Category Education

It was meant to be a ground-breaking year for gender equality, but COVID-19 widened inequalities

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Suhana Khan teaching children from her extended family in Kesharpur village in Rajasthan (India). Photo Credit: © Bodh Shiksha Samiti

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 24.07.2020 (IPS): Sixteen-year-old Suhana Khan had just completed her grade 10 exams in March, when India imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, she has been spending her mornings and evenings doing household chores, from cooking and cleaning to fetching drinking water from the tube well.

“I am really missing school. Nearly half the year has gone and we have no books and no teachers to teach. We don’t know if and when we will be able to resume our studies,” Khan, from Kesharpur village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, told IPS. The disappointment is palpable in her voice. While teachers at the local government school are supposed to conduct online classes, most of the 350 households in the village have only one mobile phone with internet connectivity, which male members in the family take to work.

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The Future Pacific Island Children Want

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Teenager Karen Semens from the Federated States of Micronesia.

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 5 2020 (IPS) – For 13-year-old Karen Semens, growing up on Pohnpei — one of the four main island states in the Federated States of Micronesia, which comprises of more than 600 islands in the western Pacific Ocean — the main challenge is being a girl.

“In our culture, girls don’t have the same rights and opportunities nor do they get credit and recognition for their achievements as boys do. This prevents us from speaking our minds. For example in family meetings, only men make the decisions. I would like all girls to be treated as equals and have a say in decision making,” the 8th grade pupil from the Ohmine Public Elementary school in Pohnpei, tells IPS.

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Conference Calls for Mainstreaming Human Rights Education

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 03.12.2018 (IDN-InDepthNews) – More investment is needed in human rights education and strengthening of civil society to address inequality and sustainability – the main objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This was the key message from the Ninth International Conference on Human Rights Education (ICHRE) held in Sydney, Australia.

Drawing inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which marks its 70th Anniversary this year, the ICHRE 2018 (November 26-29) recommended all stakeholders to mainstream human rights education as a tool for social cohesion towards peaceful coexistence; and strive to bridge the significant gap between integrating human rights education in the curricula and its implementation.

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