The youths with their mothers

Two youths from Cambodia will be sharing their personal experiences of disasters at a global summit held in Geneva, Switzerland between May 19-23.

Hengmeang, 18, and Sophoeurn, 17, will make the trip overseas to share their experiences and opinions at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, a forum through which governments, NGOs, scientists and UN agencies exchange ideas and best practices on how to build a disaster-resilient future for everyone.

Sophoeurn says

"I live in Siem Reap province, Cambodia. I am studying in grade 11. My village experiences floods, drought and storms. I am a leader of the children council at my school. I am so glad to have the opportunity to attend the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) in Geneva on 19-23 May. I hope I will have a chance to share and learn from other children about implementing disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities in schools and communities. I especially want to see children’s voices heard and accepted by participants.

"From my point of view, the participation of children and young people in DRR is very important as children can be leaders or decision-makers to contribute to development in their own communities now and in the future. In addition, when children and young people know how to reduce disaster risks, they can better protect themselves from different kinds of risks and they can also help with DRR activities that can make communities and schools safe. To give you an example, I lead the children’s council at my school and together we worked with the local commune council to put DRR into the commune investment plan. I strongly suggest to the government and NGOs to listen to children’s voices because only children can understand their own problems and needs.

"The future that I want is to live in a community where government leaders know and support DRR and allow more children and young people like me to participate in identifying risks, planning for disasters, implementation and reviewing what difference it all makes."

Hengmeang says

"I live in Kampong Cham province in Cambodia. I study in grade 12 at High School and I am a leader of the Child Advocacy Network (CAN) and a member of the Young Council Cambodia (YCC). I am very happy that I was selected to participate in the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) in Geneva.

"My expectations for the global platform are: first to get new experiences from other children around the world working on DRR; and second to learn new solutions to reduce disasters affecting children. I plan to share with other children my knowledge and experience on disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Cambodia at the global platform.

"If I have the chance, I want to share my experiences of promoting children’s rights in Cambodia, which I usually do by training other children to help them understand their rights.

"I believe children’s participation is very important because only children can tell adults about their suffering. Many children are very vulnerable and they can lose their lives when disasters happen in their community. I, along with other children, want to live in a place where the community and schools are safe from any kind of disasters. Please involve children in disaster risk reduction activities."

Read the Plan press release to find out more about Plan's role at the Global Platform for Disaster and Risk Reduction

Follow @planglobal for the latest from the event

Plan Chief Executive Officer Nigel Chapman meeting youth delegate Rosita from El Salvador

10 May 2013: This year's Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI) summit  was bigger and bolder than ever. Held in the Turkish capital, Istanbul, where West meets East with a flourishing financial sector, it attracted over 400 delegates from some 102 countries, many of them youth and child representatives and beneficiaries of the range of financial education initiatives the movement supports.

Plan was well represented with delegates from Africa, Asia, Europe, USA and Canada. It was a pleasure to meet them and learn more about our work - they are full of energy and commitment and recognised for their innovation.

Our work was showcased and praised in numerous sessions. As a founder member of CFYI, Plan has been in the forefront of leading the charge to improve financial education, starting in many cases at primary school and working increasingly with older children and youth.

Money managing skills

CYFI is the brainchild of child finance guru, Jeroo Billimora, and in its short life of around 3 years has built a social movement of government, finance professionals, non-governmental organisations, education specialists, and entrepreneurs to fight for the inclusion and advancement of money managing skills in schools and other training programmes.

It is also fostering the need for training in schools and colleges to enable young people to start up small and medium sized businesses - many to be run by young entrepreneurs.

Young ambassador

One of the youth delegates addressing the summit was Rosita, 17, from Chalatenango in El Salvador. She was accompanied by Nadia Escobar, the social marketing specialist from the Plan team, and together they briefed me and the audience on the value of schools savings and finance education.

Rosita is one of around 75 children and young people in her school benefiting from regular coaching on money management and developing skills to start a small business.

This work is using tried and trusted techniques developed by the pioneering civil society organisation, Alflatoun*, with which Plan works in many countries. Alflatoun in turn is a key player in the CYFI movement.

Investing in dreams

Rosita told me how the programme had given her access to banking and more. She said: "It taught me the value of money. And the effort you have to put in to earn and then save it. Financial planning and saving is a vital tool for me if my dreams are to come true."

Rosita explained that Chalatenango is a poor part of El Salvador, some 2 hours drive from the capital, San Salvador. But there are opportunities for industries which cater for tourists as well as developing leisure-based goods, such as making handicrafts.

