http://viewchange.org Videos from ViewChange.org (Filtered by topics: Child-friendly school) en-us Thu, 21 Oct 2010 07:42:00 +0000 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-moving-forward After decades of conflict, the people of southern Sudan are rediscovering what it means to live in a time of peace. One of the most immediate benefits is wider access to education, but with limited resources and high demand, young people aren't always finding it easy to catch up on the years of school they missed. Thu, 21 Oct 2010 07:42:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-moving-forward UNICEF, Sudan, Child-friendly school, Education, Africa, Southern Sudan, Foreign Assistance, Gender, Student, Politics of Southern Sudan >> TITLE: Rising Voices>> TITLE: Moving Forward>> VOICEOVER: Slowly, from the chaos of civil war, southern Sudan is emerging. This is Juba, the region's largest city, where hundreds of thousands of people are building new lives, safe to move around in their daily routines, to work, play, pray, and build a better life for themselves, their families, and their community. After a brutal conflict that pitted two regions in Sudan -- the north and south -- against each other, Juba is home to Christians, Muslims, and local religious beliefs. >> TITLE: Juba, Sudan>> VOICEOVER: The city is a magnet that attracts tens of thousands of people from southern Sudan to their homeland after years in exile. Children, the first generation to know peace for decades, are once again going to school.>> MARK MALUIL GARANG [Former child soldier]: School is really important. If you study, you can help your country. Not many people in our country are educated. You are lucky if you have boreholes in your area. This is why we need our people to be educated, so they can help our country, and so that my people do not suffer. The rest of the world is ahead. We have been left behind. With an education, we can help our country develop. >> BIAR BIAR [Student]: In the war, I don't like anything in the war. Because in war we don't have the development, we don't have the opportunity to do anything in war. Now, you can see, every child goes to school. In a time of war, no child goes to school. Now, we are bright. There are all children going to school. >> VOICEOVER: Five years into a regional peace accord, school enrollment in southern Sudan has increased rapidly from a wartime low of a few hundred thousand students to more than one and a half million, according to the latest estimates, helped by a go-to-school drive co-organized by the government of southern Sudan, UNICEF, and other development partners>> EDWARD KOKOLE [Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Government of Southern Sudan]: Those are huge challenges to overcome. They take a few years, as you can see by now. But we thank our partners UNICEF for some of the things we've realized. In terms of our enrollment rate, it's been raised, because an awareness campaign was launched all across Southern Sudan. Now, enrollment is picking up. That is one area we can see some success. The enrollment rate was so low. In 2005, the enrollment was about 22 percent, the least in the whole world. Illiteracy rate, the highest in the whole world: 85 percent for male, over 90 percent for female. >> VOICEOVER: Today, classes in southern Sudan's schools are crowded with children who want to learn, often 100 students to a class. The government's priorities are to train teachers and build schools. UNICEF is involved at the very start, helping lay the foundations for the region's recovery.>> CHARLES NABONGO [Acting Chief of Education, Southern Sudan Area Program]:UNICEF is addressing the entire ... setting up, supporting the entire education sector from primary to tertiary, establishing systems, not only looking at institutions for teacher training, for example, at the schools themselves, but also the policies. Over the next two years, there should be tremendous improvement. Get some children into school, and I think this is a tremendous achievement. A major issue is the girls. You don't find very many girls in schools. In some schools, you only find, especially in upper classes, just one girl out of 15. In some places, you don't even see any girls. >> VOICEOVER: UNICEF's goal for southern Sudan is a system of schools that are child-friendly. A child-friendly school provides an environment that is safe, healthy, and protective, has trained teachers, adequate resources, and appropriate physical, emotional, and social conditions for learning. A place, in short, where children's rights are guaranteed and their voices are heard. To that end, UNICEF is working with the government of southern Sudan.>> EDWARD KOKOLE: Southern Sudan has been at war for many years. We don't say 20 years; we can go back to independence. For more than 50 years, there was no peace, people never had any rest. So all that half a century is so enormous that the education system was completely destroyed. To rebuild that, I don't think four years are enough for us to do something on that system. Many teachers were killed. Schools were demolished and destroyed. But we are thankful to the international community that they also join hands with us, and were able to double our efforts. At least something has been done, but the challenges are enormous>> VOICEOVER: Mark Maluil Garang is 19 years old. When he was 11, he was separated from his family and hasn't seen them for eight years. Like thousands of other displaced boys in Sudan, he became a child soldier. >> MARK MALUIL GARANG: At that time, my parents were at home. We were herding goats to a waterhole. Then, fighting broke out. Everyone ran away in different directions. I ran away, and I never went back. I met with others fleeing the fighting, and we teamed up. >> VOICEOVER: While on the run, Mark was helped by members of his tribe, the Dinka.