taboo in the early 80s. But, it is clear that it still is. The very mention of its name scares us. That’s probably why there is not much about it in the media. We mainly hear of it, when the international community marks World AIDS Day. Then we think about it a little bit and then quickly forget. It is no more than a news item. However, HIV/AIDS still strikes us, aggressive and insidious, always in search for new victims. It often kills, but the press closes its eyes (and mouth). There are topics which sell much more, so HIV/AIDS is not on the front page of the magazines. Yet, associations are mobilizing, trying to involve us in their struggle. They inform the public and spread a strong message on the major catastrophe in the world.

AIDS - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - what is it?

AIDS is the most advanced stage of HIV - human immunodeficiency virus - it attacks the human immune system. It’s a virus, just like herpes, but it kills. An individual has AIDS, when his (or her) immune system no longer protects him (or her) from any opportunistic infection, because AIDS gradually destroys antibodies. From wart to toxoplasmosis, any damage to the immune system becomes a scourge for the patient. There are three modes of contamination: blood, maternal and sexual contamination. Despite diagnostic tests achieve on blood donors and the provision of free syringes in pharmacies, direct blood transmission remains tangible. Drug addicts represent a high-risk population, although in 2017 the number of patients dropped to 4% of the population, when it stood at 27% in 1995. Medical workers may still be infected when they are in contact with AIDS patients, but the rate of infected patients has significantly declined over the past twenty years. On the contrary unprotected sexuality has the highest rates of new HIV infections.

The most prolific serial killer in the past 36 years has its best days ahead!

According to a study conducted by Prevagay (a medical research institute unit in France) and funded by the Health Watch Institute, in 2015, HIV/AIDS contaminated more than 5,500 people a year, worldwide. 44% were gay or bisexual men and 15% of them were young people aged 15 to 24. For 27% of them, the diagnosis was too late: they were strongly infected and except the discovery of a new medicine (or a miracle) their vital prognosis was engaged. The gay men were its “favourite victims”. Even more alarmingly, in 2016, vih.org reported 6,000 new HIV-positive cases per year. France and Dom Tom were the most affected, while London and San Francisco showed a decrease in contamination.

France has seen its rate of HIV-positive, increase since 2003. Regarding the Republic of Ireland, it reached a record number of diagnosed patients last year, and in China, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS strongly increased in the last decade. AIDS mainly spreads among the poor. Approximately 37 million people lived with HIV/AIDS in 2017 and almost one million died the same year. 40 million have died since 1983.

Living with HIV/AIDS is not living, it is surviving.

In 1996, after years of study, triple therapy became the formal drugs for HIV/AIDS. Originally, used to treat cancer, the antiretroviral therapy interferes with the infection process and increases the survival time of infected individuals. That is the reason why many seropositive persons do not develop AIDS today. But, triple therapy generates heavy side effects such as nausea, tiredness, diarrhoea etc. and a great deal of ill persons think that they do not live, they survive. Nevertheless, thanks to triple therapy, their life expectancy increased by ten years. It is a very significant progress, but a drop in the bucket compared to the million of people dying in the whole world. Since 1983, when it was reported in Europe, no effective treatment to wipe out the virus has been found out. It becomes therefore urgent for us to take off our blinkers and act. The enemy is invisible, we cannot face it; hence we cannot defeat it either.

Today, the most affected by HIV/AIDS remain the gay men community. But the disease targets heterosexual people and causes casualties among them as well. As stated above, the higher percentage of individuals diagnosed from HIV are sexually active. Despite a better illness management and a real change in behaviours in terms of discrimination, prevention campaigns struggle to be heard. Our youth is carefree and unaware of the danger.

I personally helped in an association and saw many destroyed lives. Some of the boys and girls who sought help were only 15. Most of them dared not tell their parents and were enclosed in their fear and distress. I had a question for them and it was always the same one: “did not you know about AIDS?” Most of the time, the answer was identical “AIDS, I thought it no longer existed! It is an old chestnut”. And when I was “lucky” enough to meet some parents, they told me about their efforts to put the spectre of AIDS in their teenagers’ head. But teenagers are hard-headed and they ignored the warnings. A dad related that he used to put condoms in a desk drawer, in his son’s bedroom. For privacy. He never heard about the condoms; the boy did not say a word about them. He never asked any questions. However, condoms are the best means to prevent HIV/AIDS (and other sexually transmitted diseases) for sexually active people.

“A stitch in time saves nine”.  

Let’s go back to 1855, when the American inventor and chemist, Charles Goodyear – who gave his name to the famous tyres – spearheaded the rubber condom, which was produced the same year. At that time, men were told that condoms could be used several times… in a life. They could be washed and re-used until they were unusable. Condoms were already economic and practical. Whereas condoms were considered as obscene material in the USA – a law forbid their use in 1873 – Germany became the first army distributing them to its soldiers during First World War. But it was only in 1919, that the first civilised condom, the latex condom, appeared. Since then, the small cap has considerably evolved.  

When I question young boys and girls about protection and security, I’m often confronted to misleading arguments for not using a condom, such as: “They do not fit me, they are not comfortable, they are too thick I don’t feel anything, I don’t have enough pocket money to buy them, is it really secure? I’m ashamed to ask my parents, etc.”  These are only excuses!  

In France, the family planning is open without restrictions. Colleges, secondary schools, universities make condoms available through their healthcare divisions. And it is all free. Some health mutuals even reimburse them upon presentation of invoice. For the shyest teenagers (and grown-ups) condoms are secure and effective and may fit to any penis size. Moreover, they are easy to buy on the Internet; for the gourmands, some shops sell different tastes such as strawberry, mint and chocolate. And today, who would wash his condoms? there are biodegradable varieties and their price is not significantly more expensive than the ordinary ones. Condoms have only advantages. Why should you do without them? 

Then, for Fun without complexes, for the Right to choose your partner;

For LIFE, take it out, covered!

[captainwondyful]

Love, Simon at the Box Office

Hello, Tumblr.  One of my idiosyncratic fandoms is box office tracking and results.  If you’d indulge me for a hot minute, I would like to make a plea for you to go see this in theaters.

The following is a long post about box office numbers, life hacks for cheap tickets, and overall gay crying.

I have seen this film twice in the past 24 Hours, and I’m still struggling to find the exact words to properly describe how it profoundly affected me.

I’m somewhere between:

Love, Simon is a paint-by-numbers rom-com released by a major Hollywood Studio (Fox 2000).  Only the lead protagonist is a gay teen.  As Peter Travers of Rolling Stone states in his review:

A seemingly ordinary coming-of-age tale that looms large because of its inclusive romantic embrace, Love, Simon wins you over by capturing your heart without pushing too hard for the prize. ...  Yes, the plot mechanics tend to lean toward the disappointingly slick and sitcom-ish. But what redeems the film and makes it such an exuberant gift is the sincere joy Berlanti and the actors take in celebrating its protagonist's growing self awareness…. Love, Simon is a John Hughes movie for audiences who just got woke. And for all its attempts not to offend, it's a genuine groundbreaker.

I love this critique.  In Love, Simon no one dies, contracts HIV/AIDS, or is the victim of a violent hate crime.  The characters face complications and angst -- coming out in 2017 still is a huge undertaking with monumental stakes.  Yet in the context of this film, we understand that everything will be okay.  The genre makes it safe.  The audience knows that the homophobic bullies will get their comeuppance. The friends will make up.  The main protagonist will find love.

Love, Simon might not be perfect.  It might not be everything to everyone.  But it deserves its praise, and we (the LGBTQIA community) deserve to have more films like it, because everyone deserves to escape into indulgent, cotton-candy media where they can see themselves proud and happy.  Love, Simon is important; just as films like Black Panther, Girls Trip, Wonder Woman, and A Wrinkle In Time are important.

And we need to financially support it:

Money Makes The World Go Run

The film business is a business first.  Movies that don’t make money, don’t get sequels or start trends.  So I know, I know, I’m asking for a lot, but we need to embrace capitalism for just a second.

Love, Simon opened to a $11.5M Opening Weekend (OW) from 2,402 theaters.  

According to Deadline.com

Love, Simon drew 58% females, 42% males with 59% under 25. The movie over-indexed in the west, Northeast, and Midwest; slightly under-indexed in the Rockies; and under-indexed in the south and southeast. Top 20 markets that over-indexed include LA, NY, SF, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Minneapolis. Top grossing theaters came from LA, NY, SF, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, and San Antonio. Canada repped 5.6% of the weekend’s take.

Tumblr, you are driving this movie.  You are going to make it a success.  You have the power.  We need to get this film to bring in a total domestic box office (DOM) of 50M+

Love, Simon’s budget is between 10M - 17M, plus P&A (Print & Advertising) Marketing Budget.  I don’t have the P&A numbers.

There is a general rule of thumb in Hollywood called the 3X Rule.  It states that a film is a box office success if it makes 3X its production budget.  If a movie costs 50M to make, a 150M box office is a success.  This rule is NOT exact, because it does not factor in the Print & Advertising (P&A) budget of the film, or that a movie can do terrible at the box office but still be considered a financial success because of X-factors like merch sales (I’m looking at YOU Pixar’s Cars)

Love, Simon will need 51M to pass the 3X Rule.

It’s not impossible looking at the comps:

Everything, Everything 34.1M OW / 64.6M DOM (1.89X Multiplier)

Paper Towns 32M OW / 85.5M DOM (2.67 Multiplier)

The Fault Is In Our Stars 48M OW / 124M DOM (2.58 Multiplier)

But it won’t happen if we don’t get that multiplier up to a 4X+

Multiplier = The total DOM divided by the OW.  So for example:

Justice League (2017) 93.8M OW / 229M DOM = 2.44 Multiplier

The Greatest Showman (2017) 8.8M OW / 169.7M DOM = 19.04 Multiplier

We need to pull another run of legs like The Greatest Showman and keep it keep it theaters until Avengers: Infinity War (April 27, 2018).  Once IW shows up, the summer box office season kicks off, and, realistically, the jammed packed release schedule will push Love, Simon out of theaters.

We have Five Weeks - to go see this film, to tell everyone we know to go see this film, and support the cast and crew as much as we can.

The best way to do that is a positive Word of Mouth and Legs.

Word of Mouth: TALK ABOUT THIS FILM.  RAVE ABOUT THIS FILM.  Post on Twitter, on Facebook, on Tumblr.  Get a Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.com account and post reviews.  You can NOT underestimate a good grassroots effort to get the word out.

Legs = Tied to the multiplier.  It’s how much a movie makes AFTER the opening weekend.  Movies like Justice League are front-loaded; meaning most ticket sales are opening weekend and in the first week. Other movies, like The Greatest Showman, have much stronger legs, where they earn a decent amount every weekend for a large total.

Weekend Drops: The percentage that a movie drops from week to week.  For example, Black Panther has had amazing holds with its (as of writing this) 5 Week Run: Weekend 1 242.1M Weekend 2 111.6M (-44.7%) Weekend 3 66.3M (-40.6%) Weekend 4 40.8M (-38.4%) Weekend 5 (26.6M (-34.7%) Even though it’s making less money every week, we can see that Black Panther’s domination over the marketplace is consistent.  Solid audience retention is why Black Panther is not dropping many theater screens, despite being out for over a month. This is the same reason why The Greatest Showman (which came out before Christmas) is STILL playing in 700+ theaters.  TGS actually had FOUR weekends out of its seventeen where it went UP from previous weekends, and had an average of a -20% week to week drop.

It is CRITICAL to Love, Simon’s success that this weekend only drops between 20% and 30%.  Some on the Box Office Forum I’m apart of are speculating that the next week will be CRITICAL to the success and failure of Love, Simon’s domestic box office run.

So, let’s go to the movies!

Cheap Ways to See Films

Going to the movies is expensive.  Here are some life hacks for discount tickets

MoviePass

Like Netflix or Spotify, you can sign up with MoviePass, and for $9.99 a month, you can see a movie a day.  Yup.  A movie a day.  It is a steal of a deal and pays for itself after the first month.   The only drawback is it takes a couple weeks for the company to send you your MoviePass card.  I think it took three weeks to get mine.  Still!  This is A VALUE.  And you can go see Love, Simon once a day for a month for only $9.99

Discount Tuesdays

Most movie theaters offer discount tickets on Tuesdays.  You will have to check with your individual theaters, but Tuesdays are the most common day across the US and Canada.  Our theater is $5 on Tuesdays.

AT&T Ticket Tuesdays

Do you have AT&T as a mobile carrier?  They offer Discount Tuesday Tickets.  Buy 1, Get 1 Free.  You can read the fine print here

Dealflix.Com

Check Out this site for discount tickets.

Groupon Has A Banner for Discount Tickets

in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, and Washington D.C.  In the past, Groupon has also offered discounts on Fandango, MovieTickets.com, and DealFlix gift cards or vouchers.

Student, Seniors (65+), and Military Tickets

Many theaters offer current discounts to these three groups.  So check your local theater’s website, grab your grandma, friend in the military, and/or student ID, and head out to Love, Simon.

Group Rates

Often times buying tickets in bulk results in getting a discount.  So get 10 or 20 of your friends, and call the theater to see if they offer group rates.