She is thinking of starting a greetings card business as she has talent as a designer and painter. She also wants to train as a teacher.

Business creation

"My training at school is helping me think how to create my own business. I am feeling more confident about doing this after being part of Plan's programmes," she said. "It only takes a few hours of time a week in the curriculum to do this."

I also met other youth and child delegates from Plan Thailand and Plan Norway, all of whom were shortlisted for prizes at the annual awards ceremony.

With opportunities being constricted for so many young people and the resulting jobs deficit, it is good to see Plan being recognised for its work scaling up financial and business literacy, and a pleasure to meet with such persuasive ambassadors for our programme on the global stage.

Learn about Plan’s global economic security work

Find out more about the Child and Youth Finance International summit*

*Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites

Hengmeang (left) and Sophoeurn (right) with their proud mums.

9 May 2013: Two Plan-supported students will be flying the flag for Cambodia to share their experiences of disasters at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction* in Geneva, Switzerland, 19-23 May.

Seventeen-year-old Hengmeang and 18-year-old Sophoeurn will be making the trip overseas to share their experiences and opinions - including at the Resilient Future We Want high level side event, which is being organised by the Children in Changing Climate coalition, including Plan International, Save the Children and World Vision.

On a mission

The students, who will join 6 other young delegates invited by the coalition, will get a rare opportunity to come face-to-face with major global players to talk about the importance of involving children in disaster risk reduction activities. Cambodia experiences a wide range of disasters every year, including floods, storms, drought and landslides.

“It’s really a great honour for me to participate in this event,” says Hengmeang, who comes from Kampong Cham and helps other youngsters find ways to get involved in disaster management in his community. “When I get the chance, I will tell everyone that child participation in disaster preparedness is vital because hundreds of children are drowned by floods every year,” he adds.

Making children central to community disaster risk reduction initiatives is a founding principle of Plan's work in Cambodia.

“Involving young people in disaster risk reduction is easy and can take many forms. Children can get involved in mapping hazards in their communities, they can raise awareness through games, radio and drama performances, and they can influence others, including parents and teachers, on how to reduce the effects of disasters,” says Pevxhenda Bun, Plan’s Regional Safe School Project Manager in Asia.

Safe schools

Sophoeurn and Hengmeang will also be on hand to present a statement at a side event about safe schools. High on the agenda will be discussing ways to ensure education facilities are as safe as possible for when disasters strike. This ties in with the UN’s One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals Campaign, which Plan is heavily involved with in Asia.

No stranger to the international circuit, Sophoeurn last year travelled to Yogyakarta in Indonesia to be part of the 5th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. Once again, Sophoeurn, who comes from a small village in Srei Snom district in Siem Reap, can’t wait to make her voice heard.

“I’m very excited. I will raise the issues faced by children in my village during the conference. I hope the voices from children will be heard and supported,” she says.

* Plan is not responsible for the content of external sites.

The meeting issued a new standard for girls' education: all girls learning and achieving in a safe and supporting environment

A call to action to promote gender equality in education

7 May 2013: No country should be left behind in ensuring gender equality in education, reflect UNGEI’s Nora Fyles, Plan’s Yona Nestel and the Global Partnership for Education’s Koli Banik, following the recent global education summit.

What are key challenges that prevent gender equality in education?  What evidence do we need to make an investment case for girls’ education and gender equality – at the global and national level?  What actions should be taken now to accelerate progress in the 1,000 days left to the Millennium Development Goals deadline?

These were some of the questions discussed at the ‘gender equality in education’ roundtable held during the recent Learning for All Ministerial Meetings* in Washington DC, USA. The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative* (UNGEI) and Plan International convened gender and girls’ education experts to discuss the emerging trends and challenges in girls’ education, progress made to date, and the necessary actions needed to achieve gender equity and equality in education in the run-up to the 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals* and beyond.

Trends and gaps

Nora Fyles, Head of the UNGEI secretariat, set the stage by assessing the trends and gaps in girls’ education in the 8 countries that participated in the Learning for All Ministerial Meeting: Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

“These countries have general strategies and/or policies in place on gender equality, and in most cases these include an education-specific policy on gender. But only a few of these countries have specific policies on girls’ education,” Fyles said.

Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan, for example, either have a policy or commitment on girls’ education planned or ‘in progress’. But there is insufficient evidence in terms of implementation of these policy commitments, and little if any reference on how these strategies will be funded.

Gender parity versus equality

In many of these countries, specific objectives for achieving gender equality were missing entirely from education sector plans. In others, a narrow and unambitious articulation of gender equity goals meant issues of quality were falling off the track. It shouldn’t be a choice between parity and equality.

