Education

In Southern India we have a project underway to improve access to health services, education and community support.  The region has many of the social issues typical of a developing nation including poor health, employment insecurity, domestic violence, uncontrolled crime, lack of opportunity for higher study, personal debt and high suicide rates. 

Many local development organisations in PNG have failed over the years for want of a sound system of leadership and administration.

Government expenditure on defence and foreign debt servicing have been an enormous strain on the Pakistani budget, leaving only 1.9% spent on health and 2% on education. Healthcare is scarcely regulated and beyond affordability to much of the nation’s most vulnerable.  Likewise, the education sector is frail, with less than half of all students completing primary school.

In a country where half of all households are clustered around the poverty line, the needs of the poor are many.  Labour is one of their few assets, but opportunity for employment is often limited by lack of education and cultural barriers.  If provided with the means of attaining a good job, they have the chance to earn their way out of poverty.

As humanitarian crises have lifted in Sri Lanka, national development has shifted its focus toward building a strong economic core in the private sector and diversifying rural livelihoods.  Positive demographic transition has accompanied the drive toward middle-income country status but now poses some challenges regarding aged dependency.

The Jogini tradition has been part of southern Indian life for many centuries.  It is recognised as a form of modern day slavery whereby girls as young as 4 years-old are dedicated in marriage to a local deity and must then prostitute themselves to men as an act of worship.

Menstrual management can be difficult at the best of times.  Women with no disposable income may use multiple pairs of underwear, kitchen sponges or dirty rags in place of tampons and sanitary pads.  Due to the unhygienic nature of these ‘pieces’, they regularly experience rashes, sores, bruising and infections.

Years of conflict have worn away Myanmar’s educational foundation.  Within schools, teacher turnover is high, lessons are ill-prepared and academic standards are low.  Many displaced children lack the skills and aptitudes that will help them find a job, particularly where schooling has been disrupted or discontinued.

Upon leaving school, many clever and capable young minds are deprived of their career ambitions due to a lack of education and employment opportunities.  Despite working 6 full days a week in menial labour, they earn barely enough to maintain a subsistence lifestyle.

In the rural midlands of South Africa, schools are under resourced and ill-equipped to reach their fullest potential in secondary education.  This project has been launched in recognition of the need to address poor quality teaching and learning of Mathematics and Physical Science throughout impoverished townships in the area.

Despite Sri Lanka’s remarkable social progress in literacy, life expectancy and infant mortality, success in generating economic growth has somewhat lagged behind. Underemployment and underachievement has arisen in rural areas where opportunities for higher education and career advancement in modern industries are few

In areas where books are scarce but telecommunication networks are emerging, a cloud-based library platform offers an innovative alternative to shipping large volumes of literature to the developing world.

Until recently, the closest primary school available to students in a remote Indonesian village was 5km away across steep and treacherous terrain. Each week the children would make the journey and sleep in makeshift huts every night before returning back to their home village for the weekend. This was a difficult situation for the community who expressed a strong desire to build their very own primary school.

As in most developing nations, Sri Lankan society carries a certain degree of stigma toward the disabled, especially those with a congenital impediment or missing limb(s).  In spite of free public health services, the provision of prosthesis and orthotics for disadvantaged individuals does not attract any government funding but is instead heavily reliant on the non-profit sector.