A normal Wednesday for me usually involves some laundry, some grocery shopping, maybe a walk in the park, and a jigsaw or a game of hide and seek with DorkySon.
Yesterday was a little different. I went to Downing Street.
I was one of six Save the Children campaigners who went to hand in a petition calling on David Cameron to sign up to the Charter to End Extreme Hunger.
I had the great opportunity to travel out to Babile, a strip of land that divides the Somali and the Oromia regions of Ethiopia.
This land has been hit by ongoing drought for over a year now. It’s also home to thousands of pastoralist families, who are surviving drought and harsh weather.
Water is extremely scarce here; so people need to move according to water availability.
I was keen to find out how the weather has affected children’s experiences and their access to education.
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Schooling against many challenges
I visited a school and spoke to children of all ages, their teacher and community members.
The school has three grades and caters for children from as young as three, as well as their older siblings up to the age of 21.
This used to be one of our project areas under Bridges, a DFID-funded programme involving a system of ‘networked’ and mobile schools that cater for children’s pastoralist lifestyles, ensuring that school moves with them.
Bedria is the eldest of her siblings. In this photo she carries the youngest one. Bedria’s only experience of education was a month in school, many years ago. Now she looks after her family and often takes care of the cattle. She wishes she could go to school, but then, who would feed her family? Bedria doesn’t want to marry and told us she will resist any attempt.
School drop-outs
The only teacher in this school has been teaching for many years, often teaching under trees until the local government built the existing school.
The teacher said that once children have gone away for a few days to fetch water, the likelihood of them ever going back to school is reduced. Some would come back, some would get involved in other activities, while girls over 14 years old might get married.
He was very clear that the drop-out rate is about to increase and that Babile has not yet seen the worst effects of migration to other areas with more water.
Children’s education in this very dry region tests parents’ willingness to prioritise education when children are needed to support the family with essential house chores or cattle rearing.
All the children I spoke to want to stay in school and they want their friends who have dropped out to return to school.
They want a well or other source of water to reach them soon, so that they don’t have to keep moving and can stay in this school.
Speak up for education
While the ongoing crisis in East Africa means that other life-saving work has more prominence than education, it is still essential that we hear more about what education means for the region’s children.
Missing out on education will have a big impact on their lives, as well as on their resilience and development, so we need to speak up.
Many girls in the flood-affected areas of Sindh have never known a true childhood; they have all had to grow up very quickly. The only way to protect their future will be to make good quality care and education available to them.
Niger is facing a potentially deadly food crisis. Families are struggling to feed themselves and the early warning signs are signalling a looming food crisis. Unless the international community acts quickly, our team will see more cases like Aouta, a two-year old boy recently treated for acute malnutrition by our team.
The Horn of Africa is currently experiencing the most severe food crisis so far this century – 13 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are affected, hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation, and some estimates place the death toll at 50,000-100,000.
There were warning signs as early as August 2010 but almost across the board they were not significantly acted upon until well into 2011, despite East Africa’s longstanding propensity to drought and food insecurity.
Nine-year-old Mark was swept out to sea in December 2011. The tropical storm that struck his village in the Philippines destroyed his house, and several of his family members are among the estimated 1,200 dead. Save the Children is working with local partners to support children affected by the disaster.
Today Save the Children, ONE, Oxfam and African’s Act for Africa will be leading a twitter takeover during PMQs from 12-1.
We need as many people as possible to tweet using #PMQs and #hungercharter with the aim of taking over the #PMQs twitter feed and getting the hunger charter trending.
Despite missing meals, shoes or even pencils and paper, children arrive daily at 8am.
Their goal is to finish their school year, which has been interrupted by the violent conflict in the Nuba Mountains.
Nakale missed out harvesting her sorghum this year and is now scavenging for lalok (wild fruits) to make ends meet. The lalok fruit Nakale gathers from trees close to her boma (village) for her and her children are of little nutritional value. The fruit can cause diarrhoea in children, but there are few alternatives.
Children are fleeing their homes in Sudan’s Blue Nile state, seeking safety from bombs and violence. In South Sudan, the needs of refugees and returnees are countless and urgent; children need and have a right to food, water, shelter, recreation and education.
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