Christine Beggs, Senior Education Advisor at USAID, commented that one has to look beyond gender parity. “There is a need to examine gender equality, education opportunities, and learning outcomes. Also, what is enough? What should the global ask be?

“Is getting girls through lower secondary school enough, or should we be targeting secondary school completion and viable economic opportunities?”

Getting girls into secondary school and having them complete it is an issue in all of the 8 countries, except Bangladesh. There has been a successful expansion of primary education for girls. But a significant gender gap persists in secondary enrolment.  In most countries, the transition between primary and secondary school sees girls’ enrolment drop sharply. Specific barriers, especially relevant to girls in the age and stage of adolescence are the biggest challenges to gender equality.

Barriers to adolescent girls

School-related barriers faced by girls identified by the 8 countries are common across the developing world. These include fees and other direct costs, gender-based violence in and around the school, distance to schools, and the lack of trained female teachers.

Other barriers have a direct impact on girls’ access to school and achievement in school lie outside of the school and the education system. Poverty, for example, remains the primary reason why girls drop out of school. Girls from minority language groups, living in remote areas and girls with disabilities are also excluded in these countries as in many others.

Early and forced marriage was also seen to be a particular issue with strong links to girls’ continued participation in school.  In order to ensure girls succeed in school, these barriers need to be addressed through comprehensive, well-funded, policies and strategies. These strategies then need to be integrated into country education sector plans.

Effective strategies

For example, financial incentives for girls to attend and stay in schools have proven successful in many countries. Building new schools to reduce distance, improving toilet facilities, and sensitising the larger community are other strategies that have shown to be effective.

Sumaya Saluja, a Youth Advocate with the Global Education First Youth Advocacy Group added that, “There is evidence on the positive impact that comprehensive sexuality education has in engaging boys, empowering girls and raising awareness on issues of gender-based violence, early and forced marriage and early pregnancy.”

“Much more needs to be done to ensure that education is truly gender transformative. Gender sensitive curricula and pedagogy and a focus on 21st century skills that support girls’ economic, social and civic aspirations are necessary,” said Yona Nestel, Senior Education Advisor at Plan International Canada.

Call to Action

The Call to Action for gender equality in education that was issued after the meeting puts forward  a new standard for girls’ education, including a minimum of 1 year of early childhood education and a minimum of 9 years of primary and lower secondary school with opportunities for life-long learning.

It calls for strategic efforts to combat gender-based violence including early and forced marriage and other forms of abuse faced by girls. The Call to Action also requested that the Special Envoy support the UNGEI and the Global Partnership for Education, with their partners, in working together to create a platform for advancing girls’ education.

No country should be left behind - the new standard is all girls learning and achieving in a safe and supportive learning environment.

Learn about Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign for girls’ education

*Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites

Children being supported at the special information helpdesks

1 May 2013: Plan and Save the Children have set up helpdesks for children with parents caught up in a building collapse in Bangladesh.

Hundreds are still missing after the Rana Plaza, which housed clothing factories near Dhaka, crashed to the ground last week, killing more than 300 people.

Around 3,500 people were thought to be in the garment factories when the building collapsed. More than 2,000 people have been rescued, while around 1,200 are listed as injured.

Helpdesk support

Trained staff will run 5 special information points around the clock. “We are doing everything we can to get young people the information they need and to reconnect them with surviving parents and family members,” says MingMing Evora, Country Director for Plan in Bangladesh.

Besides the 2 helpdesks, a child-friendly space has also been established to protect the children from being exposed to the dreadful scenes in and around the collapse site.

“There is no one to accompany me, so I have come alone to look for my mother,” said 12-year old Nur, one of the hundreds of garment workers who remain untraced since 24 April.

Eldest of the 3 siblings Nur suddenly found himself in charge of 2 children and with the responsibility of finding his missing mother.

“My father left us a while ago and married another woman,” he explained. He didn't know the name of the garment factory or what type of work his mother did, making the search all the more difficult.

Psychological and emotional support

Children are often among the worst-affected in disasters. A joint team has been collecting details of children whose parents were killed or injured or are missing, from different sources including the hospitals and government agencies. The plan is to assess the circumstances these children are in and provide the help they need.

"We are in close contact with the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and we are organising psychological and emotional support for children to help them deal with these traumatic events,” explains Ms Evora.

“We are supplying thousands of bottles of safe drinking water as well as toys for children.”