>> MARK MALUIL GARANG: In my country, when you find older people, they teach and discipline the young. In times of war, we all know that children are displaced, and a child may be fed and clothed by strangers. This is a war situation. I met somebody in El-Obeid. He sent me to school along with his own children. He fed and housed me, but I had to earn my keep. I had to work to earn money, so I shined shoes. When school fees were due, I saved my money for this, so I could pay all the fees by myself. I studied primary year six in 2007, but I left that school without completing the year. Then I came to Juba in 2007 and resumed primary year six. In 2008, I started primary year seven. I had nobody to help me with funds. >> VOICEOVER: He left the army after three years and says he came to Juba by trading cans of stolen diesel to a boat operator for his passage. He wanted to complete his education. Mark lives on his own in a house he built himself from corrugated iron. >> MARK MALUIL GARANG: I didn't want to be in the army. Some of the other child soldiers had relatives who were senior people in the army, and so they managed to be released to go to school. I didn't have that, and so I could see my situation was hopeless.>> VOICEOVER: Mark attends Buluk A Basic School. UNICEF supports the school. In another country, Mark might be at university or working. Here, he is at primary level, one of more than a million students who missed out on education in the war, when schools were closed. Now, they're making up for lost time. Some of his schoolmates are in their twenties. All are learning English, a new government policy to stretch children beyond their local Arabic dialect and introduce English as the official language.>> MARK MALUIL GARANG: If I complete all my schooling, then, depending on the subjects I will have chosen, I could become anything, perhaps a doctor, but we are at elementary level, so we haven't chosen yet. >> BIAR BIAR: In Southern Sudan, I want to change the suffering of our people during war. I don't need our people to be suffering again and being killed in the war, and I need also to develop our country to look like other countries like America. That is what I need to want to develop. I'd like to get enough education. Our children here, I need them to get enough education and make everything here in Juba, like roads, houses, classes, and hospitals. We need to build a lot of services and what everything here in Juba.>> VOICEOVER: Buluk A Basic School is state-run. It is supposed to be free to all students, but the government is overwhelmed by demands for public services and payroll bureaucracy. It hasn't yet managed to make good on a peacetime promise to end fees. Mark works in a small shop to pay his way.>> MARK MALUIL GARANG: I was able to speak to my father on the phone. He said to me, "That is how life is." He sent me his picture. He has become older in nine years, but he has not aged too much.>> VOICEOVER: Mark's school is not yet a child-friendly school, but UNICEF is working with the government of southern Sudan to make it so. Compared with another school on the same grounds, there are small, but noticeable improvements. Already, it has better classrooms. A security fence has been built. Separate toilets for boys and girls, though looters are a persistent problem, and a system is needed to keep the toilets and grounds clean. The school lacks running water, has no garbage pick-up service, so students pitch in. Students at Mark's school have exercise books. Many other schools, though, still rely on rote learning to teach large numbers of children, few of whom have paper or pencils. Edward Kokole has seen a full-fledged, UNICEF-sponsored, child-friendly school in Malakal, also in southern Sudan. He believes the model is what southern Sudan's children need and deserve: a giant step up, in some cases, from what they are getting. >> EDWARD KOKOLE: It's a very nice concept of child-friendly schools. Some of the schools have no latrines, no water. Children, you can see them squatting outside, in the open. The area is so smelly, it's very filthy. But when we went to a school supported by UNICEF, fenced nicely, with water, taps, tanks put up, nice kitchen, and a store for the food and breakfast for the children, you can see latrines for the girls and boys, with water put around those toilets, with soaps. You see the environment, the love between the children and the teachers. It was so wonderful. We are coping, but of course, by diluting the system and the quality of this education, because learning facilities are so limited, like the schools. But, at this time, children are crying for teachers to come and teach them, but teachers are not there to come and teach them. This is the challenge going on for our modern children. >> VOICEOVER: That's partly because some teachers have not been paid for months. Morale and motivation are often low, and made worse by the inability of many to teach in English. Good teachers, though, want the best for children. In Juba, their wish lists sound remarkably like some of UNICEF's own descriptions of a child-friendly school. This science and social studies teacher, Taban Zecheriah, is 22. He started teaching after his parents died, and he had no money to continue his university studies. He has no formal training.>> TABAN ZECHERIAH [Teacher]: I need all the teachers and we who are teaching there the students, at least let's try to train our children and to wake them up with a good spirit, with a way of understanding, not by way of misunderstanding them, by not even beating them. We may just write a letter that we send to the parents of the child, either we suspend the child for five days or maybe one week. Then, from there, he will be applied back to school by the parents, and things will be solved. >> VOICEOVER: Ester Ladu reports to work unpaid because, she asks, "Who will teach the children if I don't?" She hasn't heard of the phrase "child-friendly school," but when a UNICEF member of staff explains the concept to her, she likes it very much.