Displaced children in Burundi wait for class to begin. Credit: ECW/Amizero
by Juliet Morrison (united nations)
Inter Press Service
United Nations, Aug 23 (IPS) – Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW) issued a wake-up call for the global community to support efforts on facilitating education in crisis areas. She was speaking at the United Nations at the launch of the global fund’s annual report titled We Have Promises to Keep.
The UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis chief also cited highlights from the report, which revealed that ECW and its strategic partners had reached a total of nearly 7 million children and adolescents since becoming operational in 2017.
In 2021 alone, the organization raised more than US$388.6 million and helped 3.7 million children and adolescents in 32 countries.
According to the report, half of all children reached by ECW to date have been girls, and nearly 43 percent have been of refugee or internally displaced status.
Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, speaks to reporters at the United Nations in New York. Credit: Juliet Morrison/IPS
Sherif noted that 2021 had been ECW’s biggest year for resource mobilization. The organization has had to expand its efforts to try to meet the increased need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of conflicts.
The current amount of those in need is “shocking”, Sherif said.
In 2017, 79 million children and adolescents were deemed in need of educational support. Now, 222 million require ECW’s assistance.
Recent analysis from the organization showed that 78.2 million crisis-afflicted children and adolescents are not in school, and 119.6 million are failing to reach the minimum competencies in reading and mathematics, despite being in school. An additional 24.2 million youth are in school and achieving the minimum proficiency but are still affected by crises and in need of support.
To address this surge, ECW has issued a call to action. The organization’s #222MillionDreams campaign aims to engage governments, foundations, and the private sector to support the organization through financial donations.
Discussing the initiative, Sherif emphasized the importance of education for those in conflict areas.
“222 million youth are not only suffering from armed conflict and COVID-19 and forced displacement but on top of that they are taken away from their last hope—the access to a quality education.”
Access to education is important, she added, as it can not only change the lives of children and adolescents but also the lives of those around them.
Supporting ECW programs was also critical, given the organization provides psychosocial support for those in conflict zones, Sherif noted.
“We are dealing with deeply traumatized children and young people. You can just imagine the excruciating pain of losing your family, being disposed of, running from villages that are on fire, sexual violence the human misery up there is so much more than we imagine. The least you can do if you can’t imagine it is to use financial resources, at least, to remove it.”
She noted that the global community had pledged to ensure youth had access to education no matter their circumstances.
“We have made promises through the sustainable development goal 4 and through the human rights convention that every child, even if you are left behind in conflict and emergencies, in climate disasters or as a refugee, we promised them a quality education.”
Sherif told reporters she was confident action to meet the 222MillionDreams goal could be taken. The organization is hosting a High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 with the Government of Switzerland, and she noted that the conversation would continue with the UN Transforming Education Summit that will take place in September.
Above all, prioritizing education is key to meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs), Sherif said.
“Education is the key to all sustainable development goals. How can we, without education, achieve gender equality and extreme poverty? It’s also the key to achieving all human rights. Without education, how can you have a free and fair trial, freedom of expression, and so forth? Education is the very foundation.”
Three inspiring #Youth4EiE Advocates – Nataly Rivas, Angela Abizera, and Jean-Paul Saif. Nataly, Angela, and Jean-Paul are three Global Youth for Education in Emergencies panel members. Credit: ECW
by IPS Correspondent (ecuador, malawi, lebanon)
Inter Press Service
Ecuador, Malawi, Lebanon, Aug 12 (IPS) – On this International Youth Day, ECW interviewed three inspiring #Youth4EiE Advocates – Nataly Rivas, Angela Abizera, and Jean-Paul Saif. Nataly, Angela, and Jean-Paul are three Global Youth for Education in Emergencies panel members.
The (#Youth4EiE) panel brings together youth leaders from across eight countries to work together to put education in emergencies and protracted crises on top of the agenda for world leaders. The #Youth4EiE initiative is made possible through ECW’s partnership with Plan International UK and is supported by the People’s Postcode Lottery.
The #Youth4EiE panel is composed of 16 members representing Ecuador, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malawi, Mali, Zimbabwe, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Each member is a positive force for change in their own communities. They combine their skills, networks, and expertise to help raise awareness of the challenges which crisis-affected girls and boys face in accessing education in emergencies and protracted crises while advocating for increased funding from donors in support of ECW’s #222MillionDreams?? campaign.
Nataly Rivas. Credit: ECW
Nataly Rivas, 21, Ecuador
Nataly Rivas is a Sociology and International Relations student from Pichincha, Ecuador. She is an active leader and National Communications Coordinator in the “Por Ser Niña” movement, an Ecuador U-reporter, and a Global #Youth4EiE Panel Member – where she represents Ecuador. Since she was eleven, Nataly has participated in Plan International Ecuador projects, which have shown her the situations of inequality in her country and provoked in her a desire to fight to change that reality. She is passionate about girls’ rights and currently helps manage the “Por Ser Niña” movement’s social media – a civil society group of girls, boys, and young people in Ecuador whose objective is gender equality.
ECW: What does education mean to you? And how can we help realize #222MillionDreams?? for the 222 Million crisis-impacted children and adolescents who urgently need education support?
Nataly: I always say that education is a tool that can save lives, especially for girls and women. It can help prevent gender-based violence as it offers us better opportunities for the future. In a nutshell, education makes it possible to move closer to gender equality. However, in emergency situations, education is not prioritized – even financial resources are subtracted, causing millions of children to see their education and dreams interrupted or ended. We must urgently continue to fight for education so that educational institutions become safe environments with quality education available to everyone, especially in emergency situations. ECW works to meet the educational needs of 222 million children affected by crises and is rallying donor support through the #222MillionDreams?? campaign. This is why I call on all social sectors to mobilize more resources to support ECW, education inclusion and prevent more dreams from being left unfulfilled. Let us remember that, with education, we all win, and therefore, we must fight for it, make our demands and invest in it so that it is guaranteed for all.
ECW: In Ecuador, ECW, UN agencies, and civil society partners in coordination with the Ministry of Education have built an amazing campaign, La Educación es el Camino (Education is the Way), to make education a priority for everyone, especially children fleeing the crisis in Venezuela. How can we build a better world where refugee children are able to access safe and protective learning environments? And why is it important for the people of Ecuador?
Nataly: To build a better world for refugee children, essential rights such as the right to a dignified life, a nutritious diet, equality, and access to quality education must be guaranteed. Through education, other rights can be forged, so it is essential that education inclusion is guaranteed in schools where refugee children can feel safe and have better opportunities to develop.