Find out more about Plan's work in Bangladesh

24 April 2013: My interest in public health and malaria dates back to the 1990s, when an economic crisis struck my country, Cameroon. People did not have enough money to buy medicines for their children, and I watched babies die in their parents’ arms from malaria, a disease so easy to prevent.

In 2011, Plan Cameroon hired me as Global Fund Round 9 Malaria Project Manager: My dream to work with communities and make a direct impact came true.

Losing my nephew

How much people underestimate malaria and its consequences amazes me, even by those closest to me. Just a month ago, I lost my nephew, my sister’s only child, as a result of cerebral malaria. So much must be done to raise awareness about malaria and prevention.

Over the last 10 years, several strategies have been put in place by the government to improve the situation. The first strategy was to distribute free mosquito bed nets to pregnant women and children under 5. This strategy was later dropped because the bed nets were unused with the reason that they caused a lot of heat or were simply sold at the market.

Malaria’s grip was encircling the entire population now, not just pregnant women and under 5 children.

Too late to treat

The second strategy focused on reduction of treatment costs in hospitals through subsidies. However, even at no cost, people preferred to self-medicate over going to the hospital to consult and get appropriate treatment.

They always believe it is “just small malaria” that can be treated in a few days. They go to the hospital only when the patient is at a critical stage and highly likely to perish.

Chipping away at malaria

A Plan-supported community health volunteer spreading the message on bed nets and malaria

The Round 9 Malaria project provides long-lasting treated mosquito bed nets to the entire population, and runs mass sensitisation and communication for their effective use.

The work of everyone against malaria has slowly chipped away at the disease. 25% of the population is affected, as compared to 50% in 2005-2006.

Communication key

In Plan Cameroon, we have placed emphasis on communication for behaviour change as a means to combat malaria.  Phase one ended in March 2013.  The second phase of the project, with a focus on advocacy, communication through mass media and home to home visits for discussions and sensitisation, begins soon.

Our messages will appeal to people to use bed nets and refer suspected cases to nearest health centres within 24 hours.

We are also going to train community health workers on how to detect and treat simple malaria cases, and how to manage and refer severe cases to hospitals.

World Malaria Day is marked every 25 April to highlight the global effort against malaria.

Find out more on the World Malaria Day website**

Read about Plan's work in Cameroon

* Facts from WHO

**Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites.

Dozens have died and many more been injured in Sichuan.

20 April 2013: Plan has started its emergency response in China's earthquake-affected Sichuan province.

Scores have died and the death-toll is likely to rise as a 6.6-magnitude earthquake caused widespread destruction in Sichuan’s Lushan County on Saturday. The Chinese government has declared the highest level of state emergency.

Relief on the way

Plan’s country office has begun the process to move pre-stocked disaster relief packs - especially designed to accommodate children’s needs - to the affected area.

There are over 6,000 hygiene packs stocked in Plan’s Beijing office for emergency relief, including 2,600 packs tailored for girls’ needs, and 1,500 items of clothing. Tents to provide temporary shelter are also being sent as part of the relief supplies.

Meeting children's needs

“Meeting the needs of children is an urgent priority of our emergency response. There would be affected children in outlying and difficult to reach rural areas,” said Plan China Country Director Mark Leighton.

Even though Sichuan is not among Plan’s programme areas in China, the organisation is prepared to reach out to the affected population, particularly children given the scale of the disaster. A team of emergency experts is being sent to the worst affected zones.

Plan has, over the last few years, strengthened its disaster response and preparedness capacity in China and will supplement the efforts of the Chinese government and the local authorities in the earthquake response.

The organisation is also attending coordination meetings with the local government and other humanitarian agencies.

Hard memories

The last major earthquake in Sichuan was in 2008. It killed tens of thousands and left 5,000,000 homeless.

“Repeated earthquakes hit affected people’s mind hard and children, particularly, are most vulnerable,” said Unni Krishnan, Plan’s Head of Disaster Response and Preparedness.

Plan has been working in China since 1995 helping poor children to access their rights to health, education, livelihoods and protection.

Learn more about Plan's work in China

But aren’t we forgetting someone?

Every year, up to 51 million children under the age of 5 are left vulnerable because their births have not been registered. That’s more people than the entire population of Spain who may miss out on basic services like healthcare and education because they don’t have birth certificates.

The problem has an epicentre that spans 2 continents: 2 out of every 3 children in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are unregistered.

Critical life event

Plan has helped register 40 million births worldwide - but we are just scratching the surface

How can we measure our progress towards the MDGs when not all children are counted? How can governments build schools and employ the right number of teachers if they don’t know how many children are born? How can children be vaccinated if nobody knows they exist?

