Education and Poverty

One of the most profound ways to break the cycle of poverty is to provide quality education for children.

Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister, hoped the U.N sustainable development goals (SDGs), a set of global targets that will be finalized later this year, would contain clear objectives and receive solid funding to turn promises into reality.

“Fifteen years ago we promised the children of the world that they would get to go to primary school. We are still 58 million kids short of that promise and around 250 million are getting some education but not achieving the most basic literacy and numeracy,” Gillard said.

Gillard understands that just funding the construction of schools, or investing in innovative technology is not enough: “… but there is no point at the end of the day having kids sitting in something called a school if they are not learning,” Gillard said.

Teacher training and professional development, curriculum and assessment practices, instructional materials, books, and the appropriate use of information technology would help tackle what she called a “learning quality crisis”. Measurement and assessment were also key.

Gillard says that education’s share in global humanitarian funding has declined, from 2.4% in 2011 to 1.4% in 2012. Aid to education had fallen by almost 10% since 2010 compared with a 1.3% decline in overall development assistance worldwide.

“The sharp decline in global aid to education must be reversed. We must push for the political will to reprioritize education aid,” she said.

The need to refocus on quality and inclusiveness has to be a priority for all nations, including the U.S. The truth is that we have many in our rural towns, suburban centers and cities across this land where Native American children, children with disabilities, children from a wide range of ethnic groups and immigrant populations, are not receiving the quality education that is needed to break the cycle.

Leaving' on a Jet Plane

Thailand: A Land of Beautiful Promise

As I sit here in the middle of the plane near the rear, with my knees tucked between my ears (yes, I’m in the cheap seats, friends… because, well, I’m cheap), I still feel the thrill of travel. I love going half way around the world or even just down the street to new places—found a gravel path off Hawthorn I had never run before last Tuesday. Great fun! I always learn something! I always meet someone who impacts my life for good. I always eat something that challenges my taste buds! Even in KC, new restaurants keep expanding my horizons—actually my mid-section—and my gastronomical curiosity. But I digress. I am awesomely privileged. Fabulously Blessed. 

Millions of people on our planet will live their entire lives within 25 miles of where they were born. For many, it will be a short life, riddled with disease and suffering and violence. I will meet children over the next 15 days that have survived, escaped and overcome child labor, human trafficking, lack of legal identification, and barriers to opportunities such as education.

Those especially at risk are from minority groups in remote or very poor areas, often along Thailand’s borders with Cambodia, Lao and Myanmar. The legal minimum working age in Thailand is 13. By Thai law, employment of children at night between the hours of ten p.m. and six a.m. is prohibited. Yet, I will be on streets alive with children begging, and selling flowers, and playing flutes, and working in the back of restaurants, and looking pretty.

In many of the slums of Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, and Chiang Dao, staff members from non-governmental organizations report a large number of children who work on the streets at night, literally have no choice. The adults responsible live a shadow life, sometimes in the shadow of Buddhist Temples and corrupt public officials. Many different Thai governmental and NGO organizations are trying to change that. Sustainable Hope International is one such organization. Their passion is education.

Dinner. Thai Style!

Going beyond sixth grade is itself a personal accomplishment for every child in rural Thailand. The pressure is enormous on a thirteen year old to be a source of income for the family. Sustainable Hope offers children becoming youth, growing into adulthood, the opportunity to stay in school. To go one more year. To graduate from High School and maybe go to a vocational school or university. And every year a young person stays in school, it makes a huge difference in their life—and ultimately in the lives of family members, other relatives, neighbors, and communities. Because educated young people give back. They change living conditions. They bring in income not imagined. They develop critical thinking skills that see solutions to problems not considered before.

I am running in the Hospital Hill Run June 2 in support of the passion, the goodness, the cause of Sustainable Hope International in their quest to provide educational scholarships and grants to children living in the poorest of circumstances. Will you join me? Your contribution to Sustainable Hope can change a life! Pledge today. Join me on the finish line race day (it will take a while—be patient)—we’ll go find a new restaurant to challenge our taste buds. And we will count our blessings together… because if you are reading this, you are already better off than 75% of the world’s population!

The Power of Wet

A Korean Water Clock

On a recent run, I found myself craving water.  Not quite in the pains (or pangs) of dehydration, but rather a desire to drink deeply. Since I was on the Little Trace close to Sonic, I swung by. The kids who work there know me as the old fart that comes huffing and puffing up to the door begging. A tall cup of cold aqua was waiting, along with a smile and a friendly tease from one of the young’uns. They know I like tap water. I tell them we have the best water in the world. It’s true!

Last winter our fair city entered the International Water Olympics and won the bronze medal against a field of 77 waters from all over the place. (If you don’t believe me look it up--http://www.ci.independence.mo.us/Story.aspx?id=2896)

For 130 years Easter Jackson County folks have been blessed with water supplied from 41 wells located at the Courtney Bend Water Treatment Plant. The wells receive water from the Missouri River Alluvial Aquifer. And it is GOOD.

However, much of the world, while having access to water, has to deal with polluted, diseased, dirty water. And children die every day because there is no clean water source. Diseases from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. 90% of the 30,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are of children under five years old. Many of these diseases are preventable. The UN predicts that one tenth of the global disease burden can be prevented simply by improving water supply and sanitation.

Today, I leave for Thailand where I will meet children who have faced such conditions. They come from village in northern Thailand to attend Welfare Schools. Their surroundings are vastly improved. But unless there is additional intervention, most are back in their village by the time they are 15—as street kids—or worse—as sex slaves or forced labor. Sustainable Hope International is trying to change that. Working with School administrators and government programs, the folks at Sustainable Hope are changing lives one child at a time. How? By offering scholarships for continued education. Education that would not be possible without the support of groups like Sustainable Hope.

Instead of returning to a life of poverty and despair, Sustainable Hope gives a young person to the opportunity to dream and grow, and some will even become engineers—to improve the quality of water. In their village and the villages around them.

Korean Light House off Jeju Island

With safe water children become healthy, and strong, and curious. They are free to pursue new opportunities and improve their families’ lives. Kids can earn their education and build the future of their communities.