These spaces must be free of violence and xenophobia. And we can achieve this through fostering a culture of good treatment of others in the family, educational, and community environments. It is also important that assistance and aid programs are generated for families because one of the main barriers for girls and boys to have a quality life, and access to education is economic scarcity. The whole of society can and must contribute to the construction of a better world – not only for refugees but for everyone.
Caring about and fighting collectively for sustainable solutions benefits us all and prevents further deepening levels of inequality in our country.
ECW: How can we activate science, technology, engineering, and math studies for girls and boys in crises to activate social entrepreneurship and provide a pathway out of poverty?
Nataly: Governments need to invest in scholarships for girls and boys to study and finance their projects and ideas. We need an education where students are the leaders of innovation and motivation. For these reasons, society should encourage children to study scientific careers, and adults must ensure more and better opportunities for the new generations and put aside adult centrism. Additionally, work must be done to eliminate the global digital divide and eradicate prejudices and stereotypes that disproportionately punish girls and women.
Angela Abizera. Credit: ECW
Angela Abizera, 23, Malawi
Angela Abizera is a girls’ rights and education activist from Malawi. She is a mentor in the Child Parliament, a poet, and a Global #Youth4EiE Panel Member – representing Malawi. Angela is originally from Rwanda but was raised in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. She has lived there for over 16 years and managed to complete her education at the camp. Since completing her schooling, she has been engaged in community work because she believes in giving back. Through these service efforts across different platforms, she has been able to advocate on various issues concerning the rights of children and young people, particularly girls.
Angela: Education is a basic need and right of every child in the world. There is an urgent need to allocate more funds for education in emergencies and protracted crises (EiEPC). During crises, education is not prioritized – though it is often affected and disrupted. ECW’s #222MillionDreams?? campaign is a call to action: we must all do our part, including donors, to help these crisis-affected children and youth continue their education. As a young leader, I call on world leaders to urgently consider EiEPC and support ECW’s global campaign to help realize the dreams of millions of vulnerable girls and boys!
We must work to establish coordination structures in education to immediately address challenges faced during and after emergencies, ensuring that learning does not stop. Additionally, we should ensure that safe, protective spaces are inclusive and provide support to all – especially those most vulnerable and affected, such as children living with disabilities, teen mothers who fail to go back to school due to stigma, and other minority groups. There is also a need to review laws that affect refugee children who, at times, face restrictions in their countries of asylum that can shatter their hopes of continuing their education. Such policies must be revised, and the needs of young refugees must be prioritized in EiEPC budgeting.
Angela: We cannot deny the fact that climate change is continuously affecting the world and disrupting education systems. Recently, Malawi was affected by Cyclone Ana which damaged a lot of infrastructure – causing people to flee their homes and shelter in classrooms, temporarily disrupting classes. Climate change should be integrated into the school syllabus because we need young people to be aware of the climate and environment around them. This would help sensitize and teach preparatory skills that they can use during emergencies. Learning about climate change and how to combat it empowers young people to make informed decisions and take action. Additionally, introducing disaster risk reduction clubs in schools can help build the capacity of innovative/creative youth, encouraging them to explore new skills to help spread this crucial information beyond the school to help foster more responsible communities. Lastly, governments should consider building resilient structures that can withstand any calamities.
ECW: You are a poet. Have you written anything about the power of an education? Could you share it with us?
LISTEN by Angela Abizera
(excerpts from her poem below)
Listen!
Don’t just listen but act!
As we speak we lose what we lose, but we spread the fact
Do what you intend to do but make sure you keep me intact,
with education
Listen,
With education
I am not just a girl child
I am a woman with a voice
A voice that speaks, a need that seeks
I am the world’s empowerment,
The world’s champion of change!
Listen,
I don’t want
These pauses in between
The disruptions over and over
I want my education not to cease
Transforming the world to goodness
We are the equality of highest quality
We are exclusively inclusive
We are Education!
Jean-Paul Saif. Credit: ECW
Jean-Paul Saif, 23, Lebanon
Jean-Paul Saif is an electronics student, entrepreneur, and Global #Youth4EiE Panel Member, representing Lebanon. Jean-Paul was born and currently lives in Zahle, Lebanon, where he has set up a plastic recycling factory. He is a leader in the Scouts movement, where he supports young people to share his love of hiking and camping. He is also a stand-up comedian and theater actor.
ECW: What does education mean to you? And how can we help realize #222MillionDreams?? for the millions of crisis-impacted children and adolescents who need educational support?
Jean-Paul: Education means everything to me because education is the start of everything. Your journey of learning begins at school, goes through university, and also continues outside of these places – at work, with family, and within your daily life. Education is important because it empowers you and it sets you up for success in life. Without a proper education, you cannot get a proper job or adequate salary. We can help achieve the aim of ECW’s #222MillionDreams?? campaign by raising awareness and lobbying on the importance of donor funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises with governments and global leaders. We must advocate for governments to prioritize education planning and funding in their aid programs. In crisis-affected countries, we should build schools in remote, hard-to-access areas where they’re currently unavailable. I also believe in continuing our push for peace and to end wars and attacks on schools that happen during conflict. Finally, in countries that are more prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, we should support the creation of stronger infrastructure.
ECW: Lebanon has faced several shocks over the past decade, including the refugee influx from Syria, the 2020 Beirut port blast, the economic crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. How can education help us build back better?
Jean-Paul: I believe the most impactful starting point is to adapt and include civic education and active citizenship courses in schools that are free from religious and political affiliation – and support students to learn about active citizenship and not blindly follow leaders from a young age. Additionally, orienting students to the right professions early on, including ones that will be needed in the future, to create a new wave of graduates equipped with the skills necessary for the next generation would help support building back better in Lebanon. Finally, opening and expanding educational opportunities, such as trainings in social media, would also support entrepreneurship and job creation in the country.
ECW: How can we activate science, technology, engineering, and math studies for girls and boys in crisis-impacted contexts like Lebanon, Syria, and beyond to activate social entrepreneurship and provide a pathway out of poverty?
Jean-Paul: Teaching kids about the newest technology can help them improve their knowledge about what the world is going through as almost everything is becoming digital. Children will have access to the largest field of opportunities to choose from and to learn by using the internet. For example, there are various websites that teach about coding and creating different kinds of artificial intelligence. Through these websites and online resources, children can start by learning things like building small devices and, in the long term, develop skills to help companies with larger projects.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NEW YORK, Aug 12 (IPS) – Today marks International Youth Day, a global celebration of the transformative power of young people. Introduced by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999, the event was inaugurated not only to observe the power of the youth voice, but to serve as a promise from those in power to activate the power of youth across the development sector.
