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Helping To Educate Africa’s Poorest

Posted by Paul Yeenie Harry on October 05, 2006

The world is unequal in many different ways – in terms of wealth, health services, education, and so forth. It’s an open secret that almost everybody recognizes these gaps. Not only that! More and more people are beginning to talk about the need to narrow these gaps. In fact, there have been numerous debates and discussions about how to go about narrowing these gaps.

However, in my opinion, the major challenges facing the leaders, policy framers and decision makers of the world are threefold: the first is WHAT to do to narrow, or eradicate, these differences; the second is HOW to do it, and the third is the WILL POWER to do it.

In September of 2002, the leaders of the world, meeting at a United Nations conference, set and agreed to eight specific goals, termed Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, for short. The purpose is to make the world better in the 21st century than it had been. One of the goals – the second goal, actually – is about achieving universal primary education. The target is to ensure that children, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015.

No doubts, this goal is quantifiably and realistically achievable. But according to the 2005 MDG Reports, fewer than two thirds of children are enrolled in primary school in sub-Saharan Africa. In Liberia, statistics indicates that illiteracy rate is at least seventy-percent.

Four years have passed since the world’s leaders agreed on primary education for all children everywhere, but the poorest of the poor are still not able to get their elementary education.

Is the world capable of helping to educate, or even to feed, the children of developing regions, like sub-Saharan Africa? Yes, the world is more than capable. The means is there. It’s not about asking God to perform miracles in making the resources available to help the poor – there resources are there.

If the resources are there, many wonder, then why is it that there is still a huge number of children that are of school-going age but are not in school, especially in Africa? According to UNICEF, about 117 million children are not in school, among which are 62 million girls. What could be responsible for this? I don’t pretend to know all of the answers, but I will point out a few here.

Firstly, the world’s leaders are good at making promises but are worse at keeping those promises. And there are many reasons for this. To begin with, the leaders generally lack the will power to fulfill their pledges. For example, international political bickering, indecisiveness, and the mere reality of preference to talking than to acting are some of the factors that cause them to be bereft of the will power to fulfill their promises. Another reason is that leaders usually have misplaced priorities. They prefer spending billions of dollars on security and defense, for example, than spending millions of dollars on education.

Secondly, the people of the world are not only becoming more materialistic; they are also becoming more selfish. Generally, speaking, they don’t find virtue in helping others. This selfishness comes in three basic forms. There is the I-me-and-myself mentality, where everyone thinks only about himself or herself, and no one else. They don’t care what others are suffering, or are in need of. There’s also the me-and-my-family-only syndrome, where those with this mentality think that only their own families matter in the existence of mankind. Even if they had surplus, they would still think that only their families should have it, and none else. Then there is the only-my-country mentality. People in this category think that only their countries should have the best things of the world, and not any other country, or the peoples of other countries. They just don’t care what others go through in other regions – it’s not their business and problem. This is the world we find ourselves in.

The selfish tendency mentioned above usually leads to materialistic spirit. Generally, people want more of almost everything, without even thinking that there is somebody out there who needs, or could survive, only on one-hundredth of what they have. They want to have and have and have, and never willing to give. There is another problem. Many people do not only want more of almost everything; they also want the best of material things they see. If they want to buy cars, for instance, they want the ones that cost thousands and thousands of dollars, or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Does this mean that there aren’t sympathetic and selfless individuals out there, whose major desire is to help those in need – to share what they have with others? Of course, there are.

A Polish lady recently remarked, “I spend thousands of Polish Zlotys on family holidays every year. So, I started thinking: why can’t I use just a few Zlotys to send a Liberian child to school?” Now, she’s sponsoring two Liberian children.

Another lady, an American, told me, “Paul, I buy at least five pairs of shoes every year, each costing at least a hundred dollars. And I heard that the cost of paying a Liberian child’s school fees for a whole year is less than the cost of a pair of shoes. That’s why I have decided to help one child from Liberia.”

The statements from these two individuals, and similar statements from other individuals not mentioned, indicate that there are people out there who are trying in their individual capacities to help the needy and to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Not only is it in the interest of the world to help reduce poverty, but it is also their moral responsibility to do so. And some people recognize this.

I believe that the most assured way of breaking, or getting out of, the cycle of poverty is to give the individual good education. That’s why I also believe that the Millennium Development Goal on education is one of the most important goals, as the realization of almost every other goal, more or less, rests upon it.

Educating Africa’s poorest — those greatly affected by the man-made problems of the world — is cheaper than anyone can imagine. Just a little amount can do a whole lot for a child and his family and, by extension, the world we live in.

That’s why individuals and institutions of good will are being enocuraged to help educate the children of the poor families in Africa. Giving food and clothes to a child today, though important they are, only brings individual benefit today. But educating a child today brings about both individual and group benefits, both for the present and for the future.

Allow me to rest my pen for the next article.