Go To a Matinee!

Remember!  The early shows before 4 PM (6 PM at some theaters) are always less!

Wait! I Don’t Live in the US or Canada

You’re going to have a wait a little bit, but PLEASE go see this once it's released.  Foreign Box Office is a HUGE part of a film’s success, sometimes it even saves it!

So, Save the Date:

March 22, 2018 - Brazil

March 29, 2018 - Australia

April 6, 2018 - UK, Ireland

May 3, 2018 - Argentina, Singapore,

May 4, 2018 - Finland, Taiwan,

May 9, 2018 - Philippines

May 10, 2018 - Hong Kong

June 14, 2018 - Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovakia,

June 15, 2018 - Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden

June 21, 2018 - Hungary, Portugal,

June 27, 2018 - France

June 28, 2018 - Germany

June 29, 2018 - South Africa, Spain

August 30, 2018 - Italy

Even if you watch (or have already watched) a CAM online, please still consider seeing this in the theater when it comes out it in your country!

The more we can show Fox/Disney that we are willing to put our money where our mouth is, and go support this movie, the more likely it is that similar films will be made. Hollywood is constantly searching for the next big thing, so if they see a hit or potential trend, they going to try and figure out how to copy it.

I Just Don’t Have the Funds or Means to Get to the Theater

The goal of this post is drive box office success.  I get that sometimes you just can’t get to the theater; or, because of the nature of the film, it might not be safe for you to attend.  You can STILL help out with Word of Mouth

Fox is checking Social Media.  Keep tweeting and posting about how much you love this movie, and how much it means to you.  Make sure to use the Hashtag #LoveSimon.  Reblog this post so others can get the information.  Tell your friends to go, and RAVE about it.  Post positive/rave reviews on Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB.  All of those things help Love, Simon.

If you’re still here, I know that was a lot, THANK YOU, and I hope you get a chance to enjoy and love this movie.

[xtruss]

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and Cervical Cancer

Key Facts:

— Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a group of viruses that are extremely common worldwide.

— There are more than 100 types of HPV, of which at least 14 are cancer-causing (also known as high risk type).

— HPV is mainly transmitted through sexual contact and most people are infected with HPV shortly after the onset of sexual activity.

— Cervical cancer is caused by sexually acquired infection with certain types of HPV.

— Two HPV types (16 and 18) cause 70% of cervical cancers and pre-cancerous cervical lesions.

— There is also evidence linking HPV with cancers of the anus, vulva, vagina, penis and oropharynx.

— Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women living in less developed regions with an estimated 570 000 new cases (1) in 2018 (84% of the new cases worldwide).

— In 2018, approximately 311 000 women died from cervical cancer; more than 85% of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

— Comprehensive cervical cancer control includes primary prevention (vaccination against HPV), secondary prevention (screening and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions), tertiary prevention (diagnosis and treatment of invasive cervical cancer) and palliative care.

— Vaccines that protect against HPV 16 and 18 are recommended by WHO and have been approved for use in many countries.

— Screening and treatment of pre-cancer lesions in women of 30 years and more is a cost-effective way to prevent cervical cancer.

— Clinical trials and post-marketing surveillance have shown that HPV vaccines are very safe and very effective in preventing infections with HPV infections.

— Cervical cancer can be cured if diagnosed at an early stage.

What is HPV?

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract. Most sexually active women and men will be infected at some point in their lives and some may be repeatedly infected.

The peak time for acquiring infection for both women and men is shortly after becoming sexually active. HPV is sexually transmitted, but penetrative sex is not required for transmission. Skin-to-skin genital contact is a well-recognized mode of transmission.

There are many types of HPV, and many do not cause problems. HPV infections usually clear up without any intervention within a few months after acquisition, and about 90% clear within 2 years. A small proportion of infections with certain types of HPV can persist and progress to cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer is by far the most common HPV-related disease. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer can be attributable to HPV infection.

The infection with certain HPV types also causes a proportion of cancers of the anus, vulva, vagina, penis and oropharynx, which are preventable using similar primary prevention strategies as those for cervical cancer.

Non-cancer causing types of HPV (especially types 6 and 11) can cause genital warts and respiratory papillomatosis (a disease in which tumours grow in the air passages leading from the nose and mouth into the lungs). Although these conditions very rarely result in death, they may cause significant occurrence of disease. Genital warts are very common, highly infectious and affect sexual life.

How HPV Infection Leads to Cervical Cancer

Although most HPV infections clear up on their own and most pre-cancerous lesions resolve spontaneously, there is a risk for all women that HPV infection may become chronic and pre-cancerous lesions progress to invasive cervical cancer.

It takes 15 to 20 years for cervical cancer to develop in women with normal immune systems. It can take only 5 to 10 years in women with weakened immune systems, such as those with untreated HIV infection.

Risk Factors For HPV Persistence and Development of Cervical Cancer

— HPV type – its oncogenicity or cancer-causing strength;

— Immune status – people who are immunocompromised, such as those living with HIV, are more likely to have persistent HPV infections and a more rapid progression to pre-cancer and cancer;

— Coinfection with other sexually transmitted agents, such as those that cause herpes simplex, chlamydia and gonorrhoea;

— Parity (number of babies born) and young age at first birth;

— Tobacco smoking

Global Burden of Cervical Cancer

Worldwide, cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in women with an estimated 570 000 new cases in 2018 representing 7.5% of all female cancer deaths. Of the estimated more than 311 000 deaths from cervical cancer every year, more than 85% of these occur in less developed regions.

In developed countries, programmes are in place which enable girls to be vaccinated against HPV and women to get screened regularly. Screening allows pre-cancerous lesions to be identified at stages when they can easily be treated. Early treatment prevents up to 80% of cervical cancers in these countries.

In developing countries, there is limited access to these preventative measures and cervical cancer is often not identified until it has further advanced and symptoms develop. In addition, access to treatment of such late-stage disease (for example, cancer surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy) may be very limited, resulting in a higher rate of death from cervical cancer in these countries.

The high mortality rate from cervical cancer globally (Age Standardized Rate: 6.9/100,000 in 2018) could be reduced by effective interventions.

Cervical Cancer Control: A comprehensive Approach

WHO recommends a comprehensive approach to cervical cancer prevention and control. The recommended set of actions includes interventions across the life course. It should be multidisciplinary, including components from community education, social mobilization, vaccination, screening, treatment and palliative care.

Primary prevention begins with HPV vaccination of girls aged 9-14 years, before they become sexually active.

Other recommended preventive interventions for boys and girls as appropriate are:

— Education about safe sexual practices, including delayed start of sexual activity;

— Promotion and provision of condoms for those already engaged in sexual activity;

— Warnings about tobacco use, which often starts during adolescence, and which is an important risk factor for cervical and other cancers; and

— Male circumcision.

Women who are sexually active should be screened for abnormal cervical cells and pre-cancerous lesions, starting from 30 years of age.

If treatment of pre-cancer is needed to excise abnormal cells or lesions, cryotherapy (destroying abnormal tissue on the cervix by freezing it) is recommended.

If signs of cervical cancer are present, treatment options for invasive cancer include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

HPV Vaccination

There are currently 3 vaccines protecting against both HPV 16 and 18, which are known to cause at least 70% of cervical cancers. The third vaccine protects against three additional oncogentic HPV types, which cause a further 20% of cervical cancers. Given that the vaccines which are only protecting against HPV 16 and 18 also have some cross-protection against other less common HPV types which cause cervical cancer, WHO considers the three vaccines equally protective against cervical cancer. Two of the vaccines also protect against HPV types 6 and 11, which cause anogenital warts.

Clinical trials and post-marketing surveillance have shown that HPV vaccines are very safe and very effective in preventing infections with HPV infections.

HPV vaccines work best if administered prior to exposure to HPV. Therefore, WHO recommends to vaccinate girls, aged between 9 and 14 years, when most have not started sexual activity.

The vaccines cannot treat HPV infection or HPV-associated disease, such as cancer.

Some countries have started to vaccinate boys as the vaccination prevents genital cancers in males as well as females, and two available vaccines also prevent genital warts in males and females. WHO recommends vaccination for girls aged between 9 and 14 years, as this is the most cost-effective public health measure against cervical cancer.

HPV vaccination does not replace cervical cancer screening. In countries where HPV vaccine is introduced, screening programmes may still need to be developed or strengthened.

Screening and Treatment of Pre-cancer Lesions

Cervical cancer screening involves testing for pre-cancer and cancer among women who have no symptoms and may feel perfectly healthy. When screening detects pre-cancerous lesions, these can easily be treated, and cancer can be avoided. Screening can also detect cancer at an early stage and treatment has a high potential for cure.

Because pre-cancerous lesions take many years to develop, screening is recommended for every woman from aged 30 and regularly afterwards (frequency depends on the screening test used). For women living with HIV who are sexually active, screening should be done earlier, as soon as they know their HIV status.

Screening has to be linked to access to treatment and management of positive screening tests. Screening without proper management is not ethical.

There are 3 different types of screening tests that are currently recommended by WHO:

— HPV testing for high-risk HPV types.

— Visual inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA)

— Conventional (Pap) test and liquid-based cytology (LBC)

For treatment of pre-cancer lesions, WHO recommends the use of cryotherapy and Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure (LEEP). For advanced lesions, women should be referred for further investigations and adequate management.

Management of Invasive Cervical Cancer

When a woman presents symptoms of suspicion for cervical cancer, she must be referred to an appropriate facility for further evaluation, diagnosis and treatment.

Symptoms of early stage cervical cancer may include:

— Irregular blood spotting or light bleeding between periods in women of reproductive age;

— Postmenopausal spotting or bleeding;

— Bleeding after sexual intercourse; and

— Increased vaginal discharge, sometimes foul smelling.

As cervical cancer advances, more severe symptoms may appear including

— Persistent back, leg and/or pelvic pain;

— Weight loss, fatigue, loss of appetite;

— Foul-smell discharge and vaginal discomfort; and

— Swelling of a leg or both lower extremities.

Other severe symptoms may arise at advanced stages depending on which organs cancer has spread.

Diagnosis of cervical cancer must be made by histopathologic examination. Staging is done based on tumor size and spread of the disease within the pelvis and to distant organs. Treatment depends on the stage of the disease and options include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Palliative care is also an essential element of cancer management to relive unnecessary pain and suffering due the disease.

WHO Response

WHO has developed guidance on how to prevent and control cervical cancer through vaccination, screening and management of invasive cancer. WHO works with countries and partners to develop and implement comprehensive programmes.

In May 2018 the WHO Director-General made a call to action towards the elimination of cervical cancer and engage partners and countries to increase access to and coverage of these 3 essential interventions to prevent cervical cancer: HPV vaccination, screening and treatment of pre-cancer lesions, and management of cervical cancer.

References

(1) Ferlay J, Ervik M, Lam F, Colombet M, Mery L, Piñeros M, Znaor A, Soerjomataram I, Bray F (2018). Global Cancer Observatory: Cancer Today. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer.

— WHO (World Health Organization)

[anupsingh11-blog]

Sai Hospital And Infertility Center | ElaWoman

The reasons of infertility in girls are ovulation issues, uterus or fallopian tubes, medicines, and radiotherapy. The reasons of infertility in men are low sperm motility and exceptional, ejaculation problems. Factors which growth risk of infertility are age, smoking, and weight problems. Infertility treatment are achieved as per the requirement.

What is Infertility?

For individuals who are not accustomed to the time period, it implies the lack of ability to end up pregnant even after ordinary unprotected intercourse. It also manner the organic inability of character to contribute in thought or the girl companion who could not whole the being pregnant to full term.

Many cases of infertility are treatable. It would possibly have unmarried purpose in any of the companion or it can be mixtures of factors.

What are the causes of Infertility in girls?

There are many possible motives of infertility amongst girls. Some of them are:

Ovulation Disorders: The maximum not unusual purpose of infertility among girls is infertility. In a number of instances the woman in no way releases eggs whilst in different girls does now not launch eggs in some cycles.

It may be due to untimely ovarian failure, PCOS, hyperprolactinemia, negative egg satisfactory, an underactive thyroid gland, overactive thyroid gland or continual conditions like HIV or most cancers.

Issue with uterus or fallopian tubes: The egg movements to uterus (wherein fertilized egg grows) from ovary. If lady has any hassle in uterus or fallopian tubes then there might be possibilities of not able to conceive. It may be due to pelvic surgery, submucosal fibroid, endometriosis and in advance sterilization treatment.

Medications: Medicines along with NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti inflammatory tablets) or chemotherapy can affect the fertility.

Radiotherapy: If radiation therapy turned into done close to lady's reproductive organs then there are chances of fertility problems.

Illegal Drugs: They equally contribute in infertility.    

Male Infertility Causes

Below are the commonplace reasons of infertility in men:

Semen: The 75% cases of male’s infertility are because of strange semen. It can be because of low sperm be counted, low sperm mobility, no sperm at some stage in ejaculation or unusual sperm.