>> ESTER SIAMA LADU [Teacher]: In my opinion, this is good. Such schools would work very well. For example, if they drill boreholes in schools, then the pupils will have access to free water, because at present, we need to buy water from a truck. When the food is ready, pupils cannot wash their hands. With a borehole, we will have fewer infections and diseases. I always tell the children to wash their hands before food. They listen to me, but there is no water to use. What are they supposed to wash with? The way I see it, these kids are not learning enough. There are many reasons why their studies are suffering. A crowded classroom means very few of them learn, and only the teachers have textbooks, so we write notes on the blackboard for the pupils to copy. The pupils should all have textbooks, so even if they copy notes, they can still read the book. Sometimes, pupils do not attend, but if they had a textbook, they could still learn at home. >> EDWARD KOKOLE: Now, when peace came people were expecting now education to be provided to them free of charge, to be their peace dividend. They wanted to get everything from the government, exercise books, stationeries, even a uniform, they wanted the government to provide. So it took us time to sensitize them to understand that, to have quality education you need a contribution from the community.>> VOICEOVER: It's hard to involve community in a school where so many students have lost one or both parents to war and other hardships. In spite of the many challenges they face, students themselves are optimistic. This young man has recurring attacks of malaria and often is too sick to come to school. >> BIAR BIAR: I talk about the war to our classmates; I said we can struggle to come to school every day. If we struggle and get enough education, we can share ourselves and help our community to develop our country.>> VOICEOVER: One unexpected benefit to emerge from war: girls are realizing how important it is to study, now more than ever. Some long-held attitudes are starting to change. Girls' enrollment in southern Sudan's schools today is 37 percent of the 1.5 million students registered. For these girls, education is a clear peace dividend.>> REGINA YENO [Student]: Girls these days, when they reach 15 or more, they see no benefit in further education. They see themselves as grown up and think only of being a wife. School is important because, if I study, in the future, if I am educated and become somebody, then I shall be able to support my younger siblings. >> JOY MATIA [Student]: I want to be educated, to become somebody in the future, because with no education, you get no support from anyone. And if you are educated, it helps you build a future. So many girls end up married. They have no one to support them, so they marry. I shall wait until I am 37 years old before I marry. >> MARY ASUNTA [Student]: I am hoping, when I finish school, to get work. I want to work as a pilot.>> VOICEOVER: Every year in Sudan, some 26,000 women die during childbirth. The hope is that education of girls will help reduce this figure.>> TAZAINWAN AIYA [Student]: My parents are urging me to stay in school. They say that, in the future, I can help them just as if I were a boy. There's no difference. >> VOICEOVER: In a region where everyone of school age and older knows the trauma of sustained conflict, schools in southern Sudan are where children of different ethnic backgrounds and beliefs are learning to live alongside one another -- one of the best guarantees that students at Buluk A Basic School can think of for long-term peace and recovery.>> MARK MALUIL GARANG: If I were president, I would help the needy. For example, here in the Konyo-Konyo market area, there are many street kids who are the country's future. I want to house and educate them, to develop Sudan, and help those without parents and other needy people. An education would help them to develop the country. As president, I would not discriminate against anyone. I would help in these ways if I became somebody big. >> VOICEOVER: In southern Sudan, education is the key to moving the next generation forward.>> TITLE: [end credits] http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-hope-on-the-mekong <p>Child-Friendly Schools are making a big difference for children in Cambodia: parents are more engaged, attendance is increasing, and lessons are fun. Improved education is not only helping the country heal its troubled past, but is also creating a possible path out of poverty for many thousands of families.</p> Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:42:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-hope-on-the-mekong Education, Cambodia, Child-friendly school, Stung Treng Province, UNICEF, Student-centred learning, Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Elementary school, Culture of Cambodia, Secondary school >> TITLE: Rising Voices>> TITLE: Hope on the Mekong>> VOICEOVER: It's a little after dawn and Chea Bora and his sister, Chea Sok Lin, are getting ready for school. Their mother, Huon Lek, washes her baby. She has six children in all but the two oldest boys, 11 and 16, live and work elsewhere. She's not exactly sure where anymore. The eldest went to school for a short time but dropped out. None of her other children has ever gone to school. Until recently, nine-year-old Bora also lived with another family where he tended their cows. More than a third of Cambodian children aged 