Yasmine Sherif
Since then, the United Nations appointed a Youth Envoy, dedicated to the diffusion of the day’s promise, and many aid organizations have followed suit by including the voices of young people in social media campaigns, high-level events, and stakeholder forums.
In 2021, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, took a further, concrete step to democratically include youth in its governance structure and decision-making processes. Scores of youth-led NGOs applied to join a newly created youth constituency, and after only a few weeks, the sub-group had become one of the largest, most active, and most diverse constituencies within the fund.
On the Executive Committee and High-Level Steering Group of ECW, young people were represented for the first time alongside government ministers, heads of UN agencies and civil society organizations, and private sector leaders — a refreshing example of intergenerational collaboration at the highest levels of humanitarian aid.
Another significant step in the race for youth inclusion occurred when ECW partnered with Plan International to support a group of youth activists through the ‘Youth for Education in Emergencies Project,’ a campaign by youth panelists aiming to demonstrate the value of youth participation.
As ECW builds momentum towards its High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 with the #222MillionDreams Campaign, we call on strategic partners to include the youth voice as we come together to mobilize funding resources for the 222 Million crisis-impacted children and adolescents worldwide that require urgent educational support.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of exceptional young people ready to lead the charge. The Global Student Forum, for example, has brought together more than one hundred national student unions, composed of millions of youth activists, and successfully lobbied governments around the world with its democratic force.
H.D. Wright
The success of Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s 100 Million Campaign, a global, youth-led effort to end child exploitation, further illustrates the immense value of grassroots organizing. And at a local level, youth-led NGOs have brought change to their communities in ways equally substantial.
Aid organizations and professionals have changed the lives of countless young people around the world. By including them, aid organizations can tap into their extraordinary resilience and strength, and actually learn from them. Using their reach on social media, young people excel at spreading awareness and engagement around the world. Just as unknown singers become famous because of the young people who promote them, previously unknown issues have reached national prominence overnight and created substantive change.
With regard to fundraising, each young person is surrounded by a community, offering a network ready to lend a hand. In terms of policy, young people affected by crises can identify their needs with an ease unmatched by any humanitarian policy professional, for they are experts in their own lives, challenges and opportunities. Young people are intelligent and capable of shaping their own futures. They have an idealism and a courage that the world so desperately needs today. Their unflinching optimism, powerful energy, and uncompromising commitment to change will ensure that those futures are not only safe, but better than the present they inherited.
ECW can attest to the enlightening and inspiring vitality of young people. Since its creation, the youth constituency has worked energetically on behalf of this breakthrough global fund, providing valuable input and guidance on multi-year programs and first emergency responses in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Haiti, Iraq and Mali. When schools shut down due to the pandemic, the youth constituency persisted, working together to inform aid programmes dispersed across crisis-affected countries.
The youth constituency even responded in real time to developing crises, including the earthquake in Haiti, the deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan, and most recently, the war in Ukraine. Their contributions played a role in meaningful projects: since its inception in 2016, ECW’s programs have reached over 5 million children and adolescents, providing them with quality support, including educational materials, school meals, mental health programs, and other basic necessities.
On this day, it is important to observe the power of young people, and the impactful work that aid organizations have conducted across the sector. Yet celebration and transformation must go hand in hand, ensuring that next year, when International Youth Day returns, we are one step closer to fulfilling its original promise to unleash the power of the youth.
Yasmine Sherif is the Director of Education Cannot Wait. H.D. Wright is Youth Representative at Education Cannot Wait
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Aug 10 (IPS) – The upcoming summit on Education, part of the UN Secretary General’s ambitious agenda, can truly bring accountability and participation to the inevitably new ways education will be imparted in the future.
With scorching temperatures, uncontrolled flames and floods devastating our planet, millions of people are realizing that we are all going to pay a high price for climate inaction.
The current climate crisis is furthering compounding the other emergency that is still affecting all of us, a public health crisis fully exposed by the Covid pandemic.
Amid this gloomy scenario, the international community cannot forego its duties not only to strengthen the global education system but also its moral obligation to re-think it and re-imagine it.
While it is easy to criticize the UN as a system incapable of effectively tackling these multidimensional challenges, we cannot but praise Secretary General Antonio Guterres for his far sighted vision encapsulated in his global blue print, Our Common Agenda.
It’s a bold statement that contains multiple proposals including the ambitious goal of reinventing the global education.
In this context, and on September, the UN will host the most important forum to discuss how education can emerge as the thread that can equip the citizens of the world with the right tools to thrive in a truly sustainable and equitable planet.
The Transforming Education Summit, scheduled to take place at the UN September 19, should be seen as a stand-alone effort while it is intended to be the beginning of an ambitious global brainstorming. It is also the culmination of several other major events in the past few years.
In 2015 the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action provided the vision for implementing the SDG 4, the global sustainable goal focused on inclusive and quality education.
We know how brutal the effects of the pandemic were on learners worldwide especially in developing and emerging nations.
In face of these challenges, with the global headlines focused on the public health emergency and the futile attempts at negotiating a breakthrough climate change agreement at the COP 26, few noticed that the international community tried to take action.
The fact that our attention was totally focused to other existential crises should not deter us from reflecting on how such events were neglected by world media and, as a consequence, how little discussion about the future of education happened.
I am not just talking about discussions among professionals on the ground but also a debate that involves teachers and students alike. The upcoming Transforming the Education Summit will try to revert this lack of attention and overall weak engagement among the people.
The Secretariat of the event, hosted by UNESCO, one of the agencies within the UN system that lacks financial support but still proves to be real value for money, is trying its best to enable a global conversation on how the future of education should be.
It is in this precise context that UNESCO has set up an interactive knowledge and debate hub, the so-called Hub that, hopefully, will become a permanent global platform for discussing education globally.
Imagine a sort of civic agora where experts, students, parents, policy makers alike can share their best practices and bring forwards their opinions on how to follow up on the decisions that will be taken in September.
It is also extremely positive that a Pre-Summit event at the end of June in Paris, laid out some grounds for the September’s gathering especially because youths also had a chance to speak and share their views.
It is not the first-time youths are involved, but the full involvement of the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth in the preparation of the Transforming the Education Summit could be a turning point, shifting from mere and tokenistic engagements to real shared power with the youth.