Causes of strange semen could be: The possible reasons can be testicular surgery, testicular most cancers and testicular infection. Overheating of testicles in warm tubs, frequent saunas can affect. Ejaculation disorder, due to varicocele, genetic abnormality, hypogonadism, cystic fibrosis, radiotherapy, medications and use of unlawful capsules.

What are the risks concerned in Infertility?

There are several factors that may boom the chance of infertility in each male and girl.

Age: Woman after 30 starts off evolved losing fertility and maintains to achieve this. While a 50 year antique man is much less fertile than a person in 20.

Smoking: Similar for both male and female infertility motive. It also can undermine the fertility treatment.

Alcohol consumption: A girl has more probabilities of having affected if she consumes alcohol. It can also lower male fertility but is unstable for those guys who have already got low sperm count.

Obesity or overweight: One of the most commonplace reasons of female infertility. An obese guy has high danger of getting abnormal sperm.

How to diagnose infertility?

After one year of attempting, if there is no being pregnant then under are the assessments for each women and men to diagnose the real purpose of infertility:

Women-

General bodily exam

Blood test

Hysterosalpingography

Laparoscopy

Genetic testing

Ovarian reserve trying out

Pelvic ultrasound

Chlamydia take a look at

Thyroid function check

Men-

General physical examination

Semen analysis

Blood check

Ultrasound test

Sai Hospital and Infertility Center

Sai Hospital and Infertility Center in Kanchghar, Jabalpur is one many of the celebrated Test Tube Baby Centres, having practiced the clinical specialization for many years. This medical practitioner's medical institution become established in 2003 and due to the fact that then, it has drawn scores of sufferers not only from in and across the neighbourhood but also from the neighbouring areas as nicely. This clinical professional is proficient in figuring out, diagnosing and treating the various health troubles and issues related to the clinical discipline and it is one of the Best Test Tube Baby Centres in Jabalpur.

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Dr. Rakhi Bajpai

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Dr. Rakhi Bajpai is the nice Infertility Specialist in Jabalpur. She is specialized in the fields of Infertility Evaluation/Treatment, IVF, IUI, ICSI, Laparoscopy, Hysteroscopy, Gynae Problems, Obstetrics Problems, Semen Analysis & Pregnancy Delivery. She studied in international-renowned institutions and finished her MBBS and MS with pinnacle rating outcomes. She is professional in figuring out, diagnosing and treating the various health troubles and troubles associated with the scientific area. As an educated medical professional, she is likewise well-versed with the modern day improvements in Assisted Reproductive Technologies.

Ideal Fertility ICSI IVF And Genetic Centre

Ideal Fertility ICSI IVF and Genetic centre is an IVF centre that's positioned in Jabalpur, Nagpur. The centre provides In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Laparoscopy, Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) offerings. The hospital ambitions to offer exceptional treatment for Infertility troubles, Ovulatory Dysfunction, Endometriosis and Polycystic Ovaries problems. It has completed very excessive fulfillment charge inside the treatment of Male and Female infertility. The best of the offerings present on the centre are created as consistent with the consolation and requirement of the patients who're going through infertility and gynecology problems Best Test Tube Baby Centres in Jabalpur.

Ideal Fertility ICSI IVF and Genetic centre believe that health care, sterility, disorder management and rectifying abnormalities in our system may be treated better with records transmission. It is our firm belief that transmission of records results in better expertise of anomalies in our reproductive system. Hence the character learns a way to manage and deal with the illness effectively, underneath the steerage and hospital treatment of an expert.

Jabalpur Fertility Centre

Jabalpur Fertility Centre and health center offer Infertility Treatment with the help of expert group of Infertility Treatment in Jabalpur. As we take care from infertility treatment until delivery, our take domestic child fee is excessive. We deal with each valuable being pregnant and take all precautions to save you abortions, untimely transport, neo-natal deaths, and many others. We insist upon nutrients and dietary dietary supplements. We prevent continual and acute anoxia of baby in the course of anti-natal period, and for the duration of transport. We proudly announce babies born in our hospitals are healthy, notably wise and affectionate Best Test Tube Baby Centres in Jabalpur.

Jabalpur Fertility Centre has been established in the year 2008 in Jabalpur and it is one of the best and high rated hospitals, Madhya Pradesh, India - IVF Treatment Provider, one of the most well-known well-prevalent nationally for Infertility and IVF Treatment and has improved Infertility, IVF Treatment Services in Jabalpur vicinity.

Shalby Hospital

Shalby Hospital ( Shalby Limited), set up by way of Dr. Vikram I. Shah in 1994 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, operates a sequence of multispecialty hospitals throughout India, preserving an aggregate mattress capacity of over 2000 health center beds. Shalby’s reputation as a multispecialty tertiary sanatorium chain in the Indian healthcare industry became estimated by means of its founder Dr. Vikram Shah – CMD, who has been felicitated with the aid of Ethicon India for the improvement of the ‘OS Needle’.

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[aneddoticamagazinestuff]

Uganda: What's Really Going on?

New Post has been published on https://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/uganda-whats-really-going/

Uganda: What's Really Going on?

  What is happening in Uganda represents in an exemplary way what is going on in many countries of South Saharan Africa.

Characterized by a variable geomorphological aspect (a plateau of 1,200 meters, edged by mountains that exceed 4,000 meters with Mount Elgon and the Ruwenzori), is rich in water reserves: here is located the largest African lake (the third of the whole planet) the Vittoria (30,800 km² The Ugandan side, 68,800 km² in total), which together with other lakes, such as Lake Albert and Lake Edward (2,325 km²) and some large reservoirs, make the problem “water” theoretically non-existent. Especially if you consider that water is also provided by the Nile. But that’s not true: water related diseases are diffused.

Ethnically, in Uganda there are many groups: Bantu Nilotic-camitics; Baganda (16.5%), banyankore (9.5%), Basoga (9%), Bakiga (7%), and Iteso (7%). A kaleidoscope of races and people similar in many other areas of Africa and that influences political choices. Independent of 1962, Uganda suffered long-term internal tensions and was repeatedly subject to power reversal, culminating in the military coup of Yoweri Museveni in 1986.

Discovery of oil deposits in Lake Alberta changed country’s economy from predominantly agricultural, and based on coffee to international aid to being an oil exporting country and making Uganda attractive for many countries like China (which has cropped a Leading position in the area of infrastructure investments) and Japan.

Consequences on the Ugandan population are relevant: mostly among the youngest. More than half of citizens of the country are under 18 years old. Despite the presence of diseases, Uganda has achieved good results, reaching 33% of the Millennium Development Goals beginning with those concerning the social rights of children.

Child survival has improved but not enough. Less than two-thirds of children are registered at birth. Thanks to the Mobile Vital Registration System, number of children under five who registered has doubled (from 30% in 2011 to 60% in 2014). But there are still nearly 3 million unregistered under-fives years children in the country, and nearly one-third of these are in Eastern and South-West regions. 40% of children under five are not registered at birth. That’s representative of a situation probably worse than the one reported by official data.

More than most some groups like children aged 0–8, adolescent girls, and disabled children are marginalised and particularly disadvantaged.

Starting from health. Uganda is one of the top 10 countries for high maternal, newborn and child mortality. HIV/AIDS is the second leading cause of death among adolescents. And malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and similar diseases are responsible for more than 70% of under-five deaths.

Environment conditions are causing it but also social and legal causes are present: although basic health care is officially free, families meet 61% of their children’s health care costs. And there is a tremendous lack of trained health workers, health centers and hospitals.

Despite improvements in use of vaccines, nearly half of children aged 12–23 months are not fully vaccinated. Also nutrition causes great problems: although the progress of the last period, under-nutrition is cause for 40% of child deaths. For those who survive, lifelong consequences are relevant, starting from physical and cognitive development and future earning power. One-third of under-fives (2.4 million) children are stunted and more than 1 million are underweight. 38% of children are vitamin A deficient. 49% of children aged six months to four years, and 60% of pregnant women are anemic.

Also education is a priority. Since the introduction of universal primary education, in 1997, the number of children enrolling in primary school has tripled. However, 1.4 million 6–12-year-olds across the country are not in school. Primary school enrolment is relevant but quality of education remains low and secondary school dropout rates are high (with relevant disparities between rural and urban areas). Some groups of Uganda’s children are still particularly vulnerable. Early childhood development policies (ECD) have improved at national level but 3 million three to five-year-olds are still not attending a pre-primary centre or school. Again problem is money: primary school enrolment rates are high but only two out of three of those who enroll complete their primary education. Situation is even worse in secondary school: expenses are higher and children are often taken out of school to work to support the family (actually more than half of children aged 5–17 are working). Only 24% of boys and girls go to a secondary school also because of violence and sexual abuse at school and lack of sanitation and hygiene facilities.

Quality of education in Uganda is a big problem too: only one in five primary school teachers are competent in English and Maths and 60% of teachers are not in school teaching. There are great differences depending on where children live and how wealthy their parents are. Children in urban areas are more than twice as likely to attend secondary school as those in rural areas.

But that’s not enough. Social numbers are terrific. Almost 40% of children have suffered physical violence. More than half of 15–19-year-old women have experienced physical or sexual violence. A quarter of girls get married and begin child-bearing between the ages of 15 and 19. Although the minimum age for a woman to get married is 18, one in four have been married and 15% are married by the age of 15. 2.4 million children are engaged in exploitative child labour. Over 8 million children, 51% of the child population, are considered vulnerable. There are 10,000 street children in Uganda – a 70% increase since 1993. Of the estimated 2.5 million children living with a disability in Uganda, two-thirds receive no form of intervention.

Uganda has made important strides in promoting these rights over the past 20 years. But in order to fully understand quality of life of children in this country and the issues that continue to hamper the achievement of their full potential, it is important to take a systematic look at the situation of children in Uganda today. For children problems come also from cultural practices that, according to MDGs, should be considered unbelievable.

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Infecting 3

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[rolandfontana]

Keeping the Wrong Secrets: The ‘Cone of Silence’ Around Exonerations

In Illinois, Cook County and the village of Park Forest recently settled a wrongful conviction case for $14 million.

Christopher Abernathy spent 29 years in prison for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Abernathy, who suffered from learning disabilities, alleged that detectives pressured him into confessing during a 36 hour-interrogation. Eventually, DNA recovered at the scene implicated two unknown males and exonerated Abernathy. The Cook County State’s Attorney agreed that he should be released.

Abernathy was sexually assaulted and infected with HIV while in prison.

A fascinating aspect of the case is that although the government defendants settled, they insisted that the settlement contain no admission of wrongdoing, and that the facts of the wrongful conviction and prosecution would be concealed behind a confidentiality agreement.

This isn’t uncommon.  In fact, it is normal.

In every criminal justice bureaucracy there are layers of mid-level people who have been taught that their role is to help their department (or office, or agency, or court) keep its head down.  The rote demands for confidentiality orders and the refusal to admit wrongdoing in the Abernathy case were predictable, reflexive, part of a routine.

But why?

If the information quarantine is designed to protect an image of infallible cops, prosecutors, defenders, and courts, then the effort is futile. That picture no longer exists, even on TV.

The DNA results in Abernathy’s case—and a steady flow of other cases that are shared in the media—have already let the public in on the secret (if it was ever a secret) that people in criminal justice make mistakes. By 2016, the rate of exonerations had already doubled over the previous five years to an average three a week, according to figures compiled by the National Registry of Exonerations.

The aura of perfection is gone, and it isn’t coming back.

Trying to preserve this illusion can cripple our efforts to repair the damage we’ve done.

Paying the Debt, Telling the Story

When we talk about “accountability” in criminal justice we are really talking about two distinct ideas.

An “account” is something to be settled: a debt to be paid.

But an “account” is also a story to be told: a narrative that could bear witness to the suffering of the victims, explain what happened, accept responsibility, and fuel the learning that prevents recurrence.

We need to address both senses of the word “account.” But when we try to answer “calls to account” without keeping their distinctiveness in mind, the odds are that we will fail to answer either requirement successfully.

In medicine there are people like patient safety pioneer Dr. Lucien Leape who remind “circle-the-wagons” administrators that the mission of a hospital is not to avoid lawsuits; it is to care for patients.

The mission of a criminal justice system is not to avoid lawsuits either; it is to do—and, just as importantly, to be seen to do—justice.

Arguments about accountability usually focus on account-as-debt. There are two kinds of debt at issue: the personal debt of the cop who extorted the false confession or the defender who didn’t investigate, but also the system debt owed for the awful consequence that the justice system as a whole produced without intending to, or even realizing what it was doing.

Prosecution, discipline, or discharge are the currencies for settling the individual wrongdoer’s account.

No system can tolerate conscious rule-breakers or reckless loose cannons, and public trust in the law depends to a significant degree on punishment of insider offenders.

But by its nature any punitive path requires elaborate due-process protections for the individual, and seems to dictate a tight focus on that one individual’s actions.

We can’t live without that tool and we shouldn’t hesitate to use it. But an assessment of a rule-breaker’s personal debt—whether we decide to exonerate him or to hang him—is a bad place to stop.

The system-as-system has made an effort to meet its obligations to Christopher Abernathy personally. Thirty-four states now have statutes allowing for payment to exonerated prisoners. One way or another, the payments come from public funds.

