Category: Advanced Enrichment

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Inspiring Action in Quality Education (Goal 4)

Quality Education is very crucial for nearly all aspects of our developing societies. However, it seems that girls and children who live in poverty or difficult circumstances do not have a chance to enroll and get the education that they deserve. But although those children and girls are struggling to get to schools, there are many people and NGOs around the world which are helping to solve parts of this problem.

Mohammed Ayub teaches children from slums at his makeshift school in a park in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 12, 2015. Ayub turned a promise to his dying father to make sure his siblings got an education into a life dedicated to teaching the less fortunate of the city.

(Photo from Newsela article) 

For Instant, in Pakistan, there is a promising man who has been helping thousands of Pakistani people get the education that they have longed for. He is Mohammed Ayub who is a 57-year-old government worker. The inspiration for opening an open school at the Pakistani Capital is from his father, who had a request for him to get all of his siblings a good education. One day when he saw a boy working and washing the table in a shop, he started thinking “He is not different from my brother”. After all, he began to teach the boy and constantly asking new people who do not get access to education to study with him. First, he started to teach for about one hour to two hours a day at the market. Then, he moved to different other places because his school takes up the space of others. Those students who have finished studying in his school later return to help teach the younger generations. In addition, there are several other volunteers who helped him with this Out-In-The-Open School program. Overall, he has left a great influence on his students and the people around him, leading him to win a national award called “Pride of Performance ” from a worker for the prime minister.

Another significant project is from lady Michelle Obama from the United States. She said that the US will help 200,000 girls to get to school. Obama has a strong passion for developing education for girls and started launching the help in Pakistan which gained a huge praise from the government of the country. She also leads a program called Let Girls Learn which will help about 62 million girls to get an education. In support, there are several other countries including Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom that are willing to help run this program by supporting the financial field. Obama has inspired and been a great role model for many girls and has left a huge impact in the education development field.

For more information related to this text, read this two articles: 

https://newsela.com/read/michelleobama-pakistan/id/12669/

https://newsela.com/read/pakistan-teacher/id/8163/

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Philippines Research

In our Asian study class, a student needs research about a particular country in ASEAN nations (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). I was assigned to work on Philippines and Here are the statistics and information that I found during my research: 

The GDP per Capita is 2988 USD (2017) 

The Population is 91.7 million (2009)  

Philippines is called the “Pearl of Orient” (Hong Kong and Saigon are also being referred to as the Pearl)  and due to its great natural beauty. 
Its hottest month is May (30 Celsius), the coldest month is January (26 Celsius) and the wettest month is August with 140 mm of rain. 
There are four climates in Philippines including Tropical Rainforest, Tropical Savanna, Tropical Monsoon and Humid Subtropical. 
Since Philippines is a country with beautiful natural landscapes, there are a lot of mountains, islands, and other natural resources. 
The highest mountain of the country is Mount Apo (it is one of the best climbing destinations), it is an active volcano along with Sierra Madre which is the longest mountain range.  
Another breath-taking project that will be constructed soon is the architecture project of Shell-Inspired Tourism Site. It is still a design proposal and will take a lot of time to construct due to the complex designs. 

This is a picture of the proposal design, Shell-Inspired Tourism Site.

( photo by Archdaily.com) 

 

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Goal 1: No Poverty| Angola Poverty Research

According to Un.org, there are 836 million people who live in extreme poverty and 783 million people live below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day. When it comes to the word “Poverty”, most people would think of the condition of being poor. On the other hand, poverty is much more than just the lack of income and resources. It includes hunger, malnutrition (the state of being lack of nutrition which causes physical health problems), limited access to education, discrimination from societies as well as the right to make decisions. (Un.org) To help the tremendous amount of people who live in poverty, Goal 1 has set a clear target which is to “End poverty in all its form everywhere”.
In SDG class, we are required to choose a particular country and research about goal 1 in that country and I chose Angola, the least-developed country in Africa. Here is what I got from my research of Angola:

9/18/2018

                                       Angola Poverty Research

Poverty in Angola
Fun Fact: Angola is the largest but least-developed country in Africa (Borgenproject.org)

In 2008, Angola’s poverty rate at the national poverty line is 36.6%. It is interesting when talking about poverty in Angola because its economy is blooming because of the oil industry. However, poverty becomes a concerning topic in Angola because many Angolans are living in extreme poverty.