We tend to forget that birth registration is a critical life event and that a birth certificate can make or break a child’s future. Later in life, a birth certificate can help protect a child against forced marriage, child labour, premature enlistment in the armed forces or, if accused of a crime, prosecution as an adult.

Birth registration impacts everybody and it should be high on the agendas of governments, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and societies in general.

Millions stateless

The people most affected by a lack of a birth certificate are those usually on the fringes of society that governments and development organisations alike struggle to identify and support. There are 6 million stateless children in the world, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

These girls and boys are denied a nationality and all the basic rights that come with it, increasing their vulnerability to exploitation, abuse, trafficking and forced labour as modern day slaves in deplorable conditions.

Plan has worked since 2005 to help register the births of 40 million children around the world. Together with our partners we have influenced laws in 10 countries, resulting in access to a free birth certificate for more than 150 million children. We work with some of the most marginalised people in some of the hardest-to-reach parts of the world.

But we’re just scratching the surface.

We believe that Universal Birth Registration is impossible to ignore and entirely possible to achieve.  This is why we continue to work with parents, caregivers, governments, the private sector and UN agencies to make every child visible.

Birth registration key

Birth registration is key to the achievement of many of the MDGs. There are goals for reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, increasing access to primary education and promoting gender equality, to name but a few. Birth registration has implications for all of these.

This week, at the Global Summit on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics* in Bangkok, global, regional and national actors have come together to map how we’re going to get to 2015 and beyond.

While civil registration sounds like a jargon term it’s really rather simple – it’s fundamentally about the government's record of the most important life events like birth, marriage, divorce and death. But if we're incapable of registering a child's birth, there’s not much hope for the rest of the milestones that children should reach

For individuals and families, civil registration provides proof of identity and enables people to claim, and benefit from, legal, economic and social rights. It also provides proof that the state recognises and respects the lives of those for which it has responsibility.

Governments must act

We need to see more from governments if we’re going to achieve Universal Birth Registration. More than 100 developing countries around the world don't have adequate civil registration systems. Governments must work harder to incorporate birth registration into their policies and practices and ensure that the issue is included in partnerships.

Birth registration works best when communities understand its importance and are engaged in mobilising each other to register all newborn children. We’ve seen this all over the world, from Bangladesh to Zimbabwe.

1,000 days may seem like a long time, but 2015 is just around the corner and we need to be looking at what comes next.

We strongly believe that birth registration should be at the forefront of post-MDG discussions and we urge all governments to take action. Will you join us to make every child count?

Follow @PlanAsia and #CountEveryChild on Twitter for the latest from the Global Summit on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics.

*Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites

Millions of girls are out of school. Raise your hand to show your support for girls' education

17 April 2013: Join us as we take action for girls at the ‘Learning for All’ ministerial summit in Washington DC, USA, this week.

Unless the world acts in the next 1,000 days – the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals – tens of millions of children will remain on the margins of government priorities around the world, and girls will suffer most.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, has called the summit to bring together the UN Secretary General, President of the World Bank, heads of UN agencies and key countries with the aim of accelerating progress in delivering quality education for all children.

Nearly half of the world’s out-of-school children live in 8 countries - Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan – and representatives from all of them will be attending.

Girls in the spotlight

We’ll be there to ensure that girls are firmly in the spotlight. Girls face a unique set of barriers to accessing their right to an education – including child marriage, which results in many girls being pulled out of school.

Globally, 1 in 3 girls around the world are married before they are aged 18. If we do nothing, an estimated 142 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday by 2020.

Plan action

Plan is calling for:

• governments to undertake gender reviews of their education plans and policies
• better coordination efforts to get more girls in school
• greater investment in education.

We are supporting the Youth Advocacy Group established by the UN Secretary General’s Education First initiative, which will be speaking out at the event.

Plan Chief Executive Officer, Nigel Chapman, will be taking part in panel discussions on financing education and child marriage.

Plan's Because I am a Girl campaign global ambassador Freida Pinto will speak at a screening of the 10x10 film Girl Rising, which features Plan programmes.

Follow all the action on Twitter via @planglobal

Raise your hand to show your support for girls’ education

Besides a brief trip across the border to Zimbabwe, the young Zambian youth advocate had never left her native country and here she was among the palatial villas and rustic villages clinging to the dramatic cliffs that swoop down into the stretch of the Mediterranean known as the Cote d’Azur.