Research conducted by Prof. Joanna Schwartz of the UCLA School of Law makes clear that in the related area of police misconduct 99.98 percent of payments, settlements and verdicts come from public funds too. There is plenty of evidence that the broad, tax-paying public approves of compensation to individuals for harm done in its name.

The public wants to pay.

Telling the Story: Accountable for Healing

But to write the check, and then to stonewall the story of how and why the tragedy happened—and, therefore, whether it can happen again—is wrong-headed.  The settlement looks more like hush money than contrition.

Building a cone of silence around the event makes it seem that justice system leaders are telling the public “Nothing to see here, move along.” They are paying off one individual, but only because they have too.

They don’t much care if the same thing happens again to someone else.

(Jim Dwyer’s recent reporting in the New York Times on the alienation caused by the absence of a clear accounting for the Eric Garner police chokehold death presents a good example of where this leads.)

Medicine’s experience with “disclosure and apology” after medical error taught us that when someone is harmed, “We’re sorry this happened to you” is not as good as “We’re sorry we did this to you.”

The expression of sympathy has to include an acceptance of responsibility. Where medicine has taken this road, both the number of lawsuits and the amount of the total paid out has gone down.

In criminal justice the “we” in the disclosure statement has to include  everyone involved. Wrongful convictions are system errors. Yes, the cops got the wrong guy to confess, but someone trained the cops and set their resources; the prosecutors failed to screen the case; the defense didn’t intercept the mistake, the courts waved it along.

At some distance away, someone equipped these players, set their incentives, and limited their options. Even when there are culpable actors there is a range of others who also contributed: who zigged when they should have zagged, for reasons that made sense to them at the time and are revealed as dangerous only by hindsight.

What conditions motivated them? Do those conditions still exist? They are part of the story we have to learn.

The “you” addressed in the apology has to include not only the wrongfully convicted, but those affected by the radiating circles of harm caused by the error: the original crime victims or their survivors, the further victims that the real killer may have found later, and even the professional participants who were traumatized by learning of their roles in an outcome they never intended.

Keeping the Wrong Secrets From Ourselves

Anxiety about disclosure—the sense that it can only hurt—haunts even stakeholders who strongly believe that it is crucial to learn from slips and errors.

But this calculation ignores an up-side to transparency. For example, treating the Abernathy exoneration as if it were a pile of dangerous secrets obscures the fact that the prosecutors’ Conviction Integrity Unit played an important role in a “good catch.”

Why isn’t that prosecutorial acceptance of fallibility and commitment to accuracy a source of pride? True, the “good catch” happened 30 years too late, but even that fact has a positive element. It shows that the system’s leaders believe that no mistake is so ancient that it can be swept under the rug: that while perfect accuracy hasn’t been realized in practice, seeking it is still seen as a moral imperative.

Besides, ultimately the best way to avoid payouts is to avoid doing the harms in the first place. Making a fetish of secrecy in order to avoid tactical disadvantages in civil litigation effectively augments a situation in which we have a justice system that—like NASA on the eve of the fateful Challenger space shuttle launch—is keeping secrets from itself.

As Prof. Schwartz has shown, additional litigation can actually drive learning if we listen to the process: it asks questions that wouldn’t be asked; uncovers causal influences that we didn’t recognize.

And outside the litigation context the launching of the complementary “all-stakeholders, non-blaming, forward-looking” approach supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance “Sentinel Events Demonstration Project” can mobilize persons harmed in the collaborative work of preventing repeated tragedies. Medicine’s experience shows that injured patients and survivor families welcome the sense that their suffering will help forestall calamity falling on someone else.

The Legacy of Secrecy

So if secrecy actually promotes public distrust and obscures necessary system repairs, why do we pursue it?

Simple inertia plays a part; so does fear.

The situation we find ourselves in didn’t arrive yesterday, and won’t end tomorrow.

Among their other legacies, decades of determined hide-the-ball have convinced the media that the discovery of any contributing factor or fumbling worker in the background of an event presents a delectable opportunity for “blaming and shaming.” That journalistic reflex, in turn, nourishes the arguments for secrecy, and a cycle sets in.

But determined leadership can change this.

The simple, explicit announcement that after every adverse event our department (or agency, or court) will do everything it can—with everyone who can help—to learn what went wrong, and tell the story will constitute a giant leap in the right direction.

James Doyle

The work of taking responsibility for learning how things go wrong in our justice system, after tragedies like wrongful convictions and unnecessary police shootings, is an indispensable element of healing and restoration.

But before that work will happen, the leaders of our justice system have to make it part of the job. They should pledge that we will hold ourselves “accountable for learning.”

James M. Doyle is a Boston defense lawyer and author, and a frequent contributor to The Crime Report. He welcomes readers’ comments.

Keeping the Wrong Secrets: The ‘Cone of Silence’ Around Exonerations syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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The Vision

I’m often asked about the projects I’m working on and just the thought of where to begin overwhelms me. I’ve accepted that I’ve taken on a lot and that my time is running out.

I have been willing and eager to take on all the ideas that come to me or my community, as long as they are sustainable, meaning they can exist without me. I think that’s why my programs have delayed a bit. I’m focusing a lot on capacity building and sharing responsibilities making sure things are “we” rather than “I”.

Here is a list of all my prospective projects:

Community projects

Backyard Gardens

This is basically an initiative with an agriculture extension officer and some community members to teach caretakers of orphan and vulnerable children the skills to create and maintain their own gardens. With this, we’re aiming to tackle malnutrition, hunger, food security and hopefully provide families with the skills to gain some income off the vegetables and fruits they grow.

A Career Fair

After completing the backyard garden I want to apply for another grant to do a career fair. I’m really excited about this because I have a lot of ideas to ensure attendees get the most out of this fair.

NCP Structures

My last community project is to build the kitchen and latrine structures at the NCP. (An NCP is like a daycare for the orphan and vulnerable children). They already started but ran out of money. The caretakers cook outside and I don’t even know where they use the bathroom. I tried to go the whole sustainable route with this by trying to mobilize community leaders to donate but things weren’t progressing. I told my counterpart once they provide me with a quota for the structures we can begin to raise money locally and abroad.

In School

Upon my arrival to school, I administered a survey to teachers to determine what they saw as areas of improvements, hoping to provide me with a starting point for my projects.

An Alternative To Corporal Punishment Training

In schools teachers, rely on corporal punishment to discipline the students but it has now been prohibited by the Ministry of Education. However, teachers were never taught any other disciplinary strategies and they too noticed that corporal punishment is not effective. So, I started a committee and we hope to conduct research to find the most effective strategies to then implement in the school. I’m also really excited about this, if done correctly it can provide a more holistic approach to learning and discipline. This is really difficult because it’s changing mindsets and that doesn’t occur overnight. The committee is reading an article regarding corporal punishment and classroom strategies and once they found what works best we hope to do a mandatory training for all teachers. I have to say I’m fortunate to have a head teacher that supports my initiatives 100%. He’s with everything I’ve proposed to him and it makes me feel like he trust my vision.

GLOW & BRO

GLOW and BRO are empowerment clubs. Girls leading our world for the ladies and Boys reaching out for the gents. I’ve been trying to establish these clubs since I got here. I have two counterparts for each club and they are amazing and passionate individuals. We’ve held our first meeting for both but with school breaks, my trainings and now the strike, scheduling has been difficult. These clubs are intended to be safe spaces for youth to learn about life skills, sexual reproductive health, build their self-esteem, gain support and build bonds. The students are really eager to join the club, especially the boys. I just want this club to persist long after I’m gone.

A Music Club

We definitely need a new name but the idea for this club came about randomly after one of the students and I started sharing our appreciation for music. I asked the boy to identify a small committee and have simply been providing them with support to make the club happen. Basically, how the club would work is every month they’ll select a topic (pre-approved by their teacher advisor) and as a club create a piece whether song or poem that promotes a positive message and then perform it during morning assembly. The topics we’ve discussed so far are HIV/AIDS, peer pressure, drugs, and examination pressure, things that students can relate to but that won’t disappoint the head teacher (principal). We hope students can use music as an outlet for the challenges they encounter.

Books for Africa

This is a fundraiser volunteers and I have been doing to get our schools and libraries a 1,000 books.

Library Development

This breaks down into several sections. I’m basically trying to work with the librarian to build a curriculum for her classes. We want to increase the usage of the library. We’ve implemented vocabulary and english games in hopes of making english learning fun.

Students are designing their own vocabulary book. I noticed during our games students learn new words and don’t write things down, they don’t even bring their notebooks. So I hope by allowing them to design their own vocabulary booklets they’ll safeguard their books and want to use them.

I’ve been typing the name of every textbook and a list of its contents, hoping to provide both students and teachers with an easy way to find what they’re looking for. People sometimes overlook the information already at their fingertips and this resource form aims to bridge that gap.

Hooked on Books Competition

This is a competition to see who can read the most books by the end of the school term. We hoped by providing them with a prize they’ll scurry and sign up but the thought of presenting their summary to their class has deterred them. And, that’s not something we’re going to compromise. Public speaking is every student's nightmare, they laugh at each other for trying and it’s frustrating to see because it really deters them from doing things that will help them improve. Now, we’re working on recruitment strategies; students just need a little shove in the right direction to help them surpass the limitations their fears create.

Overall, these are my goals and I’ve forbidden myself from taking on any more projects. I really want to contribute to my post and help them meet our numbers. To be honest, I felt a little bad being that most of my projects are ongoing and in the implementation stage, I didn’t meet the reporting goal I set for myself. Next reporting period I hope am hoping to have completed all these projects.

Ngiyabonga // Thank you

[wionews]

WION exclusive: Kenya a beacon of hope, says UNDP representative to Kenya Siddharth Chatterjee

Major Siddharth Chatterjee (Retd) is the United Nations Resident Coordinator and the UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya.

A humanitarian and development professional, Mr Chatterjee has served in many war-ravaged and fragile parts of the world.

Speaking exclusively to WION, Mr Chatterjee talks about his passion for advancing gender equality, his impressions of Kenya, the United Nations (UN) reform, and his transition from the Indian Army to the UN.

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

Q. Why this passion about gender equality and women’s empowerment?

Ans: I would say my passion for gender advocacy was cemented by my experiences in the Indian Army and at a personal level. My own grandmother was married at the age of 11 and had 15 children, 9 of whom survived. My early years in conflict settings also brought home the reality that women and children are worst effected during wars and natural disasters. While serving in the army as a young officer, I was horrified to find out that a soldier from my unit had raped a young girl.

I remember the sheer fear and trauma that girl went through, and the helplessness of her family.

It was a life changing moment for me. While the punishment that followed was swift and uncompromising, it was at that moment that I swore to fight all forms of misogyny, discrimination and violence.

In many of the countries I worked in, disease outbreaks, lack of water and sanitation were the order of the day. Reproductive health services, including midwifery outreach services, antenatal care, management of prenatal complications and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS were not readily available in conflict regions. These problems had particularly harsh consequences among women and children.

The years I spent in fragile environments will always remain a poignant reminder of the disparate harm that women are predisposed to whenever one form or other of humanitarian crisis arises.  Some were victims of rape and torture, others were widowed at young ages, their husbands murdered or kidnapped.

Regrettably, even in peace time, many societies still exhibit levels of patriarchy and misogyny that are simply appalling. The psychosocial status of the women who survived such atrocities are issues that continued to preoccupy me.

When I joined the UN in 1997, I felt the need to advocate against all forms of discrimination against women and children.

Q. What were your first impressions of Kenya?

Ans: Kenya is a beacon of hope in a region mired in instability and a regional economic hub was of course a good break for me, away from the war and conflicts of my earlier duty stations. 

It was also a chance for me to continue with my personal mission of championing the causes and elimination of gender-based violence as well as Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) and child marriage, which is still an egregious practice in some parts of Kenya.

Kenya’s prevalence of violence against women and girls is unacceptably high, with one in every four women having experienced physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime.  The biggest problem in Kenya like many others, is the conspiracy of silence around gender based violence.  

In Kenya, gender inequalities are revealed in various ways. Too many Kenyan women have no control over their own fertility. They cannot decide the number and timing of their children. A lot of the unpaid work within families falls on the shoulders of women therefore they are left as economic dependants. Many girls are uneducated, and those who go to school rarely proceed beyond primary level.  In addition, men continue to occupy most positions of political and legal authority.

Yet it is clear that Africa’s economic take-off will not happen if we do not invest in young people, especially adolescent girls. How to work with other stakeholders towards making Kenya lead the way towards gender equality was my challenge when I took office in UNFPA and now as the UN Resident Coordinator and the issues still need to be faced today.

  Siddharth Chatterjee presents credentials as UN Resident Coordinator to the Foreign Minister of Kenya, Ambassador Amina Mohamed. October 2016. (Others)

×

  Q. Could you tell us about your work with the First lady of Kenya.

Ans: I must say I was very fortunate to begin my term at UNFPA almost at the same time that Her Excellency Margaret Kenyatta also came in as First Lady.  Her personal mission in the plight of women, especially in regard to HIV and maternal mortality, dovetailed perfectly with the global mission of the UN family in Kenya.