That’s why the existence of a specific process within the preparation of the summit, focused on youth, is extremely important and welcome not just because it will generate a special declaration but because it could potentially become a space where youths can have their voices and opinions heard permanently.
It is truly transformative because the title itself is aligned to the aspirational vision of Secretary General Guterres to establish a new social contract.
A new social contract in the field of education really needs to rethink the domains of learning and its established but now outdated goals. Learning should become, according to this report, a holistic tool to create personal agency and sustainable and just development.
For example, education for sustainable development and lifelong education together with global citizenships should stopped being considered as “nice” but burdensome adds on.
Today’s challenges, the report explains, must be focused on “reinventing education” and the knowledge it provides must be “anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice.”
Wisely, Guterres intends the summit in September to be the starting point for a much longer conversation that will build on the insights and knowledge emerged in these last few years.
Governance of the global education system will also be central and with this, we will have an opportunity to find creative ways, ways that just few years ago were imaginable, to include people, especially the youths.
No matter the efforts now put in place to create awareness and participation for the summit, no matter how inclusive the Youth Process will be, the fact that there is still a very long way before creating spaces where persons on the ground can truly participate.
While there is no doubt that such inclusive format is itself innovative, the challenges ahead require a much more accessible and holistic set-up.
The existence of a global accountability mechanism was one of the key points discussed and emerged in the Youths Consultations during the Pre-Summit in Paris.
The High-Level Steering Committee needs not only more visibility because of its “political” aim of galvanizing global attention and energizing and influencing global leaders so that education can become a global priority at the same levels of climate action and public health.
It should also have a stronger representation of youths, teachers and NGOs and it can evolve into a real permanent forum for discussions and even decision making.
As difficult as it to imagine a new global governance for education, what we need is a space, virtual and as well formally established as an institution, where not only experts and governments’ representatives gather and decide.
A space for accountability but also for enhanced participation.
There is still a long way before reaching a consensus on how education will look like in the years to come but there is no doubt that bold decisions must be taken also to reimagine its governance.
The Transforming the Education Summit can herald the beginning of a new era.
Media will have a special role to play: not only on reporting on the summit and its following developments but also for giving voices to the youths and for bringing forward the most progressive ideas that should define how education will shape this new era.
Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.
CAMBRIDGE, UK, Aug 02 (IPS) – The world needs tens of millions of new teachers by 2030, according to UNESCO – an order of magnitude that requires “frugal innovation.” I’ve studied frugal innovation for more than a decade, and it holds a vital key to this global challenge. A model created by BRAC in Bangladesh deserves special attention in this worldwide pursuit.
Frugal innovation is not innovation on the cheap. Rather it’s innovation that is designed from the outset to be affordable, scalable – and better performing than traditional models. That’s why it’s so important to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 4, which is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
That goal requires that education be both universally available and able to meet quality standards. It must, therefore, be affordable, or it won’t be scalable globally.
I co-authored an early book on frugal innovation in emerging markets 10 years ago, titled Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth. It focuses on the private sector in emerging markets like India, China, and Bangladesh. Its thesis is that in such markets, innovation – the creation of new products and services – needs to be very different from innovation in the West, where it is synonymous with high technology, typically expensive and highly structured, and often elitist. In contrast, we argued that to reach large numbers of people on low incomes in informal economies of emerging markets, firms need products and services that are affordable and an approach that is frugal, flexible, and inclusive.
At that time, I was introduced for the first time to the founder of BRAC, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, and many other inspiring people at BRAC. From them I learned that the ideas we had written about in 2012 had been discovered and perfected by BRAC over four decades, and not for private profit but for social impact instead.
When BRAC started its work in education in 1985, poverty was widespread in Bangladesh. Forty percent of Bangladesh’s primary-aged children were not in school, and only 30 percent went on to complete primary education.
At that time, like elsewhere in the world, delivering education at scale in Bangladesh prioritized developing new infrastructure: building schools and hiring credentialed teachers to meet the demand. But building new schools in every community was impossible, and highly trained teachers were scarce.
Many children could not arrange to travel the distance to school because it was too far or unsafe – or they were needed at home during harvests. Children in ethnic minority groups faced additional obstacles, as did those with disabilities. Most teachers were men, which made parents unwilling to send young girls to school.
The key to BRAC’s approach to providing education at scale was not new infrastructure, but a new mindset. Indeed, the hallmarks of the BRAC approach were more or less exactly those we had written about in our book Jugaad Innovation: it was all about being frugal, flexible and inclusive. It was all about lateral thinking and working backwards from a deep understanding of the problem as faced by the people in the communities being served. And it was all about empowering those communities to be part of the solution.
BRAC’s eventual solution was ingenious. Instead of requiring students to go to distant schools, with all the related burdens and costs, BRAC brought schools to the students.
Instead of building expensive school infrastructure, BRAC took already existing infrastructure. It stitched together an extensive system of rented one-room schools in almost every community.
Instead of taking urban trained teachers, it trained local women to teach grades one through five, with up to 30 children maximum per classroom, instead of 50 to 60. Training non-formal women teachers from within the communities made scaling possible.
The outcomes were impressive. Almost 100 percent of students completed fifth grade, and BRAC students consistently did better than public school students on government tests. At its peak, this network consisted of 64,000 schools, and it has graduated 14 million students, mostly at the pre-primary and primary levels.
That is frugal innovation at its best: affordable, scalable, and better. It is community-based and locally led.
It is transformational on many levels: the number of children educated; the number of girls educated; the number of communities with schools; the number of women trained as teachers; the pipeline of students prepared for ongoing education.
Making significant progress toward achieving SDG 4 will require that kind of frugal innovation. BRAC is pointing the way.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC and “one of the unsung heroes of modern times,” according to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, authorized his own biography before dying of brain cancer in 2019. Author Scott MacMillan wrote Hope Over Fate based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Abed and his friends, family and co-workers. Credit: courtesy of BRAC
Opinion by Scott MacMillan (redding conn, usa)
Inter Press Service
Redding Conn, USA, Aug 01 (IPS) – About seven years ago, I started working on a project with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, the founder of BRAC. It was originally supposed to be a memoir: the story of Abed, the mild-mannered accountant who would rid the world of poverty, as told by the man himself.
