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Posts Tagged ‘Education’
Young immigrants have a DREAM
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Writing in U.S. Catholic, Fr. Tom Joyce relates the story of Rigoberto Padilla. Rigo came to this country at 6, and eventually became an honor student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was caught running a stop sign after drinking beers, and, as an undocumented immigrant, had no driver’s license. ICE came upon him as he was locked up in Cook County Jail, and an immigration judge quickly ordered his deportation.
A campaign ensued among his fellow students and faculty at UIC to allow him to stay in the country, at least to finish his education – he is a junior and sociology major. One interesting aspect of the protest in favor of Rigo was that many of the organizers were in the same situation – undocumented students who were brought to this country at young ages. Like Rigo many no longer had effective contacts to their country of origin, may be had never even visited it, and see themselves as “Americans.” Now he can stay to finish his education, but there are many in our schools who have similar histories to Rigo’s.
Program aims to break culture of violence in Nepal refugee camps
Monday, November 30th, 2009Indian Catholic reports on the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nepal, and how JRS stepped in to break a cycle of violence, drug and sexual abuse that had been plaguing thousands of ethnic Nepali youths from Bhutan living in refugee camps in East Nepal.
JRS field director Father PS Amalraj, told UCA News that young people are vital to conditions in the camps. “The power of the youth can either build or destroy the refugee camps. Keeping this in mind, we established one youth friendly center in each camp and we now have 14,000 members,” Father Amalraj said. The YFC initiative consists of education in journalism, television presenting, sports, music and awareness of HIV/AIDS and other social issues.
‘Eyes of Hope’ offers vision of understanding, education
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009Photojournalist Linda Smith wanted to develop an art program for children that utilized photography and had the potential to be successfully conducted in third world countries. As a result of her research and vision, the Through the Eyes of Hope Project was born in 2007. The project has two goals: to teach basic photographic principles to extremely disadvantaged children and to educate children who are interested in learning about the children of other cultures. “Through the Eyes of Hope Project” provides cameras and photographic workshops to children in Rwanda and U.S.
Eyes of Hope Kids is a blog where children in the “Through the Eyes of Hope Project,” exchange photographs and videos from the U.S. and Rwanda.
Their blog is meant for the children in the project to meet and interact with each other. Visit the blog by clicking here, and visit their main page above.
UN: ‘Humanitarian perfect storm’ brewing in Southern Sudan
Thursday, August 13th, 2009Spiraling inter-tribal conflict, a massive food shortage and a budget crisis have converged to create a humanitarian emergency in southern Sudan, putting at least 40 percent of the local population at risk, a senior United Nations official warned yesterday.
A “humanitarian perfect storm” is how Lise Grande, the UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator in the region, described it during a news conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
“Southern Sudan is facing an almost unmanageable set of problems,” she said. “A lot of good work is being done… despite this, we just can’t keep up.”
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA runs the Kajo Keji Education and Community Development program in Southern Sudan. The program aims to to develop the school, community, and government capacity necessary to ensure that quality education is provided as a basic right to school aged children, with an emphasis on girls’ education, through management and technical support to schools and school officials, teacher training, structural improvements to school facilities, the distribution of school materials, and activities encouraging the involvement of the local community in support of education.
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JRS Thailand reaches out to migrant children
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009The Bangkok Post has an excellent story about Jesuit Refugee Service/Thailand and their efforts at one of six learning centers for Burmese children supported by JRS.
In 2002, the JRS initiated the learning center program after recognizing the difficulties migrant children face in attending Thai schools. It helps build and maintain community-based learning centers, support teachers salaries, provide school uniforms, books and sporting gear, and grant scholarships to outstanding students to study in Thai schools.
Since 2006, the program has added the learning of Thai language in order to prepare Burmese children to attend Thai schools. Teaching Thai language is an effort to enable the youngsters to communicate in Thai, adjust to Thai culture and choose to further their studies in Thai schools.
Bill Clinton in Haiti
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009Former President Bill Clinton recently visited a school operated by Catholic nuns in Haiti where children are educated to break the cycle of poverty that entrap families for generations.
Clinton visited Marguerite Naseau school, which is sponsored by the Christian organization Food For the Poor, in Cite Soleil, Haiti, on March 9. During his visit, he reminded students that Haiti was once the richest island in the Caribbean.