Her leadership and personal involvement in the Beyond Zero campaign meant that the issues gained high level international and local visibility.  It was unprecedented to see a First Lady so passionate about the rights of women and girls and who participated in the London Marathon as well as her initiative to run several Half Marathons to advance the cause.

As a whole, the government has recognised the central role of maternal health, leading to the programme of free delivery services in public health facilities.  Within the first three years of that programme, deliveries under the care of health workers increased from 44 per cent to 61 per cent.

The government support was also crucial for us at the UN as it was a time when we came up with a project to enlist the support of the private sector to create new and more-effective products, services and technologies towards maternal health, especially in remote counties.  For instance, just six out of the 47 counties in Kenya carry close to 50 percent of the maternal mortality burden in Kenya.

We were supported by the government to set up a major public – private initiative now going on in those six high-burden counties.  Today, the Beyond Zero Campaign has delivered mobile clinics to all 47 counties in Kenya. I also commend Philips, Safaricom, Merck, GSK, Huawei and Kenya Health Care Federation who joined the initiative.

The campaign has been instrumental in raising the consciousness of the entire nation regarding the plight of many often underserved women and girls in desperate need of care.  It was only fitting that Her Excellency the First Lady was voted as the 2014 UN Person of the Year in Kenya. 

Siddharth Chatterjee presents a communique to the First Lady of Kenya signed by 15 County Governors to improve maternal and adolescent health, in November 2014 (Others)

×

  Q. Why was there a particular focus on North Eastern Kenya?

Ans: Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator has emphasized, “The critical importance of leaving no one behind and reaching the furthest behind first”. Due to various historical, climatic, cultural and logistical challenges, the counties in Northern Kenya have the highest health and economic challenges in Kenya, and have been left behind. 

For instance, 6 of the North Eastern counties in Kenya have a disproportionately heavier burden of reproductive, maternal and child health burden. It is with this in mind that the government and various partners have came together under what is called the RMNCAH(Reproductive Maternal, Neo Natal, Child and Adolescent Health) 6-County Initiative to address critical bottlenecks in the health systems in north eastern Kenya.

Under the stewardship of the National Government and respective County Governments the initiative has mobilized a multitude of partners across sectors to go there where not many went before and to collectively and holistically help increasing demand for and access to affordable quality RMNCAH care.

The Private Sector Health Partnership Kenya, which was launched in September 2015 at the global launch of the UN Secretary General’s Strategy for every woman, child and adolescent health, is a clear demonstration of how the initiative has mobilized non-traditional players in the development sphere.  

By engaging a wide range of partners from across sectors there is great potential to develop new models that offer the best of both public and private sector, with the potential for scaling-up the delivery of healthcare for vulnerable and poor populations in low-resource settings. It also provides opportunity to ensure long-term engagement of partners, and sustainability and scalability of new models, through shared value creation.

We are confident that there will be collateral gains, not just in health, but in sectors such as security, because the feelings of exclusion in these areas have created fertile ground for youth extremism.

Q. Kenya recently had elections. What would you say to the new governors who have been recently elected in Kenya?

Ans: At the UN system in Kenya, we will continue to work with the Nairobi county governments especially towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It is known that more than half the population now lives in urban areas. However, it is in such areas where the problem of inequality is most visible. Too many urban residents grapple with extreme poverty, exclusion, vulnerability and marginalisation.

Like any African countries, urban settlement patterns in Kenya are changing as slums and informal settlements are emerging along the peripheries of cities. The majority of people who live in these slums have no proper sanitation, clean running water, housing, proper collection and disposal of waste, among other urban amenities. As a result, they are exposed to all kinds of diseases and sometimes even death.

An issue that is particularly close to my heart is the place of youth. Unemployment rates among the youth in Kenya are the highest in this region, and the country must create one million new jobs annually to accommodate those joining the labour market.

County governments must do all to prepare the youth to participate in the economy if the country is to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend.

Investments in health, education, skills, empowerment, employment and economic policies must be underpinned by good governance, the exercise of public authority which entails adherence to the rule of law and enhancement of human rights applied universally.

By ensuring healthy, educated, productive populations, do we have any chance at all of making the Kenyan dream of a prosperous middle to high income country a reality in our lifetimes, Achieve Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

I have seen tremendous strides made in health care in Kenya. Kenya as a matter of fact can lead the way in achieving universal health coverage.

Q: UN reforms seem to be the order of the day. What are your views?

Ans: There are many thorny issues facing the world, and the UN Secretary General Mr Antonio Guterres and his Deputy Ms Amina Mohamed have called on the United Nations staff and member states of the UN to stand up and unite to tackle the challenges of extreme violence, large movement of refugees, underdevelopment and poverty, and civil strife.

They are together driving some of the boldest reforms of the UN system at the country level, which is where the UN makes a real difference. They are leading efforts to ensure that the UN is more effective, efficient, coherent, coordinated and a better performing United Nations country presence with a strengthened role of the UN Resident Coordinator and a common management, programming and monitoring framework.

I am privileged to be working with an incredible United Nations Country Team in Kenya, led by a highly professional and committed group of UN colleagues. I coordinate the work of 27 UN agencies represented here and our work, in a nutshell, is to work with the people and government of Kenya to achieve the national goals including what is known as Vision 2030 and the SDGs. 

The UN Country Team during a visit by former UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, in August 2016 (Others)

×

  We are committed to the Delivering as One process, therefore as the Resident Coordinator I am responsible for harmony in the outputs of our programs as the UN family in Kenya. This includes all objectives as identified in the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), where we are supporting the government to deliver on its priority development milestones. Developed under the leadership of the Government, the UNDAF reflects the efforts of all UN agencies working in Kenya and is shaped by the five UN Development Group programming principles: Human Rights-based approach, gender equality, environmental sustainability, capacity development, and results-based management. The UNDAF working groups have developed a truly broad-based Results Framework, in collaboration with civil society, donors, and other partners.

We are also assisting the Government of Kenya by an appeal to respond to the current drought, ensure timely and effective humanitarian interventions and to build the resilience of communities in the face of climate-related hazards.

As a United Nations Country team in Kenya, we have come together to advance Mr. Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General’s Prevention Agenda. With over 65 million people displaced around the world due to conflicts and natural disasters, there are increasing violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses. People are fleeing their homes on a scale not seen since the second world war and the scourge of violent extremism threatens every region.

In fact Kenya has been a victim of cross border terror stemming from instability, in the region. Meanwhile, climate change, a rapidly expanding youth bulge, rapid urbanization, food insecurity and water scarcity are adding to the tensions and instability in Kenya and the region. Kenya is also home to nearly 500,000 refugees. As the UN Country Team and we intend to sharpen our focus to assist the Government of Kenya in responding effectively to the above issues.

With a median age of 18 years, Kenya can lead the way in reaping a demographic dividend, ensuring gender equality and women’s empowerment and achieve its Vision 2030. Vision 2030 aims to transform Kenya into a middle income country and providing a high quality of life for all its citizens by 2030. We have as a UN family in Kenya committed to walking this journey with the Kenyan government and the Kenyan people.

Q: Would you have a comment on  the recent allegation being made against the UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms Amina Mohammed that despite a ban in force on the export of rosewood, an endangered resource, she signed thousands of certificates authorising the shipment of vast quantities of the wood?

I am not sure I am authorised to answer that question, but having been a target of malicious and fake news myself for close to 10 years, let me just begin by saying that I feel very sorry for Amina Mohammed. It is most unfair. This is yellow journalism and premeditated mendacity.

Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1855) said “If you want truth to go around the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go around the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.”

In my view that is how this news is being spread.

Let me state unequivocally Amina Mohammed is a leader of highest and unquestionable integrity and character.

I applaud and admire Mr Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, for having promptly and firmly come out in defence of his deputy, Amina Mohammed. He has stated categorically that she has his “full support and confidence.” A mark of a true leader.

She has explained with crystal clarity what happened in different media platforms and I would encourage people to read her interview in the Pulse. The Government of Nigeria has also issued a detailed clarification in her defence.

Frankly what I am seeing being flung at her is careless, unsubstantiated rumours and meant to undermine her as a woman of substance and a phenomenal leader.

Q: You have had a unusual career track, from a soldier to a humanitarian and development professional. How did you manage this transformation? 

Siddharth Chatterjee was an Indian Army Special Forces Officer (Others)

×

  Ans: I owe my ability to adapt and embrace adversity and diversity to the foundations my alma mater, the National Defence Academy and to the Special Forces unit I served in. My year of study and reflection at Princeton University, was perhaps one of the most significant intellectual growth spurt and sharped my understanding of public policy. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I had at Princeton.  I encourage everyone to take a year off in their careers to pause and go back to school. It gives you the freedom to pursue your intellectual interests, develop new capabilities, expose yourself to new approaches and methods and advance your career.

]]>

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/millennium-education-development/

Millennium Education Development

Professor James Tooley criticized the United Nations’ proposals to eliminate all fees in state primary schools globally to meet its goal of universal education by 2015. Dr. Tooley says the UN, which is placing particular emphasis on those regions doing worse at moving towards ‘education for all’ namely sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, is “backing the wrong horse”.1

On his extensive research in the world poorest countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, India, and China, Dr. Tooley found that private unaided schools in the slum areas outperform their public counterparts. A significant number of a large majority of school children came from unrecognized schools and children from such schools outperform similar students in government schools in key school subjects.2 Private schools for the poor are counterparts for private schools for the elite. While elite private schools cater the needs of the privileged classes, there come the non-elite private schools which, as the entrepreneurs claimed, were set up in a mixture of philanthropy and commerce, from scarce resources. These private sector aims to serve the poor by offering the best quality they could while charging affordable fees.3

Millennium Education Development 

Thus, Dr. Tooley concluded that private education can be made available for all. He suggested that the quality of private education especially the private unaided schools can be raised through the help of International Aid. If the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could find ways to invest in private schools, then genuine education could result. 4 Offering loans to help schools improve their infrastructure or worthwhile teacher training, or creating partial vouchers to help even more of the poor to gain access to private schools are other strategies to be considered. Dr. Tooley holds that since many poor parents use private and not state schools, then “Education for All is going to be much easier to achieve than is currently believed”.

Hurdles in Achieving the MED

Teachers are the key factor in the learning phenomenon. They must now become the centerpiece of national efforts to achieve the dream that every child can have an education of good quality by 2015. Yet 18 million more teachers are needed if every child is to receive a quality education. 100 million children are still denied the opportunity of going to school. Millions are sitting in overcrowded classrooms for only a few hours a day.5 Too many excellent teachers who make learning exciting will change professions for higher paid opportunities while less productive teachers will retire on the job and coast toward their pension.6 How can we provide millions of more teachers?

Discrimination in girls access to education persists in many areas, owing to customary attitudes, early marriages and pregnancies, inadequate and gender-biased teaching and educational materials, sexual harassment and lack of adequate and physically and otherwise accessible schooling facilities. 7

Child labor is common among the third world countries. Too many children undertake heavy domestic works at the early age and are expected to manage heavy responsibilities. Numerous children rarely enjoy proper nutrition and are forced to do laborious toils.

Peace and economic struggles are other things to consider. The Bhutan country, for example, has to take hurdles of high population growth (3%), vast mountainous areas with low population density, a limited resources base, and unemployment. Sri Lanka reported an impressive record, yet, civil war is affecting its ability to mobilize funds since spending on defense eats up a quarter of the national budget.8

Putting children into school may not be enough. Bangladesh’s Education minister, A. S. H. Sadique, announced a 65% literacy rate, 3% increase since Dakar and a 30% rise since 1990. While basic education and literacy had improved in his country, he said that quality had been sacrificed in the pursuit of a number.9 According to Nigel Fisher of UNICEF Kathmandu, “fewer children in his country survive to Grade 5 than in any region of the world. Repetition was a gross wastage of resources”.

Furthermore, other challenges in meeting the goal include: (1) How to reach out with education to HIV/AIDS orphans in regions such as Africa when the pandemic is wreaking havoc. (2) How to offer education to an ever-increasing number of refugees and displaced people. (3) How to help teachers acquire a new understanding of their role and how to harness the new technologies to benefit the poor. And (4), in a world with 700 million people living in a forty-two highly indebted countries – how to help education overcome poverty and give millions of children a chance to realize their full potential.10

Education for All: How?

The goal is simple: Get the 100 million kids missing an education into school. The question: How?

The first most essential problem in education is the lack of teachers and it has to be addressed first. Teacher corps should be improved through better recruitment strategies, mentoring and enhancing training academies. 11 Assistant teachers could be trained. Through mentoring, assistant teachers will develop the skills to become good teachers. In order to build a higher quality teacher workforce; selective hiring, a lengthy apprenticeship with a comprehensive evaluation, follow ups with regular and rigorous personnel evaluations with pay-for-performance rewards, should be considered.12 Remuneration of teaching staff will motivate good teachers to stay and the unfruitful ones to do better.