5 to 14 work. Now he's starting school along with his six-year-old sister. Their mother walks them to school, the two younger siblings in tow. Not far away, 11-year-old Long Kan Buthom is also heading for school. She is in sixth grade and hopes to move on to secondary school next year. On arrival, Buthom and some of her friends buy breakfast from local vendors behind the school. Usually the school provides free breakfast, but hasn't started yet this year. Huon Lek says her kids haven't eaten anything today. "It's normal. If there is nothing to cook, I cannot cook for them," she says matter-of-factly. The school the children are attending is called Reachea Nukol. It's in remote Stung Treng province, a poor, undeveloped corner of Cambodia, on the Mekong River near the Laotian border. >> TITLE: Stung Treng, Cambodia>> VOICEOVER: Reachea Nukol offers an exciting learning experience to its students. It's a new kind of Child-Friendly School promoted by UNICEF and other development partners.>> RICHARD BRIDLE [UNICEF Representative, Cambodia]: Making education more inclusive, making education more child-centered, getting away from a lot of the regimentation that tends to happen in classrooms. The difference between the Child-Friendly School and a regular school, when you're outside the school it's very difficult to see that, because all schools are ... you've got classrooms in rows. It's when you go inside the classroom, you'll see the organization of the desks, you'll see that there's much more around the classroom, in terms of learning materials, things that are put up on the wall, that are hung from the ceilings. You can also see that from the levels of activity of the children, and levels of engagement of all the children. In traditional schools, the low achievers hide. They're down at the back of the class, nobody's actually trying to get them to participate. Whereas, within the Child-Friendly School model, first of all, you don't have that option because there are all the group activities, and, secondly, there is an understanding that education is there not just for the high achievers, it's also there for the low achievers. You can't slip between the cracks. That's a good thing. >> VOICEOVER: The new school model is spreading across rural Cambodia, a country with a dark chapter in its history that began when the communist Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975.>> RICHARD BRIDLE: At that point, they evacuated the cities. Everyone left Phnom Penh -- but also all other towns and cities -- and went into the countryside where they spent the next three years, eight months, and twenty days under conditions of forced labor. Between one and a half to two million people died during that period, many of them of overwork and disease, but also a significant number who were just massacred. The social fabric was progressively completely torn apart. You had children separated from their parents. All religion was abolished, so the Pagodas were closed down, many of them were destroyed. Schools were completely closed. There was a systematic killing of those who had more education.>> NATH BUNROUEN [Deputy Minister of Education]: Seventy-five to eighty percent of our teachers were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime. But January 7th, 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed. We just rebuilt the country from zero. At the beginning in February we start at the ministry for education, only ten people. In the ministry, only 10 people. From January up to September 24th, we reopen the schools. >> RICHARD BRIDLE: They made sure that in every village in the country, and in every neighborhood in the cities that there was some form of school that operated. It might be in a school building, it might be in a house, it might be under a tree, but it was an essential sign of normalcy returning to society.>> NATH BUNROUEN: We called for everyone, he who want to be teacher, please, volunteer. No need bachelor degree, no need grade 12, no need grade 10 or grade 9. If you want to become teacher, please>> VOICEOVER: Thirty years later, the trauma of that period is still fresh. Long Kan Buthom is well aware of her family's history.>> LONG LYPO [English Teacher]: [In] 1977, I remember, my father was killed by a Khmer Rouge soldier. >> VOICEOVER: Buthom's father, Long Lypo, was seven years old at the time.>> LONG LYPO: They shoot and they take a knife, very sad at this time when I remember about my father dead. I always cry.>> VOICEOVER: Lypo's two older brothers had attended university and were also killed by the Khmer Rouge. He's now a fierce advocate of education and teaches English to the local children free of charge. They have no money to pay. Books are donated by the occasional foreign tourist. >> LONG LYPO: Nowadays we have no salary. I have no business. I try to work to help the children but I don't have any support, so I worry. I don't know how to find the money to help my daughter to continue to the high school, or the others.>> VOICEOVER: Only about one of four eligible students in Cambodia goes to secondary school. Lypo is happy his daughter is able to go to a Child-Friendly School. She is set on getting the education that her father's family was killed for having. >> LONG KAN BUTHOM: When I grow up, I want to be like my grandfather, because he was a smart man and could solve every problem.>> VOICEOVER: Buthom has attended Reachea Nukol School for six years and is a member of the student council.