I was privileged to be Abed’s speechwriter for the last several years of his life, and I would sit for hours listening to stories from his remarkable life: of his boyhood in British India, his love life in London in the 1960s, his three marriages, and how, in 1972, with a few thousand pounds from the sale of his flat in Camden, he launched a small nonprofit organization to aid refugees, originally called the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee. Many people would go on to call BRAC, which Abed led until his death in 2019, the world’s most effective anti-poverty organization.
That seemed like a story worth telling in full, and after some coaxing, Abed gave me permission to begin ghostwriting his autobiography. He was an exceptionally private person, however, and cringed at anything with a whiff of self-promotion. “You have me pontificating!” he once scolded me after an early draft of one speech.
I was about halfway done with his memoir when he told me to stop. The story, as I had written it, did not feel right coming from him. He much preferred to let BRAC’s work speak for itself—which may explain why so few people outside his native Bangladesh knew who he was or the magnitude of what he had accomplished.
Abed eventually came around to the idea that his story needed to be told by someone, even if it would not ultimately be him. He asked that I use the material I had gathered to write the book myself, in my own words—which I did, even knowing that many of those words would fall short of the task. The book, Hope Over Fate: Fazle Hasan Abed and the Science of Ending Global Poverty, is released today by Rowman & Littlefield.
An accountant’s story
Abed told stories, but he was not a good storyteller in the typical sense. He did not sprinkle his speeches with anecdotes of the “ordinary” people he had met, as politicians sometimes do. He was an accountant, and for him, numbers told stories.
So here is the story he would tell of his native Bangladesh—no names or faces, just a chorus of statistics. At the moment of its independence in 1971, Bangladesh was the world’s second-poorest country, with a per capita GDP of less than $100, a nation of sixty-six million living on a patch of flood-prone land the size of Iowa. One in four children died before their fifth birthday. As late as 1990, the country still had one of the highest maternal mortality rates, at 574 per 100,000.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in his later years, visiting a BRAC school. Credit: courtesy of BRAC
In the 1990s, however, things began to change, rapidly and almost miraculously. Quality of life improved at a historically unprecedented rate. By 2013, under-five mortality had plummeted to just 40 per 1,000 live birthdays; maternal mortality had dropped similarly. These and other changes constituted “some of the biggest gains in the basic condition of people’s lives ever seen anywhere,” according to The Economist.
People standing up for themselves
What happened? Abed’s work had much to do with it. BRAC trained and mobilized people, giving them a sense of self-worth that many had never felt before. They began standing up for themselves against landlords, corrupt government officials, and imams opposed to women’s rights. Often, he found what people really needed was hope—a sense that, with a modicum of outside help, their fate could be in their own hands.
His methods were varied and novel. Incentive-based training gave health information to mothers so they could save their own children’s lives. Women took small loans from BRAC to buy cows and handlooms, the first time they had owned anything of substance. Since they had nowhere to sell the milk and fabric they produced, Abed built up the dairy and textile industries by launching enterprises that bought the women’s goods. These enterprises, owned by BRAC, turned out to be profitable, so he plowed the money back into the poverty programs. Abed also launched fifty thousand schools, plus a commercial bank and a university. BRAC now likely reaches more than one hundred million people in about a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. No other nonprofit or social enterprise has reached such scale.
Yet Abed was no ascetic, self-abnegating Gandhi. He left the office at a reasonable hour and enjoyed coming home to the comforts of domestic life, to the sound of family and the warm smell of spices from the kitchen. Twice a widower, he told me of his loneliness between his marriages, and how, despite his preoccupation with work, he found it hard to return to an empty house.
The science of hope
How, then, did he do it? Remarkably, Abed would sometimes say that BRAC had done relatively little to help Bangladesh rise from the ranks of one of the poorest nations on earth. It merely created the enabling conditions: it was the poor themselves, especially women, who worked tirelessly, once those conditions were in place, to change the conditions of their lives.
I suspect this is why he thought his own story did not deserve so much attention, especially compared to the millions of women who had long labored on the fringes of society, who would one day, in his words, “be their own actors in history, and write their own stories of triumph over adversity.”
So this is the biography of a man, yes, but it is also the biography of an idea—the idea that hope itself has the power to overcome poverty. Near the end of his life, Abed spoke of “the science of hope”—the study and practice of giving people a sense of control over their own lives. “For too long, people thought poverty was something ordained by a higher power, as immutable as the sun and the moon,” he wrote in 2018. His life’s mission was to put that myth to rest, which is why the story of Abed is the story of the triumph of hope over fate.
Children at the San José Obrero School use the primary school’s computer lab. At their homes in the municipality of Peñalolén, to the east of Santiago de Chile, many do not have computers because 90 percent of them come from poor families. CREDIT: Courtesy of San José Obrero
by Orlando Milesi (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Jul 01 (IPS) – A Chilean government plan seeks to ensure connectivity in remote areas, in a first step to address a deep digital divide among the country’s inhabitants that includes a lack of access to technology and digital education deficits, exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, during the social isolation at the height of the pandemic, 76 percent of children in higher income segments had their own computer, laptop or tablet and 23 percent had access to a shared one.
But in the lowest income segments, only 45 percent of children had their own computer or laptop, while 16 percent had none. The rest managed to get access to a shared computer or tablet.
There are also notable differences according to the type and location of schools.
One school that illustrates the gap
“People here don’t have computers, although it may seem strange,” said Cecilia Pérez, principal of the San José Obrero School in Peñalolén. “Computers are just a dream for many. Nor do they have their own connection, or wi-fi. They have cell phones with prepaid minutes or very cheap plans that do not give them a good enough connection to support a lesson.”
In a conversation with IPS at the school, she said “this is a disadvantage that has nothing to do with the children’s desire to study, their intelligence, or their worried families. It is something external that is difficult to solve.”
To illustrate, Pérez said that “if homework is posted on the platform, it is very hard for children to read it and do it from their cell phones.”
Her school is in a poor neighborhood located at the end of Las Parcelas Avenue, in the Andes foothills of Santiago, the capital. Most of the first to eighth grade students come to school on foot.
At the San José Obrero School in the municipality of Peñalolén, in the foothills surrounding the Chilean capital, 90 percent of the students come from poor families, with parents who work as street vendors, cleaners or similar trades. Parental support for homework is almost non-existent, says the principal of the primary school, Cecilia Pérez. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
This public primary school in the municipality of Peñalolén, which serves 427 students, is an example of the connectivity problems faced by students in the most deprived urban and rural areas.
In this South American country of 19 million people, there are 3.6 million primary and secondary students. Two million students are enrolled in the first to eighth grades (six to 13 years of age) and the rest are in secondary school (13 to 17 years of age).