Problems regarding sex discrimination and child labor should be eliminated. The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), for example, addressed the problem of gender inequality. BPFA calls on governments and relevant sectors to create an education and social environment, in which women and men, girls and boys, are treated equally, and to provide access for and retention of girls and women at all levels of education.13 The Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education and its proposed role for advocacy, coordination, and research were endorsed by the participants in Beijing. The UN added that incentives should be provided to the poorest families to support their children’s education.14

Highly indebted countries complain about a lack of resources. Most of these countries spend on education and health as much as debt repayments. If these countries are with pro-poor programs that have a strong bias for basic education, will debt cancellation help them? Should these regions be a lobby for debt relief?

Partly explains the lack of progress, the rich countries, by paying themselves a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War, had reduced their international development assistance. In 2000, the real value of aid flows stood at only about 80% of their 1990 levels. Furthermore, the share of the aid going to education fell by 30% between 1990 and 2000 represented 7% of bilateral aid by that time. 15 Given this case, what is the chance of the United Nations’ call to the donors to double the billion of dollars of aid? According to John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO (2001-04), at present, 97% of the resources devoted to education in the developing countries come from the countries themselves and only 3% from the international resources. The key principle is that the primary responsibility for achieving ‘education for all’ lies with the national governments. International and bilateral agencies can help, but the drive has to come from the country itself. These countries are advised to chart a sustainable strategy for achieving education for all. This could mean the reallocation of resources to education from other expenditures. It will often mean a reallocation of resources within the education budget to basic education and away from other levels. 16

A Closer Look: Private and Public Schools

Some of the most disadvantaged people on this planet vote with their feet: exit the public schools and move their children to private schools. Why are private schools better than state schools? Teachers in the private schools are more accountable. There are more classroom activities and levels of teachers’ dedication. The teachers are accountable to the manager who can fire them whenever they are seen with incompetence. The manager as well is accountable to the parents who can withdraw their children.17 Thus; basically, the private schools are driven with negative reinforcements. These drives, however, bear positive results. Private schools are able to carry quality education better than state schools. The new research found that private schools for the poor exist in the slum areas aiming to help the very disadvantaged have access to quality education. The poor subsidized the poorest.

Such accountability is not present in the government schools. Teachers in the public schools cannot be fired mainly because of incompetence. Principals/head teachers are not accountable to the parents if their children are not given adequate education. Researchers noted of irresponsible teachers ‘keeping a school closed … for months at a time, many cases of drunk teachers, and head teachers who asked children to do domestic chores including babysitting. These actions are ‘plainly negligence’.

Are there any means to battle the system of negligence that pulls the state schools into failing? Should international aids be invested solely in private schools that are performing better and leave the state schools in total collapse? If private education seems to be the hope of achieving education for all, why not privatize all low performing state schools? Should the public schools be developed through a systematic change, will the competition between the public and the private schools result too much better outcomes? What is the chance that all educational entrepreneurs of the world will adapt the spirit of dedication and social works – offering free places for the poorest students and catering their needs?

Public schools can be made better. They can be made great schools if the resources are there, the community is included and teachers and other school workers get the support and respect they need. The government has to be hands on in improving the quality of education in state schools. In New York City, for example, ACORN formed a collaborative with other community groups and the teachers union to improve 10 low-performing districts 9 schools. The collaborative won $1.6 million in funding for most of its comprehensive plan to hire more effective principals, support the development of a highly teaching force and build strong family-school partnerships. 18

Standardized tests are also vital in improving schools and student achievements. It provides comparable information about schools and identifies schools that are doing fine, schools that are doing badly and some that are barely functioning. The data on student achievement provided by the standardized tests are the essential diagnostic tool to improve performance. 19

The privatization of public schools is not the answer at all. Take for instance the idea of charter schools. As an alternative to failed public schools and government bureaucracy, local communities in America used public funds to start their own schools. And what started in a handful of states became a nationwide phenomenon. But according to a new national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools, most charter schools aren’t measuring up. The Education Department’s findings showed that in almost every racial, economic and geographic category, fourth graders in traditional public schools outperform fourth graders in charter schools. 20

If the government can harness the quality of state schools, and if the World Bank and the Bilateral Agencies could find ways to invest in both the private and the public schools – instead of putting money only on the private schools where only a small fraction of students will have access to quality education while the majority are left behind – then ‘genuine education’ could result.

Conclusion

Education for all apparently is a simple goal, yet, is taking a long time for the world to achieve. Several of destructive forces are blocking its way to meet the goal and the fear of failure is strong. Numerous solutions are available to fix the failed system of public schools but the best solution is still unknown. Several challenges are faced by the private schools to meet their accountabilities, but the resources are scarce. Every country is committed to developing its education to bring every child into school but most are still struggling with mountainous debts. ‘Primary education for all by 2015’ will not be easy. However, everyone must be assured that the millennium development goal is possible and attainable. Since the Dakar meeting, several countries reported their progress in education. In Africa, for example, thirteen countries have, or should have attained Universal Primary Education (UPE) by the target date of 2015. 23 It challenges other countries, those that are lagging behind in achieving the universal education to base their policies on programs that have proved effective in other African nations. Much more are working for the goal, each progressing in different places. One thing is clear; the World is committed to meet its goal. The challenge is not to make that commitment falter because a well-educated world will be the world that can better cope with conflicts and difficulties: thus, a better place to live.

[netmaddy-blog]

Millennium Education Development - Ways To Achieve

New Post has been published on https://netmaddy.com/millennium-education-development-ways-to-achieve/

Millennium Education Development - Ways To Achieve

Dr. Tooley: His conclusions on Private Education and Entrepreneurship

Professor James Tooley criticized the United Nations’ proposals to eliminate all fees in state primary schools globally to meet its goal of universal education by 2015. Dr. Tooley says the UN, which is placing particular emphasis on those regions doing worse at moving towards ‘education for all’ namely sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, is “backing the wrong horse”.

On his extensive research in the world poorest countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, India, and China, Dr. Tooley found that private unaided schools in the slum areas outperform their public counterparts. A significant number of a large majority of school children came from unrecognized schools and children from such schools outperform similar students in government schools in key school subjects.2 Private schools for the poor are counterparts for private schools for the elite. While elite private schools cater the needs of the privilege classes, there come the non-elite private schools which, as the entrepreneurs claimed, were set up in a mixture of philanthropy and commerce, from scarce resources. These private sector aims to serve the poor by offering the best quality they could while charging affordable fees.3

Thus, Dr. Tooley concluded that private education can be made available for all. He suggested that the quality of private education especially the private unaided schools can be raised through the help of International Aid. If the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could find ways to invest in private schools, then genuine education could result. 4 Offering loans to help schools improve their infrastructure or worthwhile teacher training, or creating partial vouchers to help even more of the poor to gain access to private schools are other strategies to be considered. Dr. Tooley holds that since many poor parents use private and not state schools, then “Education for All is going to be much easier to achieve than is currently believed”.

Hurdles in Achieving the MED

Teachers are the key factor in the learning phenomenon. They must now become the centerpiece of national efforts to achieve the dream that every child can have an education of good quality by 2015. Yet 18 million more teachers are needed if every child is to receive a quality education. 100 million children are still denied the opportunity of going to school. Millions are sitting in over-crowded classrooms for only a few hours a day.5 Too many excellent teachers who make learning exciting will change professions for higher paid opportunities while less productive teachers will retire on the job and coast toward their pension.6 How can we provide millions of more teachers?

Discrimination in girls access to education persists in many areas, owing to customary attitudes, early marriages and pregnancies, inadequate and gender-biased teaching and educational materials, sexual harassment and lack of adequate and physically and other wise accessible schooling facilities. 

Child labor is common among the third world countries. Too many children undertake heavy domestic works at early age and are expected to manage heavy responsibilities. Numerous children rarely enjoy proper nutrition and are forced to do laborious toils.

Peace and economic struggles are other things to consider. The Bhutan country for example, has to take hurdles of high population growth (3%), vast mountainous areas with low population density, a limited resources base and unemployment. Sri Lanka reported an impressive record, yet, civil war is affecting its ability to mobilize funds since spending on defense eats up a quarter of the national budget.8

Putting children into school may not be enough. Bangladesh’s Education minister, A. S. H. Sadique, announced a 65% literacy rate, 3% increase since Dakar and a 30% rise since 1990. While basic education and literacy had improved in his country, he said that quality had been sacrificed in the pursuit of number.9 According to Nigel Fisher of UNICEF Kathmandu, “fewer children in his country survive to Grade 5 than in any region of the world. Repetition was a gross wastage of resources”.

Furthermore, other challenges in meeting the goal include: (1) How to reach out with education to HIV/AIDS orphans in regions such as Africa when the pandemic is wreaking havoc. (2) How to offer education to ever-increasing number of refugees and displaced people. (3) How to help teachers acquire a new understanding of their role and how to harness the new technologies to benefit the poor. And (4), in a world with 700 million people living in a forty-two highly indebted countries – how to help education overcome poverty and give millions of children a chance to realize their full potential.10

Education for All: How?

The goal is simple: Get the 100 million kids missing an education into school. The question: How?

The first most essential problem in education is the lack of teachers and it has to be addressed first. Teacher corps should be improved through better recruitment strategies, mentoring and enhancing training academies. 11 Assistant teachers could be trained. Through mentoring, assistant teachers will develop the skills to become good teachers. In order to build a higher quality teacher workforce; selective hiring, a lengthy apprenticeship with comprehensive evaluation, follow ups with regular and rigorous personnel evaluations with pay-for-performance rewards, should be considered.12 Remuneration of teaching staff will motivate good teachers to stay and the unfruitful ones to do better.

Problems regarding sex discrimination and child labor should be eliminated. The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), for example, addressed the problem of gender inequality. BPFA calls on governments and relevant sectors to create an education and social environment, in which women and men, girls and boys, are treated equally, and to provide access for and retention of girls and women at all levels of education.13 The Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education and its proposed role for advocacy, coordination and research, were endorsed by the participants in Beijing. The UN added that incentives should be provided to the poorest families to support their children’s education.14

Highly indebted countries complain on lack of resources. Most of these countries spend on education and health as much as debt repayments. If these countries are with pro-poor programs that have a strong bias for basic education, will debt cancellation help them? Should these regions be a lobby for debt relief?

Partly explains the lack of progress, the rich countries, by paying themselves a piece dividend at the end of the Cold War, had reduced their international development assistance. In 2000, the real value of aid flows stood at only about 80% of their 1990 levels. Furthermore, the share of the aid going to education fell by 30% between 1990 and 2000 represented 7% of bilateral aid by that time. 15 Given this case, what is the chance of the United Nations’ call to the donors to double the billion of dollars of aid? According to John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO (2001-04), at present, 97% of the resources devoted to education in the developing countries come from the countries themselves and only 3% from the international resources. The key principle is that the primary responsibility for achieving ‘education for all’ lies with the national governments. International and bilateral agencies can help, but the drive has to come from the country itself. These countries are advised to chart a sustainable strategy for achieving education for all. This could mean reallocation of resources to education from other expenditures. It will often mean reallocation of resources within the education budget to basic education and away from other levels. 16

A Closer Look: Private and Public Schools

Some of the most disadvantage people on this planet vote with their feet: exit the public schools and move their children in private schools. Why are private schools better than state schools? Teachers in the private schools are more accountable. There are more classroom activities and levels of teachers’ dedication. The teachers are accountable to the manager who can fire them whenever they are seen with incompetence. The manager as well is accountable to the parents who can withdraw their children.17 Thus; basically, the private schools are driven with negative reinforcements. These drives, however, bear positive results. Private schools are able to carry quality education better than state schools. The new research found that private schools for the poor exist in the slum areas aiming to help the very disadvantage have access to quality education. The poor subsidized the poorest.

Such accountability is not present in the government schools. Teachers in the public schools cannot be fired mainly because of incompetence. Principals/head teachers are not accountable to the parents if their children are not given adequate education. Researchers noted of irresponsible teachers ‘keeping a school closed … for months at a time, many cases of drunk teachers, and head teachers who asked children to do domestic chores including baby sitting. These actions are ‘plainly negligence’.

Are there any means to battle the system of negligence that pulls the state schools into failing? Should international aids be invested solely to private schools that are performing better and leave the state schools in total collapse? If private education seems to be the hope in achieving education for all, why not privatize all low performing state schools? Should the public schools be developed through a systematic change, will the competition between the public and the private schools result to much better outcomes? What is the chance that all educational entrepreneurs of the world will adapt the spirit of dedication and social works – offering free places for the poorest students and catering their needs?

Public schools can be made better. They can be made great schools if the resources are there, the community is included and teachers and other school workers get the support and respect they need. The government has to be hands on in improving the quality of education of state schools. In New York City for example, ACORN formed a collaborative with other community groups and the teachers union to improve 10 low-performing district 9 schools. The collaborative won $1.6 million in funding for most of its comprehensive plan to hire more effective principals, support the development of a highly teaching force and build strong family-school partnerships. 