>> LONG KAN BUTHOM: I have a piece of information to share about sanitation. When you finish eating, please throw away your garbage in the bins. We have many garbage bins at our school. After collecting the garbage, please wash your hands with soap to kill the germs. >> VOICEOVER: The student council is just one of the innovations at Reachea Nukol, which became a Child-Friendly School two years ago. >> LONG KAN BUTHOM: There was no library before. We studied individually and there was no group discussion at all. There were not enough materials to use. The discipline was not good. After establishing the Student Council, students are well disciplined. These are the differences. >> VOICEOVER: Lay Nong recently completed a special course on Child-Friendly Schools.>> LAY NONG [First Grade Teacher]: It is different. Before I received the training on Child-Friendly Schools, I had some difficulty. We had no groups, so we just taught what was in the textbooks. There was corporal punishment for the children. The Child-Friendly School has been implemented smoothly. However, it is chaotic sometimes, especially when students work in groups. In the Child-Friendly School, students have more activities. They are more involved in the process of learning. The teacher just gives the task and lets the students solve it. >> VOICEOVER: Clean water is provided, something not available in many other schools. Parents are invited to observe classes.>> LAY NONG: After the Child-Friendly School program was introduced, the classroom arrangement has changed. It looks different. We have corners for Khmer language, social studies, and math. The games and materials are also different. There are many. It is easier to teach than before. Students can understand by seeing pictures.>> VOICEOVER: Since Chea Bora has never gone to school before, he is starting first grade with his six-year-old sister, also in school for the first time.>> LAY NONG: He still cannot write yet, but he's well behaved. He likes studying.>> VOICEOVER: All too often, older kids get left behind and fail to catch up, but Bora's teacher is working hard to prevent this.>> LAY NONG: He can. He can move on, as he likes to participate in every activity all the time.>> VOICEOVER: Chea Bora wouldn't be in school at all if it weren't for another aspect of Child-Friendly Schools: child seeking. Sam Ang leads a community-wide initiative seeking children out of school. She maps where all the school-age children live and encourages parents to enroll their daughters and sons. She's on her way to follow-up on a nine-year-old who has stopped going to school.>> SAM ANG [Deputy Village Chief, School Support Committee Member]: I visit children's families pretty often as I try to collect all children from aged six up to go to school. This boy went to school once, but I do not know why he gave up his study. When I did the school mapping, I learned that the boy is out of school, so I'm going to encourage the parents to send him back to school.>> VOICEOVER: The mother tells Sam Ang that there is no money for school uniforms or books. There is only a little bit of rice left to eat.>> SAM ANG: If the mother cannot read and write and neither can the son, it is not good. So we have to educate our children to study hard. Even though we are poor, we have to struggle to push our children to school.>> VOICEOVER: We find the young boy nearby playing in the water. His mother has promised to send him back to school. Sam Ang visited Chea Bora's mother, Huon Lek, before school started.>> HUON LEK: She told me that my children are big now and that I should send them to school. I am happy that my children can go to school like other kids. I will send both of the younger ones to school when they are big enough. If we are uneducated, if we cannot read, it is hard to find a job. I think if they are educated, it will be easy for them to find jobs.>> VOICEOVER: Jobs are scarce, especially for the illiterate, and Huon Lek feels lucky to get the occasional odd job doing laundry. Long Lypo, who says he has no income, is still relatively well-off for this region. He at least has a little land and a fish farm, even a few cows. Stung Treng province is one of the poorest in Cambodia, which in turn is one of the world's poorest countries. Most of the population are subsistence farmers. The mighty Mekong River and its annual floods set the rhythm of life here. It is the highway providing the main means of local transport. Eighty percent of commerce is carried on the water, with most basic goods imported from elsewhere. There is hope that a new bridge, financed by the Chinese government, will open up the isolated area to trade and tourism. In the meantime, the meager market in the provincial capital sells mostly fish from the river and locally grown produce. The impoverished community supports Buddhism and education. The Khmer Rouge tried to wipe out both during their rule. This is the annual "Kathan," a procession held at the end of the rainy season to raise money for the Buddhist monks.The donations are brought to the local pagoda and presented to the monks. Later, Say Heng, who doubles as pagoda attendant and village chief, addresses the school support committee, made up of parents and other locals. It's not so much a discussion as a harangue.>> SAY HENG [Local Government Official]: I ask the parents to come to school every five days to see how the teacher teaches our children. We should follow our children's study as well as the teacher's teaching.>> VOICEOVER: A group of students, assisted by the support committee, then go to work clearing the front yard of a new satellite school of Reachea Nukol. This small school was built so the youngest children in the neighborhood don't have to travel so far to the big school.>> SAY HENG: Now we cannot make it a Child-Friendly School because we only have three classrooms, but in the future we will. For example, when we asked them [parents] for poles to build the school fence, they brought them here. They also contributed money to clear the school ground. They are happy to have a good school building and to have good teachers for their children. They are convinced that their children will have good futures. >> VOICEOVER: The hole they're filling is a bomb crater.