Of the total number of students, 53 percent study in state-subsidized private schools, 40 percent in municipal schools and seven percent in private schools.
“We have third grade students today who started first grade in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when they had to learn to read and write. These children had only gone to kindergarten and are now coming to class in the third grade with a very significant delay,” she said, referring to the effects of distance learning during the pandemic.
Because of this, Pérez said, “we had to set priorities in the curriculum and reinforce language and math which are super important to continue learning.”
She added that another serious problem is that many of their students experience situations of domestic violence. “Their emotional and social support is the school, and when they couldn’t be with their classmates, they lost two years of socializing,” she said.
“We have children between the fifth and eighth grades who have experienced a lot of violence, a lot of individualism, a lot of sexualization that never happened before. Partly because there is no parental control over cell phones at home,” she said.
An additional problem is connectivity because in Peñalolén “there are many hills and in some parts the internet does not work. There are families who returned the ‘router’ (a device that receives and sends data on computer networks) that we lent them because the signal does not reach their homes.”
Older children at the San José Obrero School in the municipality of Peñalolén, near Santiago de Chile, stay two hours longer at the school, doing sports and other activities as part of their education. In this way they avoid excessive leisure time and a lack of supervision at home, which can be dangerous for them. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
Tackling inequality
The deep digital divide among Chileans is aggravated by the difficulties in accessing the internet in isolated villages, rural localities and also in poor urban neighborhoods where telecommunication companies do not provide service or where criminals steal the cables.
“Inequality in our country is also manifested in internet access,” said leftist President Gabriel Boric, in office since March. “Thousands of students were unable to exercise their right to education during the pandemic due to a lack of connectivity.”
To address this situation, he said in a recent communiqué, “our Zero Digital Divide Plan will ensure, by 2025, that all the country’s inhabitants have access to connectivity.”
“This requires a sustained effort to continue with current initiatives such as the Internet as a Basic Service Bill and the generation of new projects that will allow us to reach isolated and rural areas,” he said.
As an example, Boric mentioned the town of Porvenir, which a month ago became the southernmost part of this long narrow South American country with access to the 5G network.
The 36-year-old president won the elections in the wake of the huge 2019 protests, in which one of the demands was to end the social inequality gap, one of the largest in the world according to international organizations, and where more equitable access to education was one of the main points.
Paulina Romero, a first-year chemistry and pharmacy university student, became a symbol of the digital divide that Boric seeks to eliminate, when two years ago images of her climbing onto the roof of her house in the small community of San Ramón, in the southern region of La Araucanía, in a dangerous attempt to find a signal to be able to do her assigned homework, went viral.
A colorful mural decorates the staircase leading to the second story of classrooms at the primary school in Peñalolén, located in the snowy Andes foothills seen here in the background in the middle of Chile’s southern hemisphere winter. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
Plans to close the gap
Claudio Araya, undersecretary of telecommunications, told IPS that all efforts are focused on improving connectivity.
“A bill was approved in Congress a month ago that guarantees internet access for students,” he said. He pointed out that in part this access already exists but it is not operational for schoolchildren, because “many students in areas with coverage had problems with distance learning because their families could not afford cell phone plans.”
Araya added that a project is being implemented to ensure that all public schools, whether run by municipalities or the State, as well as subsidized private schools, have coverage for remote areas and connection speed.
“One part of the project is being completed now, by August, for 8,300 schools, a second part with 500 more by March 2023, and a third with a call for bids before 2023, which will cover just over a thousand schools,” he explained.
His office has also allocated resources for a new project, called “last mile”, which seeks to bring connectivity to isolated or rural areas. “We have already invested some 200 million dollars and we are contemplating an additional 150 million dollars to provide service coverage to the communities,” he said.
There are 40 computers available at the San José Obrero School for the children to search for information and complete their learning in various subjects under the supervision of the teacher in charge. But there is no possibility of laptops that they can take to their homes, where most of them have no computers. CREDIT: Courtesy of the San José Obrero School
Another school stumbling over connectivity issues
Connectivity is the main problem for the 73 students at the school in the small town of Samo Alto, in the Andes foothills area of the municipality of Rio Hurtado, 440 kilometers north of Santiago.
“We are educating 21st century children with 20th century resources and technology,” Omar Santander, principal of the primary school, told IPS by telephone.
“The connection to the global world does not exist. You turn on a computer, log on to the network and all the other computers disconnect. It is impossible to work online. We have computers and tablets, but there they are, and they can only be used with resources and programs downloaded ad hoc,” he said.
The students cannot communicate and “these are gaps that keep us from providing greater opportunities,” he said.
“The lack of computers is the smaller problem. We have achieved internet efficiency and we have the equipment. The big problem is connectivity,” Santander stressed, adding that an antenna they made to capture the signal was not enough.
He said that “last year when we held hybrid classes, half at home and half at school, one day we tried to connect and it was a terrible disappointment.
“There is a wealth of information, of pedagogical resources available to students that unfortunately we don’t have access to,” Santander complained.
The principal explained that “everything that has to do with access to resources that enrich reading, writing, calculus and mathematics is there and we cannot make use of it.”
From the San José Obrero School, Santiago de Chile can be seen in the background, under a cloudy sunset after a recent rain on the first day of the southern hemisphere winter in Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS
More than internet access
Luciano Ahumada, head of the School of Informatics and Telecommunications at the Diego Portales University, said that “reducing the digital divide goes far beyond having an internet plan.”
“It also involves promoting the use and daily impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to maximize people’s well-being. It is a much more complex and time-consuming challenge than access,” he told IPS.
In his view, “we must work on access, but also on economic, ethnic and gender barriers and establish a framework concept of cybersecurity or basic concepts in the population to live in a healthy way in this new world.
“There is an economic gap, an age gap, an ethnic gap, which in different countries has become very evident,” he said.
Ahumada said that “access is just the starting-point. It is a good initiative, necessary to massify internet access, but we must think about massification of high-speed connections because with networks of the past we cannot carry out actions of the future and establish the basis for an information society.”
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 27 (IPS) – The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted lives all over the world. According to this report, gender is emerging as a significant factor in the social, economic and health effects of Covid-19. Women have been hit much harder socially and economically than men. The greatest and most persistent gender gap was seen in employment and uncompensated labour, with 26% of women reporting loss of work compared with 20% of men globally in September 2021.
