Open Letter to South Africa's President from Equal Education Members

This Friday, South Africa's Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, is due to publish Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. These will set out the most basic standards for infrastructure that schools in South Africa must meet. Today, the organisation Equal Education, shared the following video on youtube. It shows schoolchildren reading an open letter to President Zuma, on why he needs to ensure that Minister Motshekga goes ahead and publishes the Minimum Norms and Standards.

Earlier in the year, Minister Motshekga released a draft of the Minimum Norms and Standards. However, the draft was too vague, and did not give proper details of the standards schools would need to meet. To understand more about this, as well as to learn more about Equal Education's campaign, here is an earlier video:

To gain a further insight into the standards of some schools, it is worth watching Equal Education's video of a Solidarity Visit to schools in the Eastern Cape, lead by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba:

The standards between schools in South Africa varies greatly. I attended Public Hearings held by Equal Education in Cape Town, back in March. Teenagers from schools in Cape Town told everyone of how their schools lacked science labs, libraries and sometimes functioning toilets. However, there were gasps and exclamations of shock from them, when they were shown some photos of schools in the Eastern Cape.

There is a countdown to the publication of Minimum Norms and Standards on Equal Education's facebook page. I am waiting with anticipation to see what will happen on Friday!

Resources for a School in Argentina

It has just been confirmed - I will definitely be working on some projects in Argentina next month! It will be great to go back.

I will also have the chance to distribute items to an under-resourced primary school, in the province of Cordoba. I have brought donated items to this school before, and the children always seemed so pleased with the new stationery, and would crowd around the teacher who was giving out the items to each class!

Some items a volunteer collected for this school a couple of years ago.

I am based in London, and if anyone would like to contribute some items for the school, I would need to receive them by 6 December. I know this is all such short notice, but it has only just been confirmed! If you do want to help, you can either leave a comment below, or contact me through the details on the "about" page. Any items will be so much appreciated!

If anyone has any ideas either of where I could get some suitable school resources in bulk, or where I could advertise the collection, please let me know. I wish I had a bit more time to arrange all this!

I think of all the resources that were available to me at my school, and how little these children have in comparison. I really hope to be able to collect some good resources for the children at this school.

Travel Theme: Fragrant

I have been reminded of a day in Muizenberg, Cape Town, back in March, thanks to finding Ailsa's weekly travel themes! These week's theme is "fragrant". (Follow that last link, if you want to take part too!)

One early morning, I joined the founder of Seawind Educare, Rita, for a surf walk, along with children (and their parents) from the Educare's three creches. The salty fragrance of the sea air was nice and refreshing!

Surf Walk along the beach at Muizenberg

I like the fragrance of the sea and the beach. It reminds me of my early student days, as I did my undergrad degree at Aberystwyth, by the sea. However, I can honestly say that I never walked along the beach at around eight in the morning, when I was a student, like I did for Rita's surf walk in South Africa!

The beach at Aberystwyth

After the surf walk, Rita had arranged to take the children to a nearby resort, with a playground, bouncy castles, face painting and other activities.

Bouncy castle, near Muizenberg

It could hardly be described as "fragrant",  but the "plasticy" smell of the bouncy castle did remind me of when I was little and played on bouncy castles. So whilst not a particularly nice scent in itself, it did bring back memories! It was great to see the children enjoying themselves.

I am really glad I could join Rita for the surf walk. She does amazing work with  disadvantaged children in Cape Town, and has continued with it all, despite the fact that it has been quite a challenging year (more about that here). I admire all that Rita does to help children!

I found Ailsa's travel themes though Lucid Gypsy's blog. I am grateful for this, as it was nice to think back to that day at Muizenberg beach.

Coats in time for Christmas!

Today, I spent a few hours sorting through children's coats at a storage depot, for the Wrap Up London campaign. It was amazing to see how many people had donated coats - both for children and adults, and I was glad to think that some people who did not have coats will now have them over the cold winter months. These coats will be distributed to homeless shelters, refugee centres, and other charities, which have partnered with Wrap Up London.