>> SAY HENG: It came from B-52 bombers. During the war period, many bombs were dropped on this area of Stung Treng.>> VOICEOVER: Parents will teach a class at the school as part of a local life-skills program, showing children how to grow vegetables and dig fishponds. This program draws on the local community to teach practical skills to students beyond the usual subjects. Buthom and her friends take another life skills class that her parents and other local residents assist with. They learn classical Khmer dancing believed to date back more than a thousand years.>> LONG KAN BUTHOM: My dance teacher is very strict. She doesn't allow us to chat with our friends. When the hand and foot bending session comes, we have to bend exactly for 15 minutes each style as she instructs us.>> VOICEOVER: It's not Buthom's favorite class, but she appreciates its significance. >> LONG KAN BUTHOM: For me the dancing is very important to raise Cambodian culture to a higher level.>> LONG LYPO: Culture is part of our heart, because we like our culture. Khmer traditional dance, we can show to the foreigners, tell them about our culture, like praying.>> VOICEOVER: The Khmer Rouge tried to stamp out the ancient art form and many dancers were killed. Now the old traditions are being revived. This dance incorporates Laotian themes. This region has many Lao speakers and other minorities and this life skills program caters to them outside the classroom where Khmer is the only language spoken. The dance class is mostly young girls, although it's open to both girls and boys. >> LAY NONG: In Cambodia, more girls come to school now. They have equal rights. Before, parents kept their daughters at home, because they thought that education wouldn't help them. But now girls can do everything if they study. Even the poorest families, they try to send their daughters to school. The girls are likely to work harder than boys. They are smart and brave to ask and answer questions. Of course, boys are also smart. Both of them like studying.>> VOICEOVER: We gave small, easy-to-use video cameras to Buthom and Bora to record their daily lives. >> TITLE: Children's footage>> VOICEOVER: After a quick lesson from our cameraman, they caught on fast. Bora recorded his sister's pretend marriage. Get together, get your head close to each other, he says. Buthom filmed a family outing to a restaurant in town. When we had met her earlier she told us she wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up, but her real passion was drawing. Her specialty: cartoon characters. She was just starting this one when we left so she filmed the final product to show us. They also shot plenty of footage in their classrooms. Buthom had a friend film her leading math class. Bora was a little less formal. And here the two students with their cameras, attended by their friends, come upon each other after class, one in sixth grade, the other in first grade, but only two years apart in age. In this isolated corner of Cambodia, this new brand of school is playing an important role in rebuilding education systems and societies and setting an example for other countries around the world.>> RICHARD BRIDLE: This was actually one of the first places where we began to introduce the model, which has become something of a global model of Child-Friendly Schools. If you want to make sure that a particular concept is going to work, and that it is universal, you've got to do it somewhere difficult. Cambodia's probably quite a good example of various other countries around the world, countries that are in post-conflict, and there are, unfortunately, very, very many of those. We've had a number of studies that have been done on the Child-Friendly Schools here. We've incorporated lessons from those studies into how we roll out the model, but each one has continued to validate that this is an approach that is worthwhile, and the fact that the government has decided that this is mainstream policy, now, I think that's a very good indication that this is an approach that is indeed worthwhile.>> NATH BUNROUEN: We hope that by 2010 we try to scale up at least 70 percent, at least 70 percent. We want to develop the country with education. This is a tool that can help Cambodia to develop their country, human resource, and to alleviate the poverty. Without education, we cannot.>> VOICEOVER: And with education and new teaching methods, there's new hope that the children of Cambodia can forge a brighter future.>> TITLE: [end credits] http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-the-flowing-river David Zamora Munoz attends a UNICEF-sponsored child-friendly school in Nicaragua. While many of its defining characteristics are things kids in developed countries take for granted -- gender equality, running water, a friendly atmosphere -- in Nicaragua the school is being seen as a model for the future of the country's education system. Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:04:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/rising-voices-the-flowing-river Nicaragua, Child-friendly school, UNICEF, Palacagüina, Central America, Agriculture, Education, Latin America, Elementary school, Poverty >> TITLE: Rising Voices >> TITLE: The Flowing River>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: My name is David Zamora Munoz. I am 10 years old. I live in Punto Arena, and I like it a lot. >> TITLE: Palacaguina, Nicaragua>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: It is really pretty. There are trees, and animals such as hens, dogs, cows, bulls. I live with my mother, my father, my two brothers, and me right here. Our house is really tidy. We have nice things. Every day I have to walk to get to my studies at school. It takes me an hour to walk to school. I look at the trees, the birds, everything around us: parakeets, magpies, great-tailed grackles, and white doves. My school, The Little River, is a Child Friendly School. I like everything about it, the garden ... I like everything there. I feel really good with my friends who are there. We don't fight because we are all friends, and we all study together in the same school.