Tirivashe was intrigued as I casually pointed out across the sea and said “if you can swim across that, you’ll be in Africa”; she had never seen the ocean before, or snow for that matter – and both could be seen in dramatic fashion from either side of the car as we headed towards our destination.

Media magnet

On first impression, Cannes seems a ludicrous place for a young African girl to bring her message about the critical importance of education for girls. Yet the city famous for hosting its annual film awards recently played host to a gathering of more than 10,000 of the world’s leading TV executives* and those who produce and trade media content.

Such an audience has the potential to elevate social justice issues to the global stage with a single report, or single media piece, and their global reach is a crucial force to harness in the campaign to ensure every girl can enjoy their right to a quality education.

To capture the attention of this influential group of global broadcasters and media producers, Tirivashe joined a panel stacked with highly influential speakers, and hosted by former British prime minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown.

Malala’s father

A real highlight was sharing the stage for a conversation with Ziauddin Yousafzai, whose daughter, Malala has become a global icon for girls’ right to education, after surviving being shot in the head by militant religious fundamentalists who are so afraid of the power of educated girls that they are prepared to resort to deadly means to deny girls the right to go to school.

The ‘café style’ panel discussion also included Robert Triefus – chief marketing officer, who unveiled plans for a massive concert in London featuring Beyonce, in support of their ‘Chime for Change’ campaign to promote education, health and justice for women and girls.

Tirivashe – having earlier in the day ogled a display of handbags valued at tens of thousands of Euros – slyly noted that ‘this guy was the one to talk to about getting some handbags for her friends back in Zambia’…!

Powerful voice

When Tirivashe’s turn came to address the audience, she spoke out beautifully on what education has meant for her, and the power it has to make a real difference in girls’ lives in her community and her country.

However, she was also keen to share stories of girls she knows who have not been as lucky as her, and have been forced to drop out because of being forced to marry very young, or being the victims of violence in and around school, or because resources were scarce and as a result, girls – who are less valued than boys – are first to miss out on school.

12 kilometre walk to school

She also detailed how she walked more than 12 kilometres each way to school – 24 kilometres per day – often at night and having to avoid men and male peers who would threaten or harass her and her friends along the way.

When Tirivashe was asked what she hoped to be once she had completed her education, she replied that she aimed to become a nurse - although opportunities to advocate on the global stage had perhaps given her other ideas.

By the end of the panel event and to the numerous audience members who she talked with afterwards, Tirivashe was remarking about how she couldn’t wait to get back and share her experiences with her friends, and to keep working and campaigning for girls’ education.

Tirivashe is a courageous and inspiring young woman who is proof of the incredible transformative power of providing quality education for girls.

Join Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign

* Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites

Hawou is striving to ensure that girls in her community are protected from child marriage and receive an education

Discrimination robbed Hawou Adamou of her right to an education. Today, as the President of the Plan-supported Hausa Women's Association for Development in Cameroon, she reflects on her experiences and how she's helping to change girls' lives.

8 April 2013: My name’s Hawou Adamou. I’m the president of the Hausa Women’s Association for Development (AFHADEV). After 38 years, I am going to share my story. It’s not extraordinary, thousands of other girls and women in Cameroon live similar lives in silence. I speak for them too.

I have lived my whole life in Briqueterie, an extremely poor district in the heart of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. 90% of the people living her are Hausas (Muslims) from the northern most part of the country. Tradition is an important part of lives here.

When I was small, I wanted to go to school. My parents said that because I am a girl, I could not go to school; that I would work in the market all day. I sold doughnuts to help pay for my 3 brothers to go to school. For 10 years, I carried a plate full of doughnuts on my head; every day, wandering the streets of Yaounde until I had sold every single one. I did it because I was under the belief that it was my role; my place as a woman. The Hausa way.

Married at 16

When I was 16, I was married to my cousin following an arrangement between our parents. I became a good housewife. I would cook without any help for our family of 10. I would walk miles to go and get water to do the housework, again without help. All this time, I was pregnant.

My in-laws, especially my mother-in-law, would treat me like a servant and my husband would say nothing. Even though I complained to my parents, they continued to ask me for help. Again, I accepted that this was just married life! I had to carry on. Before my 30^th birthday I had been pregnant 12 times, resulting in 6 stillbirths and 6 children, although 2 of my children died. Our living conditions were difficult.

Dressed up

Hausa men dress their wives up in fancy clothing and jewellery. The fancier your wife looks, the more prestige for the family. Women are possessions to be decorated. This was the same for me and my husband. He decorated me with more than 300,000CFA in jewellery (about US$600), even when our children were hungry, even though I could barely speak French or read.