Standardized tests are also vital in improving schools and student achievements. It provides comparable information about schools and identifies schools that are doing fine, schools that are doing badly and some that are barely functioning. The data on student achievement provided by the standardized tests are essential diagnostic tool to improve performance. 19

The privatization of public schools is not the answer at all. Take for instance the idea of charter schools. As an alternative to failed public schools and government bureaucracy, local communities in America used public funds to start their own schools. And what started in a handful of states became a nationwide phenomenon. But according to a new national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools, most charter schools aren’t measuring up. The Education Department’s findings showed that in almost every racial, economic and geographic category, fourth graders in traditional public schools outperform fourth graders in charter schools. 20

If the government can harness the quality of state schools, and if the World Bank and the Bilateral Agencies could find ways to invest on both the private and the public schools – instead of putting money only on the private schools where only a small fraction of students will have access to quality education while the majority are left behind – then ‘genuine education’ could result.

Conclusion

Education for all apparently is a simple goal, yet, is taking a long time for the world to achieve. Several of destructive forces are blocking its way to meet the goal and the fear of failure is strong. Numerous solutions are available to fix the failed system of public schools but the best solution is still unknown. Several challenges are faced by the private schools to meet their accountabilities, but the resources are scarce. Every country is committed to develop its education to bring every child into school but most are still struggling with mountainous debts. ‘Primary education for all by 2015’ will not be easy. However, everyone must be assured that the millennium development goal is possible and attainable. Since the Dakar meeting, several countries reported their progress in education. In Africa, for example, thirteen countries have, or should have attained Universal Primary Education (UPE) by the target date of 2015. 23 It challenges other countries, those that are lagging behind in achieving universal education to base their policies on programs that have proved effective in other African nations. Many more are working for the goal, each progressing in different paces. One thing is clear; the World is committed to meet its goal. The challenge is not to make that commitment falter, because a well-educated world will be a world that can better cope with conflicts and difficulties: thus, a better place to live.

[aneddoticamagazinestuff]

Uganda: What's Really Going on?

New Post has been published on https://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/uganda-whats-really-going/

Uganda: What's Really Going on?

  What is happening in Uganda represents in an exemplary way what is going on in many countries of South Saharan Africa.

Characterized by a variable geomorphological aspect (a plateau of 1,200 meters, edged by mountains that exceed 4,000 meters with Mount Elgon and the Ruwenzori), is rich in water reserves: here is located the largest African lake (the third of the whole planet) the Vittoria (30,800 km² The Ugandan side, 68,800 km² in total), which together with other lakes, such as Lake Albert and Lake Edward (2,325 km²) and some large reservoirs, make the problem “water” theoretically non-existent. Especially if you consider that water is also provided by the Nile. But that’s not true: water related diseases are diffused.

Ethnically, in Uganda there are many groups: Bantu Nilotic-camitics; Baganda (16.5%), banyankore (9.5%), Basoga (9%), Bakiga (7%), and Iteso (7%). A kaleidoscope of races and people similar in many other areas of Africa and that influences political choices. Independent of 1962, Uganda suffered long-term internal tensions and was repeatedly subject to power reversal, culminating in the military coup of Yoweri Museveni in 1986.

Discovery of oil deposits in Lake Alberta changed country’s economy from predominantly agricultural, and based on coffee to international aid to being an oil exporting country and making Uganda attractive for many countries like China (which has cropped a Leading position in the area of infrastructure investments) and Japan.

Consequences on the Ugandan population are relevant: mostly among the youngest. More than half of citizens of the country are under 18 years old. Despite the presence of diseases, Uganda has achieved good results, reaching 33% of the Millennium Development Goals beginning with those concerning the social rights of children.

Child survival has improved but not enough. Less than two-thirds of children are registered at birth. Thanks to the Mobile Vital Registration System, number of children under five who registered has doubled (from 30% in 2011 to 60% in 2014). But there are still nearly 3 million unregistered under-fives years children in the country, and nearly one-third of these are in Eastern and South-West regions. 40% of children under five are not registered at birth. That’s representative of a situation probably worse than the one reported by official data.

More than most some groups like children aged 0–8, adolescent girls, and disabled children are marginalised and particularly disadvantaged.

Starting from health. Uganda is one of the top 10 countries for high maternal, newborn and child mortality. HIV/AIDS is the second leading cause of death among adolescents. And malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and similar diseases are responsible for more than 70% of under-five deaths.

Environment conditions are causing it but also social and legal causes are present: although basic health care is officially free, families meet 61% of their children’s health care costs. And there is a tremendous lack of trained health workers, health centers and hospitals.

Despite improvements in use of vaccines, nearly half of children aged 12–23 months are not fully vaccinated. Also nutrition causes great problems: although the progress of the last period, under-nutrition is cause for 40% of child deaths. For those who survive, lifelong consequences are relevant, starting from physical and cognitive development and future earning power. One-third of under-fives (2.4 million) children are stunted and more than 1 million are underweight. 38% of children are vitamin A deficient. 49% of children aged six months to four years, and 60% of pregnant women are anemic.

Also education is a priority. Since the introduction of universal primary education, in 1997, the number of children enrolling in primary school has tripled. However, 1.4 million 6–12-year-olds across the country are not in school. Primary school enrolment is relevant but quality of education remains low and secondary school dropout rates are high (with relevant disparities between rural and urban areas). Some groups of Uganda’s children are still particularly vulnerable. Early childhood development policies (ECD) have improved at national level but 3 million three to five-year-olds are still not attending a pre-primary centre or school. Again problem is money: primary school enrolment rates are high but only two out of three of those who enroll complete their primary education. Situation is even worse in secondary school: expenses are higher and children are often taken out of school to work to support the family (actually more than half of children aged 5–17 are working). Only 24% of boys and girls go to a secondary school also because of violence and sexual abuse at school and lack of sanitation and hygiene facilities.

Quality of education in Uganda is a big problem too: only one in five primary school teachers are competent in English and Maths and 60% of teachers are not in school teaching. There are great differences depending on where children live and how wealthy their parents are. Children in urban areas are more than twice as likely to attend secondary school as those in rural areas.

But that’s not enough. Social numbers are terrific. Almost 40% of children have suffered physical violence. More than half of 15–19-year-old women have experienced physical or sexual violence. A quarter of girls get married and begin child-bearing between the ages of 15 and 19. Although the minimum age for a woman to get married is 18, one in four have been married and 15% are married by the age of 15. 2.4 million children are engaged in exploitative child labour. Over 8 million children, 51% of the child population, are considered vulnerable. There are 10,000 street children in Uganda – a 70% increase since 1993. Of the estimated 2.5 million children living with a disability in Uganda, two-thirds receive no form of intervention.

Uganda has made important strides in promoting these rights over the past 20 years. But in order to fully understand quality of life of children in this country and the issues that continue to hamper the achievement of their full potential, it is important to take a systematic look at the situation of children in Uganda today. For children problems come also from cultural practices that, according to MDGs, should be considered unbelievable.

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[gbenro]

Sector Coordination Officer (Shelter, NFI & CCCM) #Vacancy

Sector Coordination Officer (Shelter, NFI & CCCM)JOBfrom

International Organization for Migration

Closing date: 19 Feb 2017

Position Title : Sector Coordination Officer (Shelter, NFI & CCCM)

Duty Station : Abuja, Nigeria

Classification : Professional Staff, Grade P2

Type of Appointment : Special short-term graded, Six months with possibility of extension

Estimated Start Date : As soon as possible

Closing Date : 19 February 2017

Established in 1951, IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

IOM is committed to a diverse and inclusive environment. Applications from qualified female candidates are especially encouraged. For the purpose of the vacancy, the following candidates are considered as first-tier candidates:

1. Internal candidates

2. Qualified applicants from the following NMS countries:

Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bahamas, Botswana, Belize, Congo, Cabo Verde, Djibouti, Micronesia (Federated States of), Gabon, Gambia, Guyana, Iceland, Cambodia, Comoros, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Libya, Montenegro, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Mauritania, Maldives, Namibia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Seychelles, Slovenia, Suriname, El Salvador, Swaziland, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, United Republic of Tanzania, Holy See, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Vanuatu, Samoa

Context:

In North-Eastern Nigeria, the activity led by violent insurgents has, by the middle of 2016, resulted in the displacement of 2,093,030 people, and displacement will continue to be a significant factor in 2017. More than 18.6% of IDPs are living in 155 camps, collective centres or transitional sites, mainly in schools or government buildings. The remaining 81.4% are displaced in host communities: sharing the homes of others, living in makeshift shelters constructed on available land, in unfinished buildings, or renting homes.

The Shelter/NFI and CCCM sector was led by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and IOM. Since August 2016 it has become a merged sector with a recently enacted Tripartite Agreement to include UNHCR and having all three parties on equal terms jointly leading. Although not a formally activated cluster, this sector working group will be “cluster like” run in the style of a cluster. Even though most of Shelter/NFI and CCCM response activities are taking place in the North-East, there is a need to have sector coordination staff at the Federal capital level.

Under the overall supervision of the Chief of Mission and the direct supervision of the Shelter/NFI & CCCM Sector Coordinator based in North-East Nigeria, and in collaboration with the Senior Programme Coordinator, the successful candidate will support and assist with the effective and efficient coordination and liaison with relevant ministries and other stakeholders based in the capital.

Core Functions / Responsibilities:

Provide technical inputs to be used for the development of a comprehensive Sectoral strategy that incorporates all phases of the sector response, including preparedness, emergency management, response, recovery and capacity building.

Liaise with the relevant ministries and different stakeholders at the federal capital level to support a well-coordinated shelter, NFI and CCCM response in Nigeria and timely information sharing with the sector coordinator and coordination team. Maintain national level contacts relevant for the sectors.

Organize and participate in regular Shelter, NFI and CCCM Working Group coordination meetings in Abuja.

Actively participate in the Inter-Sector Working Group (or equivalent group when established) at Federal capital level, to ensure adequate consideration of needs and the coordination with other sectors with regards to the humanitarian strategy and response in Nigeria.

Inform partners and Government Counterparts at the federal capital level of the plans, objectives and guidance of the sectors, and provide input to the development of these.

Provide technical inputs and information to the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (including humanitarian response planning and periodic monitoring reports), and other planning or monitoring processes as required (for example, contingency planning or sector coordination performance monitoring).

Draft and revise, when necessary, specific documents, reports and procedural guidelines.

Identify gaps in shelter, NFI and CCCM response and make recommendations to avoid overlaps. Identify solutions for gaps in collaboration with Sector Coordinator. Document and maintain knowledge of who is doing what where and when in the state.

Participate in lessons learned workshops in Nigeria and contribute to the revision of strategies and action plans accordingly.

Brief new sector members/visitors in Abuja on the humanitarian situation in the area and issues specific to the sectors. Provide contacts, facilitate liaisons with key partners, local and national authorities.

Actively support the sector in Planning, coordinating and delivering capacity building opportunities to partners, in coordination with the sector coordinator, with a view to improving quality and efficiency of Shelter and NFI distributions across all affected areas, including support efforts to strengthen the capacity of the national authorities and civil society.

Contribute to the integration of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s priority cross cutting issues (e.g. human rights, HIV/AIDS. age, and community participatory approaches) and promote gender equality and GBV risk reduction, ensuring that the needs of women and girls as well as men and boys are addressed.

In consultation with sector co-leads and working Group partners, plan and participate in inter-agency needs assessments, as required.

Contribute to the preparation and dissemination of Shelter, NFI and CCCM Working Group regular updates.

Coordinate adequate reporting and information sharing, between the sector coordination in the North-east and the actors present at federal capital level.

Perform such other duties as may be assigned.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

Education

• Master’s degree in International Relations, Political Science, Business or Public Administration or a related field from an accredited academic institution with two years of relevant professional experience; or

• University degree in the above fields with four years of relevant professional experience.

Experience

• Experience with international organizations, in development, implementation and evaluation, and/or project implementation and management;

• Experience in DTM, Camp Coordination and Camp Management, ES/NFI, Shelter, and project management and/or coordination;

• Preferably within the International Humanitarian Field and within the organizations of the UN Common System;

• Familiarity with different project cycle steps;

• Ability to supervise large numbers of staff;

• Previous experience in emergency;

• Ability to travel extensively to the field is Mandatory.

Languages

Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of any local language is an advantage.

Desirable Competencies:

Behavioral

• Accountability – takes responsibility for action and manages constructive criticisms;

• Client Orientation – works effectively well with client and stakeholders;

• Continuous Learning – promotes continuous learning for self and others;

• Communication – listens and communicates clearly, adapting delivery to the audience;

• Creativity and Initiative – actively seeks new ways of improving programmes or services;

• Leadership and Negotiation – develops effective partnerships with internal and external stakeholders;

• Performance Management – identify ways and implement actions to improve performance of self and others;

• Planning and Organizing - plans work, anticipates risks, and sets goals within area of responsibility;

• Professionalism - displays mastery of subject matter;

• Teamwork – contributes to a collegial team environment; incorporates gender related needs, perspectives, concerns and promotes equal gender participation;

• Technological Awareness - displays awareness of relevant technological solutions;

• Resource Mobilization - works with internal and external stakeholders to meet resource needs of IOM.

Other:

Internationally recruited professional staff are required to be mobile.

Any offer made to the candidate in relation to this vacancy notice is subject to funding confirmation.