>> CHILDREN: Hail to thee, Nicaragua. On thy land roars the voice of the cannon no more. Let peace shine beautiful in thy sky.>> TITLE: El Riito Elementary School, 65 students, Child Friendly School since 2002>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: This is my teacher. Her name is Angeles Karina Garcia Cruz. She is great with us. She teaches us a lot. She teaches us with kindness, love, and respect. She is respectful with all of us.>> SIGN: School is my second home>> ANGELES KARINA GARCIA CRUZ [Teacher]: For me, a Child Friendly School is one that provides all that children need physically to be students, including a pleasant atmosphere where the walls speak.>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: This is my headmaster. His name is Yader Jose>> YADER JOSE CRUZ [Headmaster, El Riito School]: This school is totally different from other schools today, because others don't have all the accessibility we have. This school is committed to gender equality and the inclusion of children with special needs. It does everything to provide a caring, high-quality education. Another of the components this school has is that we have running water. We teach personal health and hygiene so that the children wash their hands, because later they will go over to the kitchen and get their lunch. They have all been taught to use soap and a towel after they've used the bathrooms. >> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: Before we eat, we have to wash our hands, because when you play you get dirty, and then if you eat without washing, you can get sick. >> YADER JOSE CRUZ: The first thing you see when you come through the school gate is the wheelchair-accessible ramp. We have here another ramp that leads to the bathrooms, where we have two sets of toilets, one for the girls and another for the boys. This is the only school around here that has all the components that together make a Child Friendly School and has a sanitary environment.>> MARTA [Parent Body President]: I am the school parent body president, and I am a mother who's very involved in the school. The mothers are part of the school, and they run the food committee. She is here today because it is her turn. The mothers prepare the food from Monday to Friday. Today is not my day, but I always am here, involved with the activities that are going on. This is chicken liver. We're cooking it with potatoes and white cabbage. She chopped the cabbage to add it to the chicken, so we bulked it up with two types of vegetable, potatoes and cabbage.>> WOMAN [Mother]: Come get a tortilla!>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: The food is very good. I like what we ate today, and other delicious things.>> YADER JOSE CRUZ: The people here are poor, but what there is here is so much love for the community and for the school, and they want their children to get ahead in life, that's why they are so organized, but in real terms they are poor. It isn't that people here have many chances. We can find houses here made out of mud. The good living conditions that you could have in a city are not offered here. Here, life is basic: people work to scrape together a daily living.>> MAN: And to stop, you push the red again. Now, film Robbie.>> TITLE: Children's footage.>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: I'm going to record this. My mom's ironing. This is my dad. This is my dog. He's called Savage. These are my kittens, Dolly and Cutey. This is my brother Francisco. He's 11 years old. This is my brother Deybin, and he's 12 years old. My father is 61 years old. He's a tenant farmer. I like to help him gather the corn we grow. I help him. We help him to finish more quickly so that we don't waste any time. My mom works here in the kitchen and takes care of everything. When we come home from school, she is always working here and has food ready so that we can eat right away. She prepares everything for us. Almost every day they give us homework. It is nice to finish it.>> CELESTINO ZAMORA MUNOZ [David's father]: The children's studies are really important to me because they are more advanced than we were at their age. They have more knowledge of the sciences.>> FRANCISCO ZAMORA MUNOZ [David's brother]: This is the universe.>> CELESTINO ZAMORA MUNOZ: Their schooling is so different from mine because we were exposed to so little. I was one of eight children, nine, ten with my parents. My father was a farm worker like me. I followed in his footsteps, pretty much: working six in the morning until six at night. I didn't do much in the way of studies. I didn't like it. It weighs on me now. I see there are ways to get ahead, and life is difficult for me. I am learning from my sons, though. They teach me words. They say to me, "Papa, you missed something here," "Papa, you left out a little dot there." They correct me. I learn words from what they tell me. They tell me how to write words. I tell them there's a better life, not one with a machete, not farm work, different work, that in their lifetime they will be able to earn more than I do. All that I earn from one day's pay here, I spend. I imagine they say they are going to study and then work. They'll decide when they're older what they want to do. I give them the word of God. I work as a missionary. Today, we have a week of community Bible study. A whole week.