Phumzile Mlambo-NgcukaUNESCO has projected almost 11 million girls might not return to school due to Covid-19’s unprecedented education disruption. This alarming number not only threatens “decades of progress made towards gender equality, but also puts girls around the world at risk of adolescent pregnancy, early and forced marriage and violence,” states this report. As almost 90% of the world’s countries have shut their schools in efforts to slow the transmission, this study estimates that 20 million more secondary school-aged girls could be out of school after the crisis has passed.
“The world has changed, and these changes are impacting women. Poverty has deepened, the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women are under attack, climate change is upon us, and changes in technology are also disproportionately impacting women. The world is facing a gender divide,” says Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Chair of the Board at Women Deliver and former United Nations (UN) Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women in an exclusive interview given to IPS News.
The impact of Covid-19 pandemic has threatened to reverse decades of progress made towards gender equality. Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka says, in the last decade the world was heading in the right direction including addressing extreme poverty, but now things have changed.
“The pandemic has hit women disproportionately and young women, women are now facing food insecurity in a significant way, and of course we’ve seen that the conflicts have not ended, they have escalated. We have the war in Ukraine, and as you may know any situation that creates a humanitarian crisis, women are always likely to be the ones that pay the price more than men bearing arms. Women and children tend to be affected much more and then of course an increase in gender-based violence in trafficking of women,” says Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Women have faced compounding burdens from being over-represented working in health systems, to facing increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine. Women have been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic as they make up almost 70% of the health care workforce, exposing them to greater risk of infection, while they are under-represented in leadership and decision-making processes in the health care sector.
This crisis and its subsequent shutdown response resulted in dramatic increase in unpaid emotional and care burden on women and families, women were already doing most of the world’s unpaid care work prior to the onset of the pandemic, only to have it increased since 2020.
Worldwide, women lost more than 65 million jobs in 2020 alone, resulting in an estimated US$800 billion loss of income, an estimate which doesn’t even include wages lost by the millions of women working in the informal economy – domestic workers, market vendors and garment workers – who have been sent home or whose hours have been drastically cut. COVID-19 has dealt a striking blow to recent gains for women in the workforce.
“Honestly, my heart goes out to our young people today just because of the difficulties we are facing. I do want to challenge older people like myself to really open the space through collaborations and co-creations with younger people, their involvement and engagement should not be token, but real.
“It’s important for us to mobilize allies from the other side so that it is not always women who are knocking on doors, there must be someone inside who is trying to open the door for you. Working with men and pushing an agenda for men to stand for gender equality is also very important. I go back to emphasizing on the need to have policies, we always must open a door for more people to come in and be empowered,” says Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Whether it is balanced political participation, leadership roles in organizations or power-sharing between women and men, Dr. Mlambo-Gnuka believes the answer lies in setting targets, quotas and policies for effective participation and representation of women.
“We need to have mechanisms for accountability towards those who are responsible for implementing these measures, and we also need women themselves to continue making demands, we must balance what happens in boardrooms policy wise and outside through those who are carrying black cards.
“It’s hard to talk about progress but you cannot deny that there are more women leaders than before, that’s for sure there are more women in the labour force, more girls in schools, but our best is not good enough, there is still much more for us to do,” says Dr. Mlambo-Ngcuka.
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 17 (IPS) – Gynophobia is defined as an intense and irrational fear of women or hatred of women, it may be characterized as a form of specific phobias, which involves a fear that is centered on a specific trigger or situation, which in the case of gynophobia is women.
After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, in August 2021, the Taliban completed their shockingly rapid and forced advance across Afghanistan by capturing Kabul on 15th August. What followed this takeover has since then been a series of human rights violations, humanitarian catastrophe, roll back on women’s rights and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort. The country has also been enduring a deadly humanitarian crisis, with malnutrition spiking across the country with 95 percent of households experiencing insufficient food consumption and food insecurity, according to this report. The number of malnourished children in Afghanistan has more than doubled since August with some dying before they can reach hospitals.
According to this report, 9 million people are close to being afflicted by famine in Afghanistan, millions have gone months without a steady income. Afghanistan’s economic crisis has loomed for years; the result of poverty, conflict and drought. This, combined with a sudden drop-off in international aid, has made it more tough for Afghans to survive, adding to this list is illicit opium trade and the worrying drug addiction, an ongoing challenge for the country.
However the priority for the Taliban was not saving the economy and the country from these disasters, instead under the cloak of religion, it didn’t take too long for the fundamentalist group to focus and display its misogynistic gynophobia towards the women and girls in the country, as it was expected. What Taliban fears, yet again, Afghan girls attending school beyond 6th grade, a decision directly affecting 1.1 million secondary school girls, depriving them of a future.
Taliban officials have also announced women and girls would be expected to stay home and if they were to venture out, they would have to cover in all-encompassing loose clothing that only reveals their eyes, making it one of the harshest controls on women’s lives in Afghanistan since it seized power in August last year. They fear women journalists so much, they ordered all female newscasters to cover their faces while on air.
International rights groups, Human Rights Watch says the list of Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls is long and growing. Amongst many that have been listed, include appointment of an all-male cabinet, abolition of the ministry of Women’s Affairs and replacing it with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Banning secondary education for girls, banning women from all jobs, blocking women from traveling long distances or leaving the country alone. “They issued new rules for how women must dress and behave. They enforce these rules through violence,” it stated in this report.
Women in Afghanistan since last August have been fighting back, through protests demanding the right to work and to go to school.
Sara Wahedi“We don’t need any more condemnation”, says Sara Wahedi, CEO and Founder of Ehtesab, Afghanistan’s first civic technology set up. “It is infuriating because most Afghan women knew this would happen, and we told the international stakeholders if they wanted to deliberate with them (the Taliban) then to have very specific points that would keep the Taliban accountable, that never happened, and now there are these flood gates where they are doing what they want to do, they are repeating everything from 1996.
“We know what is happening is terrifying, it’s unjust, it’s inhumane, what is the international community going to do to facilitate accountability measures now,” says Wahedi.
In 2021, Wahedi was named one of the Next Generation leaders by TIME Magazine, her mobile app, Ehtesab, crowd-sources verified reports of bombings, shootings, roadblocks and city-service issues, helping residents of Kabul to stay safe. As a young tech entrepreneur, Wahedi says she is amongst the few who got her education and the freedom to do what she wanted, as the times were different
“I feel incredibly guilty, I think most Afghan women who are out of Afghanistan, who were able to pursue education to the highest level feel a crippling sense of anxiety and guilt. Education is ingrained in our psyche right from the time we are born from our parents, but for our country it was also different because we have seen war, we have seen instability, it is even more pertinent to get out of this life, all Afghan girls, they know this and to have it taken away from them so violently, it’s obviously affected their mental health, and I feel an inexplicable level of guilt to be in this position,” Wahedi says.
