An online journal for sharing good stuff I've come across, along with projects I'm working on, in the hope that you might like them too or at least find them interesting.
Elsewhere
Free & Equal advances gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights by seeding, supporting and linking sexuality rights defenders and their organizations.
The Global Campaign for Education is an international coalition of nongovernment development and children’s rights organisations and education unions.
In the UK the Campaign works to increase community awareness of the state of education internationally and generate the political will necessary to ensure the UK plays an active and effective part in efforts to secure education for all.
I'm a trustee of Read: The Reading Agency, whose mission is to inspire more people to read more. Read works with public libraries, publishers, unions, businesses and broadcasters to support reading.
Read's Big Book Share supports prisoners choose a book and then make a recording of themselves reading it, which is then given to the prisoner’s children. Reading can help to keep the family bond strong and can help an imprisoned parent to be a positive role model to his or her children.
In Nepal, Sunil Pant started a small group to defend the health and sexual rights of men who have sex with men, and metis, a Nepali term for transgender people. He found that more than HIV and STDS endangered them, though. Police patrolled cruising areas and raided private rooms to torture and brutalize "effeminate" people they despised.
Things worsened after a 2006 coup made it open season for men in uniform to terrorize anyone "different." Despite threats and abuse, Pant and his organization kept fighting. They built alliances with human rights groups and drew international attention to the crisis. They brought a case to the country's Supreme Court that, in an earthshaking 2007 ruling, mandated full equality for LGBT people across Nepal. And when democracy returned, Sunil Pant was elected to Nepal's Parliament-the first openly gay lawmaker in South Asia.
Sunil's campaigning for the rights of Nepal's sexual minorities continues with the announcement this week that he'll host a weekly TV show on youth and LGBTI issues, the first of its kind in Nepal. That and the fact that with Sunil's support, Kathmandu will host its first gay wedding.
There's a nice article on Sunil's work over at Fast Company.
Last year I led the development of Our global future, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' international policy and strategy. It brings greater coherence to ATL’s existing international efforts at the same time as identifying new areas of development and growth.
It sets out three goals for the union’s globally focused work, including:
supporting the professional development and global awareness of our members
working with education unions overseas to achieve their goals and ours
contributing to the global dimensions of educational policy and supporting member engagement and activism on global issues.
I’m now responsible for implementing these goals. There’s a link to the full document below.
After a significant and much talked about delay, it finally feels like Spring has arrived in this part of the Northern hemisphere. We're just back from a superb beach holiday in Wales during which we were blessed with warm, sunny days and I spent today in the garden sowing seeds. All of which has definitely contributed to an enhanced sense of optimism and possibility. And in that spirit I thought you might like Everything is Possible. It's a lovely, animated short video for Teesside High School here in the UK. The short promotional video was animated and directed by Peepshow, with Art Direction by Jenny Bowers. Make sure you have the sound on so that you can hear all the kids’ goals for the future.
At a Parliamentary event yesterday I spoke at the launch of a Education for All: A call for UK action. The UK has been a global leader in education and the call to action setrs out what more the UK needs to do to play an effective part in securing the education Millennium Development and Education for All Goals.
The document draws heavily on existing GCE UK policy engagement with DFID including our submission to the education strategy development process. It outlines some principles which we’d like to see evidenced by the UK and then sets out five policy calls:
More and better aid for education
A global financing initiative that can deliver Education for All
Improve educational quality, equity and inclusion
International economic policy reform that supports education for all
Action to address the global literacy gap
Matar Baldeh, National Coordinator of the EFA Campaign Network in The Gambia provided a Southern perspective at the Parliamentary event, stressing what’s been achieved to date and the importance of continued UK engagement. Mr Baldeh will be participating in the upcoming Fast Track Initiative (FTI) Board meeting and said that he was optimistic that necessary reforms will be made to improve the governance structure of the FTI and greater participation of civil society at the Board level.
DFID Minister Mike Foster reinforced the UK’s ongoing commitment to ensuring education for all. He noted that the meeting was taking place in the same spot that the UK government passed an act to ensure that all British people had access to education 140 years ago, which I thought was a nice touch.
Shadow Development Minister Geoffrey Clifton Brown MP also spoke as did Malcolm Bruce MP for the Liberal Democrats. Mr Bruce is Chair of the International Development Select and showed an excellent understanding of some of the key issues for the UK in making meaningful and effective commitment to achieving the education goals.
All participants agreed that 2010 was a crucial year for education given the exposure that the 1Goal campaign will generate around the World Cup as well as the MDG Review Summit taking place this September. This meeting will provide a key moment for the international community to agree on steps that should be taken to ensure the MDG targets on education and gender parity are met.
Mike Foster also confirmed that DFID’s new education strategy on which the GCE worked closely with the government on developing will be launched in early March 2010.
We're celebrating Mothers' Day here in the UK today which I thought provided a good opportunity to highlight the perils of motherhood in general and childbirth in particular for women in many parts of the world. So here are a few facts:
Every minute a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth.
Pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death and disability for women in developing countries. While maternal mortality is a global problem, 99 percent of maternal deaths occur in developing countries where the lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 76, compared to 1 in 8,000 in industrialized countries.
When a mother dies, her child's survival is threatened. Infants of mothers who do not survive the delivery are more likely to die within two years. Every year, an additional two million children worldwide are maternal orphans.
Maternal mortality has long-term implications on a child's education, care and health. When a mother dies, enrollment in school for younger children is delayed and older children often leave school to support their family. Children without a mother are less likely to be immunized, and are more likely to suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth. The implications for girls tend to be even greater, leading to a continued cycle of poverty and poor health.
Low-cost, low-tech interventions have an immediate and meaningful impact for mothers and newborns. Skilled care by nurses, doctors or midwives before, during and after childbirth – including family planning, skilled health worker attendance and emergency medical services – are cost-effective interventions that would prevent 80 percent of maternal deaths. A package of maternal health services costing less than $1.50 (U.S.) per person could make significant improvements in women's health in the 75 countries where 95 percent of maternal and child deaths occur.
I was very proud of the maternal health work that Interact Worldwide, which I used to chair, supported around the world. Thankfully the situation is improving, albeit not nearly fast enough, thanks in part to services like Janani a free ambulance service which takes pregnant women to government hospitals and community health centres in rural India. Asha and her baby Budhiya whose photo you saw at the beginning of this post are some of the project's recent beneficeries.
August 18, 2010