Sorting through some of the coats

This is just a short post, to keep up with the NaBloPoMo challenge of blogging each day, throughout November! I have a work deadline for Monday, and I am also arranging things for a charity stall, but I will try to write some longer posts soon! Earlier this month, I wrote some posts about the Wrap Up London campaign, and also about what matters at Christmas. Another NaBloPoMo blogger had inspired me to write about Christmas! Today really reminded me of this, as it was great to see the spirit of giving - both in the way that so many people had donated coats, and also because people were volunteering their time to sort through those coats. I am really glad to know people who truly care about others, and who will go out of their way to help them!

A Play about a Childhood

This week, I went to a play, called I Declare at My Own Risk, written and performed by Alina, a young Roma actress from Romania. I met Alina through a movement supporting Roma rights in London. Her performance was truly amazing, and she shared episodes of her life which took place from when she was ten years old. She shared the difficulties she went through, after her family was evicted from their home, and also shared her experiences relating to exclusion and acceptance of her identity, as a child, a teenager, and as a young adult.

There is a really good video about Alina and her play here.

It was a very powerful performance!

If young people were actively engaged in all aspects of society...

If children and young people were really actively engaged in all aspects of society, how do you think the world would change?

Screenshot from a slide shown at Michael Furdyk's Taking IT Global session, during the
Global Education Conference.

A major barrier preventing children and young people becoming actively engaged in all aspects of society, is that adults may not see their input and participation as valuable. Their engagement will then not be encouraged. In this sort of atmosphere, it is unlikely that children and young people will see themselves as being "community leaders, problem-solvers, role models, mentors and key "stake-holders"." Society is missing out on a great opportunity when it excludes young people. As one teenager said, at the Annual EuroChild Conference last week, older people have more experience, but younger people can contribute fresh ideas. This seems like a great combination! 

Excluding young people means that they may be denied a sense of belonging. The implications of this can cause issues impacting the whole of society. If a group of people gets the feeling that nobody wants to listen to them, then dangerous, or anti-social behaviour may become appealing - because these excluded people might not feel a sense of responsibility to a society that does not respect them, or maybe they want to try to make a statement, in an attempt to be heard by everyone else!

A group of young people giving a presentation on youth participation at the Annual Eurochild Conference, November 2013.

Another issue is that governance systems across the world are structured in a way that constrains youth participation and leadership. Whilst addressing young people at a youth leadership forum, called Youth 21, former South African President, Thabo Mbeki said:

"It would obviously be unnatural that I, a member of the older generation, would easily and willingly accept that younger people, my own children, should, at best, sit side-by-side with me as co-leaders, fully empowered to help determine the future of our people."

However, he encouraged young people to organise and ready themselves, to take up leadership roles and to overcome the attitude of older generations. 

I think the world would be a better place if we made the effort to enable children and young people to participate, and to become actively engaged in all aspects of society. How do you think the world would change if we did this?

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The picture of the quote above, was taken from a session at the Global Education Conference. This conference is online and is free to attend. Live sessions are taking place until the end of tomorrow (22 November) and there are recordings from earlier session this week. If you are interested in education issues, I definitely recommend taking a look at the conference site.

State of Children's Rights in England Report launched on Universal Children's Day

Today is Universal Children's Day. The annual State of Children's Rights in England Report is also being launched today, by the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE). The Report is a review of the Government's progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in England. Shockingly, CRAE found that:

"Of the 118 areas identified as needing Government action, 88 of those areas have made no progress or have gotten worse in the last 12 months."

CRAE has also been tweeting some facts, taken from the findings of the Report. These include:

"Babies with fathers who are shelf stackers almost twice as likely to die as those born to professionals. http://bit.ly/1b3dFxW  #SOCR13"

"65% of child deaths that were caused by ‘deliberately inflicted injury, abuse or neglect’ were avoidable http://bit.ly/1b3dFxW  #SOCR13"

More information, along with a link to download the Report can be found here. Key findings are given here.

I am attending the launch, as I was involved in doing research, and drafted some sections of the Report. If you want to follow the discussion surrounding the children's issues raised by the Report, the twitter hashtag is #SOCR13 and CRAE's twitter handle is: CRAE_official The launch begins at 16.45 GMT.

I am looking forward to the launch this afternoon, and to hearing the speeches about the state of children's rights in England. The findings that CRAE has tweeted so far, show that much must be done to protect children's rights in England.