After 19 years together, my husband died. And so began another hardship in my life. My family-in-law threw me out because I was not working. I was like a leech to them; my children a burden. I went back to live with my parents, this time I wasn’t alone though, I had the added burden of having to raise 4 children.

Women and girls unite

I knew in my heart that everything I had been subjected to in my life was all due to the fact that I never went to school. In an attempt to revolt, I decided to unite other Hausa women to help all Hausa girls.

I was fed up. I no longer wanted us to be seen as nothing more than ornaments in our own homes. I was going to do something to really assert my rights. I didn’t want other girls in my region to fall into the same helpless situation as me.

That is why I founded the AFHADEV (Hausa Women’s Association for Development) in 2006, which partnered with Plan in 2008.

Today, my association, which has close to 500 members, works to improve the situation of young girls. Our work includes:

• Teaching parents the value and importance of education for young girls
• Teaching women the importance of self employment/financial security as well as to help them with running incoming generating activities.
• Educating women about child illness, HIV and sexual health
• Advocating to parents, men, religious leaders and communities so that they too understand the suffering that girls are subjected to through child marriage, and the need to abolish this practice.

It takes time to change traditions, but I believe this is so important, I keep working.

Find out more about Plan's work in Cameroon

Join Plan's Because I a Girl global campaign for girls' education

Suddenly hot water was a luxury, not a given, and suddenly that handkerchief-sized splash of hot water felt as good as a power shower.

After a few weeks the water went off altogether, a regular occurrence in Dakar where random water cuts can last for days. I quickly began to appreciate how lucky we are in the northern world to have such an abundance of crystal clean water for showering, flushing the loo, tooth brushing, boiling the kettle and washing.

In my apartment, the shower and the bathroom tap sputtered, dry as a bone. The dishes lay on the side, moulding. The loo wouldn't flush. Things started to smell. Suddenly water was a luxury, not a given, and I no longer cared whether the water was hot or not - I just wanted it back.

Precious water

A young boy takes his first sip from a tap installed by Plan in his village in Tanzania

Everywhere you go in the world, water is precious. People seek water; crave water; pay more to live by water; start wars over water. In Senegal, people gather around the teapot in the afternoon to enjoy the West African afternoon tea ritual; 3 progressively sweet cups of water that are carefully boiled with tea leaves and sugar over a small fire for several hours. The last, it is said, is 'sweet as love'.

Most world faiths incorporate ritual washing in their teachings, perhaps because, from a purely pragmatic point of view, if people keep clean, they keep healthy. In Mali, there are songs dedicated to the great river Niger, the only water source in this sweltering, landlocked country.

In Dakar, people are prone to say that life may be hard, but at least they have the sea. In the UK, people move down south to be near the great Atlantic. Sea air, they say, is good for the soul.

World Water Day

World Water Day, 22 March, is a time to pause and appreciate a substance that is available to us so freely and cheaply in the developed world. It is a day to address the fact that 783 million people in the world do not have access to clean water - representing roughly 1 in 10 of the world's population.

A day too, to consider the fact that approximately half the world's population lives in areas that currently, or will soon, face physical water scarcity, or which lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers. These days, water scarcity is being exacerbated by climate change; droughts and floods are increasingly more frequent and severe. Never has it been more important to protect the freshwater ecosystems that can supply clean drinking water in the face of these changes.

Diarrhoea deaths

Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. That's almost 2,000 children a day. While I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling deprived if I go without a shower for a morning, thousands of people consider themselves lucky if they source some water to wash with from a dirty pond.

For many women, a morning's work is walking to find water, bringing it back in tubs on their heads. Up to 40 billion working hours are lost every year due to water collection, mostly by women and girls who must walk long distances, sometimes in dangerous circumstances, to collect water.

Some people spend all day looking for water just to keep them alive. Children die falling in lakes as they get water for their families. Others die from diarrhoea because the water they eventually find is so dirty. With good quality water, sanitation and hygiene, many children's lives could be saved.

Washing hands

Plan 's water, sanitation and hygiene work focuses not only on providing technical solutions to water shortage, such as toilets and boreholes, but also helping change behaviours.

Advocating for hand washing addresses key sanitation issues; a crucial activity since research has found that safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene programmes offer a return of $4 in increased economic productivity for every $1 invested. The World Bank has estimated that hygiene is the most cost-effective health intervention available.

Today, let's pause a moment as we brush our teeth and boil the kettle. Water is the most precious substance on earth; let's work to make sure everyone on earth has the luxury of using it.