The list of NMS countries above includes all IOM Member States which are non-represented in the Professional Category of staff members. For this staff category, candidates who are nationals of the duty station’s country cannot be considered eligible.

Appointment will be subject to certification that the candidate is medically fit for appointment, accreditation, any residency or visa requirements, and security clearances.

HOW TO APPLY:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications via PRISM, IOM e-Recruitment system, by 19 February 2017 at the latest, referring to this advertisement.

For further information, please refer to:

http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/about-iom-1/recruitment/how-to-...

In order for an application to be considered valid, IOM only accepts online profiles duly completed.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. You can track the progress of your application on your personal application page in the IOM e-recruitment system.

Posting period:

From 06.02.2017 to 19.02.2017

Requisition: SVN 2017/24 (P) - Sector CoordinationOfficer(Shelter,NFI&CCCM)(P2)-Abuja,Nigeria

(54963988) Released

Posting: Posting NC54964026 (54964026) Released

[hopefulphantomwonderland-blog]

New Post has been published on Pagedesignweb

New Post has been published on http://pagedesignweb.com/millennium-education-development-ways-to-achieve/

Millennium Education Development - Ways To Achieve

Dr. Tooley: His conclusions on Private Education and Entrepreneurship

Professor James Tooley criticized the United Nations’ proposals to eliminate all fees in state primary schools globally to meet its goal of universal education by 2015. Dr. Tooley says the UN, which is placing particular emphasis on those regions doing worse at moving towards ‘education for all’ namely sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, is “backing the wrong horse”.1

On his extensive research in the world poorest countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, India, and China, Dr. Tooley found that private unaided schools in the slum areas outperform their public counterparts. A significant number of a large majority of school children came from unrecognized schools and children from such schools outperform similar students in government schools in key school subjects.2 Private schools for the poor are counterparts for private schools for the elite. While elite private schools cater the needs of the privilege classes, there come the non-elite private schools which, as the entrepreneurs claimed, were set up in a mixture of philanthropy and commerce, from scarce resources. These private sector aims to serve the poor by offering the best quality they could while charging affordable fees.3

Thus, Dr. Tooley concluded that private education can be made available for all. He suggested that the quality of private education especially the private unaided schools can be raised through the help of International Aid. If the World Bank and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could find ways to invest in private schools, then genuine education could result. 4 Offering loans to help schools improve their infrastructure or worthwhile teacher training, or creating partial vouchers to help even more of the poor to gain access to private schools are other strategies to be considered. Dr. Tooley holds that since many poor parents use private and not state schools, then “Education for All is going to be much easier to achieve than is currently believed”.

Hurdles in Achieving the MED

Teachers are the key factor in the learning phenomenon. They must now become the centerpiece of national efforts to achieve the dream that every child can have an education of good quality by 2015. Yet 18 million more teachers are needed if every child is to receive a quality education. 100 million children are still denied the opportunity of going to school. Millions are sitting in over-crowded classrooms for only a few hours a day.5 Too many excellent teachers who make learning exciting will change professions for higher paid opportunities while less productive teachers will retire on the job and coast toward their pension.6 How can we provide millions of more teachers?

Discrimination in girls access to education persists in many areas, owing to customary attitudes, early marriages and pregnancies, inadequate and gender-biased teaching and educational materials, sexual harassment and lack of adequate and physically and other wise accessible schooling facilities. 7

Child labor is common among the third world countries. Too many children undertake heavy domestic works at early age and are expected to manage heavy responsibilities. Numerous children rarely enjoy proper nutrition and are forced to do laborious toils.

Peace and economic struggles are other things to consider. The Bhutan country for example, has to take hurdles of high population growth (3%), vast mountainous areas with low population density, a limited resources base and unemployment. Sri Lanka reported an impressive record, yet, civil war is affecting its ability to mobilize funds since spending on defense eats up a quarter of the national budget.8

Putting children into school may not be enough. Bangladesh’s Education minister, A. S. H. Sadique, announced a 65% literacy rate, 3% increase since Dakar and a 30% rise since 1990. While basic education and literacy had improved in his country, he said that quality had been sacrificed in the pursuit of number.9 According to Nigel Fisher of UNICEF Kathmandu, “fewer children in his country survive to Grade 5 than in any region of the world. Repetition was a gross wastage of resources”.

Furthermore, other challenges in meeting the goal include: (1) How to reach out with education to HIV/AIDS orphans in regions such as Africa when the pandemic is wreaking havoc. (2) How to offer education to ever-increasing number of refugees and displaced people. (3) How to help teachers acquire a new understanding of their role and how to harness the new technologies to benefit the poor. And (4), in a world with 700 million people living in a forty-two highly indebted countries – how to help education overcome poverty and give millions of children a chance to realize their full potential.10

Education for All: How?

The goal is simple: Get the 100 million kids missing an education into school. The question: How?

The first most essential problem in education is the lack of teachers and it has to be addressed first. Teacher corps should be improved through better recruitment strategies, mentoring and enhancing training academies. 11 Assistant teachers could be trained. Through mentoring, assistant teachers will develop the skills to become good teachers. In order to build a higher quality teacher workforce; selective hiring, a lengthy apprenticeship with comprehensive evaluation, follow ups with regular and rigorous personnel evaluations with pay-for-performance rewards, should be considered.12 Remuneration of teaching staff will motivate good teachers to stay and the unfruitful ones to do better.

Problems regarding sex discrimination and child labor should be eliminated. The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), for example, addressed the problem of gender inequality. BPFA calls on governments and relevant sectors to create an education and social environment, in which women and men, girls and boys, are treated equally, and to provide access for and retention of girls and women at all levels of education.13 The Global Task Force on Child Labor and Education and its proposed role for advocacy, coordination and research, were endorsed by the participants in Beijing. The UN added that incentives should be provided to the poorest families to support their children’s education.14

Highly indebted countries complain on lack of resources. Most of these countries spend on education and health as much as debt repayments. If these countries are with pro-poor programs that have a strong bias for basic education, will debt cancellation help them? Should these regions be a lobby for debt relief?

Partly explains the lack of progress, the rich countries, by paying themselves a piece dividend at the end of the Cold War, had reduced their international development assistance. In 2000, the real value of aid flows stood at only about 80% of their 1990 levels. Furthermore, the share of the aid going to education fell by 30% between 1990 and 2000 represented 7% of bilateral aid by that time. 15 Given this case, what is the chance of the United Nations’ call to the donors to double the billion of dollars of aid? According to John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO (2001-04), at present, 97% of the resources devoted to education in the developing countries come from the countries themselves and only 3% from the international resources. The key principle is that the primary responsibility for achieving ‘education for all’ lies with the national governments. International and bilateral agencies can help, but the drive has to come from the country itself. These countries are advised to chart a sustainable strategy for achieving education for all. This could mean reallocation of resources to education from other expenditures. It will often mean reallocation of resources within the education budget to basic education and away from other levels. 16

A Closer Look: Private and Public Schools

Some of the most disadvantage people on this planet vote with their feet: exit the public schools and move their children in private schools. Why are private schools better than state schools? Teachers in the private schools are more accountable. There are more classroom activities and levels of teachers’ dedication. The teachers are accountable to the manager who can fire them whenever they are seen with incompetence. The manager as well is accountable to the parents who can withdraw their children.17 Thus; basically, the private schools are driven with negative reinforcements. These drives, however, bear positive results. Private schools are able to carry quality education better than state schools. The new research found that private schools for the poor exist in the slum areas aiming to help the very disadvantage have access to quality education. The poor subsidized the poorest.

Such accountability is not present in the government schools. Teachers in the public schools cannot be fired mainly because of incompetence. Principals/head teachers are not accountable to the parents if their children are not given adequate education. Researchers noted of irresponsible teachers ‘keeping a school closed … for months at a time, many cases of drunk teachers, and head teachers who asked children to do domestic chores including baby sitting. These actions are ‘plainly negligence’.

Are there any means to battle the system of negligence that pulls the state schools into failing? Should international aids be invested solely to private schools that are performing better and leave the state schools in total collapse? If private education seems to be the hope in achieving education for all, why not privatize all low performing state schools? Should the public schools be developed through a systematic change, will the competition between the public and the private schools result to much better outcomes? What is the chance that all educational entrepreneurs of the world will adapt the spirit of dedication and social works – offering free places for the poorest students and catering their needs?

Public schools can be made better. They can be made great schools if the resources are there, the community is included and teachers and other school workers get the support and respect they need. The government has to be hands on in improving the quality of education of state schools. In New York City for example, ACORN formed a collaborative with other community groups and the teachers union to improve 10 low-performing district 9 schools. The collaborative won $1.6 million in funding for most of its comprehensive plan to hire more effective principals, support the development of a highly teaching force and build strong family-school partnerships. 18

Standardized tests are also vital in improving schools and student achievements. It provides comparable information about schools and identifies schools that are doing fine, schools that are doing badly and some that are barely functioning. The data on student achievement provided by the standardized tests are essential diagnostic tool to improve performance. 19

The privatization of public schools is not the answer at all. Take for instance the idea of charter schools. As an alternative to failed public schools and government bureaucracy, local communities in America used public funds to start their own schools. And what started in a handful of states became a nationwide phenomenon. But according to a new national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools, most charter schools aren’t measuring up. The Education Department’s findings showed that in almost every racial, economic and geographic category, fourth graders in traditional public schools outperform fourth graders in charter schools. 20

If the government can harness the quality of state schools, and if the World Bank and the Bilateral Agencies could find ways to invest on both the private and the public schools – instead of putting money only on the private schools where only a small fraction of students will have access to quality education while the majority are left behind – then ‘genuine education’ could result.

Conclusion

Education for all apparently is a simple goal, yet, is taking a long time for the world to achieve. Several of destructive forces are blocking its way to meet the goal and the fear of failure is strong. Numerous solutions are available to fix the failed system of public schools but the best solution is still unknown. Several challenges are faced by the private schools to meet their accountabilities, but the resources are scarce. Every country is committed to develop its education to bring every child into school but most are still struggling with mountainous debts. ‘Primary education for all by 2015’ will not be easy. However, everyone must be assured that the millennium development goal is possible and attainable. Since the Dakar meeting, several countries reported their progress in education. In Africa, for example, thirteen countries have, or should have attained Universal Primary Education (UPE) by the target date of 2015. 23 It challenges other countries, those that are lagging behind in achieving universal education to base their policies on programs that have proved effective in other African nations. Many more are working for the goal, each progressing in different paces. One thing is clear; the World is committed to meet its goal. The challenge is not to make that commitment falter, because a well-educated world will be a world that can better cope with conflicts and difficulties: thus, a better place to live.

[blackwomxnrebellion-blog]

OUR WORK

Black women rebellion is a nonprofit organization that does multiple types of organizing, One type of organizing that we do is service providing. As a service providing organization we donate food to the homeless and the less fortunate, we also donate clothes to shelters. As a huge part of our workshops we we give each and every person that joins us a mirror because after the work shop to continue self growth and love we ask each participant to put the mirror on their wall or in their locker or anywhere that they can look at their selves and say each day in the mirror that " I am Beautiful " and 5 others positive things about themselves. Another type of organizing we do is a big one in my eyes which is EDUCATION. We educate young black womxn about their hixtory of black womxn figures that they don't hear too much about, we also teach young womxn how to Navigate through society without trying to be something that they are not. We we teach young womxn that as a womxn we have to work 10 times harder and especially being a black womxn we have to work even harder to reach success and to be treated fair in the world we have today. We teach just not our participants but we teach our community to, We teach our community how to treat our young womxn, We teach our community how to respect and love our womxn and treat our womxn like they're the queens that they are. OUR WORK YEZZ WE SLAY OUR COMMUNITY TOO. •Back to school backpack and clothes give away. This is a annual give a way we do it every year to insure that kids goes back to school looking and feeling good about themselves. Growing up not being able to get school clothes and using the same back pack made me feel like I didn't belong I don't want any kids feel like that. During this give a way it's food and live performances we also have room for free hair cuts and free basic hair dues for the girls the age limit for this is 5-17. •HIV awareness clinic. We do this once a twice a year and it's a program where we talk about safe sex and how important it is to take care of your body. We offer sign ups for local free clinics such as the BlC( Barbara Lee Center for health and wellness) and planned parenthood. This is a workshop where guess speakers that have HIV come in and share what it's like having it and how to possibly avoid it. We share multiple pamphlets with lots of Information about different sex topics and healthy relationships advice. We have this clinic because HIV effects the black community the most in 2013 African Americans accounted for one third of people living with HIV that's at least 40%. On mission is to decrease that number at least in our local community by teaching ways to be safe to prevent the chances of this happening. •Life skills readiness have a workshop for teens and young adults. This is a four week program that focuses on credit, saving money and home owning and money management. We have people from Wells Fargo come in every Wednesday and talk about those topics. This is a class that need to be a requirement for high school students because once you graduate High school and or college you need these basic skills to become live. The purpose of this four week program is to teach young Adults about being an adult in this world and how to have a pretty descent life. This class also have small workshops within the program we have a how to pay bills how to set up your own bank account mobile banking and much more. This is an experience that I personally recommend for every teen in the world.