Three Incredible Resources
Three Incredible Resources
– Not to be missed
A – “It’s a Girl”
today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are
girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls(1) are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.
neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands
of their own husbands or other family members.
tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in
combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.
reveals the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being
done to save girls and women.
trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave
mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would
kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in
context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively
lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.
B – “Schooling the World – The White Man’s Last Burden”
About the Film
SYNOPSISIf you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would
you do it?You would change the way it educates its children.The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native
American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build
schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced that school is the
only way to a ‘better’ life for indigenous children.But is this true? What really happens when we replace a traditional
culture’s way of learning and understanding the world with our own? SCHOOLING
THE WORLD takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply
disturbing look at the effects of modern education on the world’s last
sustainable indigenous cultures.Beautifully shot on location in the Buddhist culture of Ladakh in the
northern Indian Himalayas, the film weaves the voices of Ladakhi people through
a conversation between four carefully chosen original thinkers; anthropologist
and ethnobotanist Wade Davis, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence;
Helena Norberg-Hodge and Vandana Shiva, both recipients of the Right Livelihood
Award for their work with traditional peoples in India; and Manish Jain, a
former architect of education programs with UNESCO, USAID, and the World Bank.The film examines the hidden assumption of cultural superiority behind
education aid projects, which overtly aim to help children “escape” to a
“better life” – despite mounting evidence of the environmental, social, and
mental health costs of our own modern consumer lifestyles, from epidemic rates
of childhood depression and substance abuse to pollution and climate change.It looks at the failure of institutional education to deliver on its
promise of a way out of poverty – here in the United States as well as in the
so-called “developing” world.And it questions our very definitions of wealth and poverty – and of
knowledge and ignorance – as it uncovers the role of schools in the destruction
of traditional sustainable agricultural and ecological knowledge, in the
breakup of extended families and communities, and in the devaluation of elders
and ancient spiritual traditions.Finally, SCHOOLING THE WORLD calls for a “deeper dialogue”
between cultures, suggesting that we have at least as much to learn as we have
to teach, and that these ancient sustainable societies may harbor knowledge
which is vital for our own survival in the coming millennia.
C – Barefoot Teachers Training Program
October 8, 2013 8:37 pmLearning how to count or sorting out the alphabet
can sometimes be taken for granted.
Yet in some parts of the world children will never
step foot into a classroom.With the help of a unique teaching program, India’s
poorest kids are getting an education and now the University of Manitoba is
looking to help.
“They set up schools in some very impoverished
communities, under roadways, overpass, if it provides some form of shelter they
will set up a school there,” said Dr. Jerome Cranston, the Acting Associate
Dean of Education Undergraduate Programs at the University of Manitoba.Earlier this year Cranston travelled to Calcutta
with his research assistant to learn more about the Barefoot Teacher Training
Programme.The name stems from the belief you only need your
feet to walk.The program doesn’t focus on theory. Instead it gives
people in some of the poorest neighbourhoods practical tools to teach children
who would otherwise never get an education.One place they teach in are brickfields, where
children endure painstaking work to help their families survive.“The seven months they will spend in a brickfield
school, which is only a couple of hours a day, is their only experience of
schooling,” said Cranston. “They will not attend another school in their life.”With financial help from the University of
Manitoba, Cranston put together a three part documentary on the innovative
teaching methods used, including helping integrate predominantly spoken
languages into villages..It’s an idea that some people say could work on
First Nations here and in Canada’s most remote communities.“Taking a person from an indigenous community and
training them to be a teacher within their own community is not something we
focus on here,” said Elise Ahrens-Townsend, Cranston’s research assistant who
also travelled to India.Cranston is working to set up a course through the
U of M with the program in India to give students a different perspective on
teaching methods.“Doing work but also going over there with a sense
of humility and learning from them,” said Cranston.
It was also not possible to separate learning from the daily life of the families. Imposing western cultural values is not the way to operate. One! International has aspects of the Barefoot Teacher Training Program. The aim of the education that is provided by One! International is not to produce doctors. The goal is to provide future options for the children and their families.
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