Find out more about Plan's water and sanitation work

They are among 447,000 people - more than half of them children - who have been forced from their homes and now lay scattered across 6 countries.

Plan is providing thousands of displaced children with education, protection and life-saving support.

Read some of their stories below and support Plan's emergency Mali conflict appeal

Zeina: Am I a target in Mali's conflict?

Mariam: War saved me from an early marriage

Fadimata: Waiting eagerly to go home

We have been living on the edge for too long, blogs Fadimata, 15, who is now  living in Segou having fled conflict in Timbuktu.

Habdine: It's tough without any friends

With no money to buy a school uniform, books or pens, it’s hard to fit in, blogs 17-year-old Habdine - a student displaced by the Mali conflict.

Mohammed: Great cost to go to secondary school

The first years of a child’s life are vital for their development – but when disaster strikes young children often miss out on the care and support they need.

Plan’s education in emergencies specialist Sweta Shah reflects on her work and the impact it’s had on children’s lives.

12 March 2013: My first long term emergency position was in Chad with Darfur refugees, which helped me see the many extra complexities of emergencies for children.

It showed me what worked well in Plan’s early childhood care and development (ECCD) in emergencies programmes and how we can easily get real results.

I helped establish many child-friendly spaces (somewhere children are safe, can play, socialise with other children and learn) and I worked with nutrition and health colleagues so that we also ran supplementary feeding and health sessions for mums so they could help ensure their small children were fed nutritious diets.

The sessions also supported pregnant women. One of them who came to the classes named her baby after me. I was shocked!

Reaching children with disabilities

One of the things I’m really proud of is our work on how to bring children with disabilities into the programme. In Darfurian culture, society thinks children with disabilities can’t do anything.

There were also challenges on how to get children with disabilities to the child-friendly spaces. We got local wheelbarrows and used community child protection committees to collect the children and transport them to the spaces so they could play.

For one physically handicapped little girl around 6 years old, this was the first time she had ever played with other children and had an opportunity to learn.

Terrified and wouldn’t talk

A boy holds up a paper toy made at a Plan child-friendly space in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake

I remember another young boy around 5 years old who used to come to our spaces. He had been particularly affected by the violence he had witnessed. He wouldn’t talk at all, which can be a normal psychosocial reaction. He was terrified of loud noises - they really scared him (planes going overhead would terrify him because of the bombing of the Darfurian villages he had experienced). He also had nightmares and couldn’t control his bladder any longer.

In just a short time he gradually started to talk to other children and play, and within around 6 months he was back to a ‘normal’ boy of his age.

Refugee calls for support

When I was in Liberia last year -  supporting Plan’s programme for Ivorian refugees - the parents and communities were coming to us and begging us to come and do ECCD services in their communities.

They had seen the difference it had made to children who were using our child-friendly spaces and could see those children were talking, laughing, socialising and learning.

Another key benefit of child-friendly spaces is that they give parents somewhere safe to leave their children while they go and find work and food.

Skill and creativity

For me, ECCD in emergencies is about making sure children during this most important time in their development have as much stimulation and experiences as possible -  so they can grow up to their optimal level.

That's what makes ECCD work - it's so cost effective. You get so much bang for your buck. You don’t need lots of money; but you need skilled staff who are trained on how to do ECCD and can look at their situation with creativity and innovation – such as making toys out of things they find on the ground.

When we do parenting classes, we show them you can do these things anywhere with your child. So many times I’ve seen mums with their children waiting in line for hours and hours for food rations, often not interacting with their child.

We can give them the awareness and skills to play with their children while they’re in the queue. It really makes a difference.

Sweta is currently supporting the launch of 2 Plan ECCD in emergencies reports at the CIES 2013* conference in New Orleans, USA.

Read Plan’s new ECCD in emergencies reports

Find out more about Plan’s global ECCD work

To comment on Sweta's blog, leave a message on Facebook

*Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites

Plan has launched 2 new reports that share the learnings, experiences and benefits of our early childhood care and development in emergencies programming.

Read the full reports below.

Investing in the youngest: Early childhood care and development in emergencies

This report shows the different impacts that disasters and emergencies can have on young children, and how Plan’s early childhood care and development in emergencies work is helping to limit those impacts.

Read the report on Issuu
Download pdf: English (2 mb, 36 pages)

Early childhood care and development in emergencies: A programme guide

This detailed guide for programme staff covers what to do for preparedness, response and recovery.

Read the report on Issuu
Download pdf: English (1.2 mb, 108 pages)