Education
Sponsor Child Graduates Top of His Class!
Across Canada, June is graduation month. From big cities to small farming towns, teens are moving those tassels from right to left, grinning ear-to-ear as they stride off the stage of their childhoods and into the boundless world of adulthood. Moms are crying. Dads are cheering. Siblings have mixed feelings. But everyone is proud!
International Day of Education
In the past, we in Canada may have been tempted to take education for granted. Of course our children will go to school when they turn five or six and stay in school until they graduate at the vibrant age of 18, ready to take on the world—or, at least, university. But after nearly two years of rolling COVID-19 lockdowns, school closures, and various versions of online-only or hybrid learning, we’re no longer so quick to assume anything when it comes to our children’s education. “From its early days, the pandemic has been a terrible study in inequality, so it seems inescapable that the world’s poorer countries would bear the heaviest costs. But kids also disappeared from classrooms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.”1
Building Back Brightly
For students in rural Cambodia, pandemic lockdowns have closed schools and have made learning a disjointed and difficult process. Schools have been mostly closed since the onset of the pandemic, jarred by reopening and closing again. The substandard education experience for children in the community weighed on the Prasat Krohom Meanchey village chief, Mr. Chhoeun Ngoun. “While COVID-19 was spreading through the community, 19 schools were temporarily closed and left children out of in-person school,” he explains. But Chhoeun had a plan to help kids continue learning together outside of school.
Better Together
Over the last three years, Food for the Hungry (FH) Canada has spearheaded an innovative and collaborative online platform called endingpovertytogether.org. In this virtual arena, over 40 Canadian organizations who participate in poverty alleviation contribute dynamic educational resources for Canadians in search of healthy ways to address poverty right here in our own country.
From the Horse's Mouth
Sometimes you need just the right expression to ‘hit the nail on the head’. Check out these local idioms from FH-partnered communities — ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’! While they don’t come from your ‘neck of the woods’, you might just find they are your ‘cup of tea’.
Overcoming Discrimination in Burundi
Meet Ananie. She’s a sweet 16 year old living in Burundi. Ananie is a hard worker who is doing quite well in school; she expects to graduate high school in two years. Her mom proudly boasts about Ananie’s strong character and position as a role model in their community. If you met her today, you’d probably never guess her back story.
Beyond Bricks and Mortar in Changing Education
Rural communities in Burundi are well overdue for some serious education upgrades. Normally, when we think of education resources, we imagine fully equipped classrooms, smiling teachers, and freshly sharpened #2 pencils. Creating a dynamic educational environment requires all those things, and so much more