Talking about economic bloom, Angola is a country with extremely rich resource. It is the second largest oil producer in Africa and the fourth country with the most diamonds. In addition, the country also has a huge amount of lumber, fish, and minerals. These are probably the major causes of the booming economy of Angola.

Despite the great industry of resources, Two-Thirds of Angolans population live on less than $2 a day and they did not give that much value to the industry.

The government of Angola claims that the poverty rates have dropped; however, corruption is still a major factor. There are many questions like “Where has all the money go?”

One of the causes of poverty in Angola is the civil war between 1975 to 2002. This civil war left a huge tragedy for Angola, causing countless deaths and millions of internally displaced people. This war destroyed nearly all of the development in each factor including healthcare( There is only 1 doctor in 10,000 people), education, economy, etc. Talking about healthcare lacks, it is one of the major factors that cause poverty in Angola. Many people are hard to find treatments when they are sick. Some died because of sickness and some do not have enough energy to work which caused the work rate to boost. Therefore, there are many more works that need to be done to rise up the economy to meet the international standards.
Angola has been ranked 149 out of 186 on the poverty scale by The 2016 Human Development Index Team. In fact, 94 percent of rural households are categorized as poor since the poverty in Angola rises in the rural areas.

Talking about the topic of electricity, there is an extremely low rate of electricity access, especially in rural areas. There is only 6% of rural households that are accessed to electricity. Water is also one of the major problems in Angola. The amount of people who are not accessed to safe water resources is 38 percent of the population.

Many children do not have access to education which causes employment really difficult. 34.6 percent have unequal access to education.

The other cause of poverty is because of the high fertility rate. Therefore, the education rate is so low.

https://borgenproject.org/poverty-angola-causes-updates-statistics/
This is the best website I used for this research. For more information, you can go and check.

 

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Researching about SDGs

SDG is an advanced enrichment that provides us with deeper lessons and researches about Sustainable Development Goals. These are the goals that are proposed by the United Nations in 2015. There are 17 goals in total such as:
1-No Poverty
2-Zero Hunger
3-Good Health and Well-Being
4-Quality Education
5-Gender Equality
6-Clean Water and Sanitation
7-Affordable and Clean Energy
8-Decent Work and Economic Growth
9-Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
10-Reduced Inequalities
11-Sustainable Cities and Communities
12-Responsible Production and Consumption
13-Climate Action
14-Life Below Water
15-Life on Land
16-Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
17-Partnerships for the Goals.

The 17 goals are very crucial targets in order to develop a sustainable well-being in the globe in many aspects. In order to establish those goals well, we need a great amount of collaboration from all of the countries, citizens and students to learn, apply those goals in real life. More importantly, we need to continue sharing the lessons of the SDGs to other people so that we can build a large community of support and practice. All of the countries can work toward the goals together without thinking about economic status, religions or culture because they are goals for worldwide growth as a whole globe and not for one particular country.

Why was the UN (United Nations) created after World War II?

 

(Wikipedia) 

The United Nations officially formed on the 24th of October, 1945 after world war II in the purpose of preventing another huge conflict (Un.org). The United Nations is a huge organization that aims to corporate and communicate with many governments in order to secure peace. Their three main goals are
Secure peace
Eliminate poverty
Protect Human Rights.

 

As our first week of the class, we got to choose a goal for deeper researches about that one specific goal and I chose goal 8 which is Decent Work and Economic growth in Angola and here is what I found from my research:

Angely
Teacher: Samantha
9/4/2018
SDG
                          Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
Half of the world population is living with the average 2$/day. In most of the places, people who have a job doesn’t always mean they can escape from poverty. This concerning topic of unemployment and the slow development of the economy requires an SDG goal in this field