Women and girls have continued to bear the brunt of restrictions under the Taliban and their imposed doctrine, as seen in the past. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHCR) in this report said, “What we are witnessing today in Afghanistan is the institutionalized, systematic oppression of women.”
In this interview given to CNN, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister and Taliban’s co-deputy leader since 2016 said, “We keep naughty women at home.” After being pressed to clarify his comments, he said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other side to bring the current government into question.”
With the Taliban coming into power, there is no doubt that the women in Afghanistan will continue to face an uncertain future and in order to avert the irreversible damage being done to the female population, international communities and organizations must not just condemn the Taliban, but also hold them accountable and speak up on behalf of Afghan women, before they are all forced into invisibility. Whatever little progress was made by women in Afghanistan, the Taliban have through their rules and policies reversed them, pushing women towards invisibility and exacerbated inequalities against women. What they fear – women being educated, being seen, having an identity, agency, work, job, rights, freedom and their ability to hold them accountable. The realities of life under the Taliban control, whatever the timeline may be, remains the same.
Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.
MONA, Jamaica, Jun 17 (IPS) – On Monday June 20, there will be an informal high-level UN meeting to mark the commemoration of the first International Day for Countering Hate Speech.Hate speech is a phenomenon that can be defined as threatening speech or writing expressing prejudice towards a specific group, primarily based on race, religion, or sexual orientation.
As a black undergraduate student from Jamaica, especially being a part of Generation Z, I have experienced countless attacks in the form of hate speech. This phenomenon has grown immensely over the years, taking different shapes and forms. One major reason for this is the advancement of technology, and more so the creation of new media or social media.
However, what is interesting is that the same platforms used to immortalize hate speech can also be used to combat it in creative ways. We must realize that we are an unhappy generation of young people.
Because of the contrasting beliefs and viewpoints that we have surrounding identity, we are constantly struggling to embrace each other’s uniqueness. Sadness consumes us and acts as a catalyst for hate speech. Which, if left untreated, catapults into violent behaviors.
We are often unimpressed by the power of language and uninterested in how our speech can cause harm. Many reasons come to mind when I think about why the contagious disease of hatred continues to spread.
One main reason is the lack of education, which stems from being socialized in a way that glorifies hate and celebrates violence. This is not an idea based on mere observation but rather the reality for many Caribbean people — including myself— who were raised in vulnerable communities.
The sad truth is, the individuals tasked with taking care of us were themselves brought up in toxic environments that failed to teach them how to properly engage with other people, especially those who may be different from them.
Therefore, the need to voice any dissatisfaction was almost always done in a way that exudes hate. This is what they learned. And indeed, this is what they know.
It is like a full circle: older generations teach us, their children, to express hate, and so the cycle of hate continues. Although there are many ways to combat this viewpoint that promotes hate speech, including via institutions of socialization such as schools and churches, other stakeholders have a role, including the media. They are needed to grow a community of emotionally intelligent and understanding people.
From a Caribbean perspective, hatred spreads because of negative stereotypes emerging from our history, for example, through colonization. Negative stereotypes see some groups or individuals as being different or inferior to others.
For example, a lighter-skinned individual is given a job over a dark-skinned woman like me. Or a man is given more pay than my friend who is a woman who is equally qualified.
Harmful stereotyping fuels hate speech and appears when we see the idea that one group is superior and another inferior. This has pitted us against each other, and to reinforce this, we take to social media and spew hateful comments to individuals hailing from groups viewed as “less than.”
Unfortunately, this way of thinking has been embedded in our minds and without the desire to unlearn these tendencies, hate speech — and ultimately violence — will persist.
Hate speech is one of those problems that can influence society and develop into something worse. Hateful phrases and casual racist comments — the language used to highlight our distaste for something, or someone, are all-powerful, impactful, and dangerous.
Especially when many people believe them. Hate speech, if left to flourish, can lead to grave acts of violence on a large scale. And it is no secret that hate speech contributes to hate crime.
Therefore, we need innovative and creative ways to combat hate speech. I believe that both traditional and new media can provide support. For instance, by conceptualizing and creating educational, fun, and engaging programs on television and radio for young people.
But to convince youth, they must believe that whoever is sharing this information with them understands their circumstances and that the story told to them is relevant to their lives.
With cultivation theory in mind—a theory that suggests that individuals who mostly consume television programs are more likely to perceive the real world in a way most commonly depicted in television messages, we could argue that constantly showcasing programs that show acts of hate speech as unacceptable, could have a positive impact on viewers which can influence their behavior.
With the rise of social media, the transmission of information is as fast as the speed of light, and sadly hate speech, or cyberhate, follows closely behind. There has never been a time that I have been scrolling on social media that I did not come across some offensive speech. It is alarming that a single person does not engage in hate speech; rather it is often a large group of individuals—perhaps due to misconceptions and misinformation.
Creative campaigns via social media platforms can also help to combat the problem. This will not solve the issue; however, social media can be used to fight hate speech through “counter-speech.”
That is sharing easily digestible content focused on inclusivity, equality, and diversity. Imagine funny videos teaching youth how to respectfully disagree with each other, or ‘live’ sessions with influencers speaking about their experiences with hate speech.
Live sessions with influencers utilizing humor and creative campaigns would be pretty powerful nowadays and could also make a very accurate statement so loud that young people would be forced to listen and pay attention to it.
A lot more can be done, for instance, by creating codes of conduct that would somehow influence online behavior. The ultimate goal would be to educate youth so that they want to be respectful and not indulge in hate speech.
I can see and imagine a society filled with love, peace, and understanding. While there is no singular cure for hate speech, my wish is for young people to stand up and fight against it so that this disease will have no place in our society.
We must rethink and redefine our ideas about identity, gender, and race. And those working together to create new pressure points to tackle hate speech need to listen to the voices of young people.
The author is a social media strategist, radio host and producer, and undergraduate student of the Integrated Marketing Communication program in the Caribbean School of Media and Communication at the Mona Campus in Jamaica of the University of the West Indies, a member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI).
To learn more about the issues and the work the United Nations is doing to counter hate speech, visit Hate Speech | United Nations. Please join the #NoToHate campaign to counter hate speech (feel free to use assets available here)
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