>> CECILIA ROSA MUNOZ [David's mother]: One of them says he wants to do the same kind of work as his father. One of them says he'd like to study to be a doctor. Another says he would like to be a musician for the choir in the Catholic Church. They are very studious. They are fascinated by their studies. They never want to miss a day of school because they say they will miss some of the subjects that are taught.>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: Quiet, quiet. We sleep here. This is where the three of us sleep, my two brothers and me, and my mom and dad sleep here.>> FRANCISCO ZAMORA MUNOZ: Shine the light on the Virgin, Deybin! >> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: I like sharing a bed with my brothers because we snuggle up the three of us, and also I like it a lot because we're not quiet in bed. We chat about what we are learning at school and stuff like that. She gets up at four in the morning to make our breakfast. >> FRANCISCO ZAMORA MUNOZ: "Goodbye, and lots of love.">> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: This is my brother Francisco's teacher, Consuelo.>> FRANCISCO ZAMORA MUNOZ: "Signed, Francisco Jose Zamora Munoz.">> CONSUELO OLIVAS JOYA: [Francisco's teacher]: A Child Friendly School is one that provides an education with quality and warmth. A child that attends a different kind of school has a different kind of childhood. Before, there were not the opportunities they have now, because it was very difficult to go to school. Now, education is free. Does anyone think there is enough water in this river? Look at all that empty space over there. They have a lot of support now. They are given pencils and exercise books and so on. And our Ministry of Education helps out by giving desks and books. Conditions are better. Before, the school wasn't like it is now, it was small, a long time ago it was made of clay, then it was rebuilt, with big classrooms and all the facilities we have now.>> CHILD 1 [Student]: They don't bite, do they? >> CHILD 2 [Student]: Yes, they do.>> CONSUELO OLIVAS JOYA: Before, there was no drinking water, no sinks. It was a little school, and now it's not. It's big with everything that children need. The children have the opportunity to express themselves freely and to say what they think. It is a way of life not only for the pupils but the teachers, too. I'm really happy working here. It's my first year in the school. We work hard, and because it is a Child Friendly School you cannot be the kind of teacher who's a clock-watcher. We stay on in the afternoons to work with the children, and with the parents. I feel really relaxed and satisfied working here.>> KARINA [David's teacher]: Is everyone drawing a picture? What does the dove mean to you?>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: Nature. >> KARINA: Yes, nature, what else?>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: We are studying with my teacher. We have classes in civics and social studies.>> KARINA: Are we better off in Nicaragua today? Is there discord? What is life like now? We are united, the country has united, and what do we call this? What does the white dove mean? The white dove is a sign of peace, freedom. We live now in a time of peace and freedom, and we have freedom of expression. Your picture is very pretty. What have you learned in this class? >> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: We are preserving the traditions of Nicaragua.>> KARINA: We are preserving our traditions. What else have you learned?>> CECILIA ROSA MUNOZ: The government has made a difference. There's been a lot of special programs. They've made a lot of changes. Everything today is so different. Everything has changed. When I was little, we lacked a lot of things. School wasn't like it is now. Today, the schools are very nice, and the children have fun. There is more love in the school.>> ANYOLI SANABRIA LOPEZ [UNICEF Education Specialist]: In a country as poor as Nicaragua and in communities as poor as this one, education is very important. Education is a key factor in helping people get out of poverty, and the Child Friendly Schools, we believe, are contributing to achieving this.>> NERYS DEL ROSARIO RODRIGUEZ VIDEA [Municipal Delegate, Ministry of Education]: Using this school, we have begun to extend the model to other schools, so we took the teachers that established it as a Child Friendly School, with the Ministry of Education's authorization, and we transferred the teachers to another school. The teacher who was here at this school with a mixed-grade class went to be the principal of another school with 1,000 students. So we are scaling up the model. We are able to put into practice in other schools the achievements we are getting in this Child Friendly School. We are very interested in quality and warmth in education, because that is our goal. >> ANYOLI SANABRIA LOPEZ: Historically, self-esteem is not something that has been part of the culture in Nicaragua, and poverty limits people's views. This kind of school sets out to release all of the children's potential, to get them to believe in themselves and in their abilities, and to realize their dreams. We believe that a school like this one is doing just that.>> DAVID ZAMORA MUNOZ: I want to be a doctor or a teacher, whichever would be the easiest to accomplish and to learn later on. Being a doctor is good because you learn about diseases and you can help your family. You can give them medicines for the illnesses they have. If they have a headache, you can give them a little pill to make them better. Before, we didn't know anything about our bodies, about the land, the world. I can't imagine life without school, because we wouldn't learn anything. We wouldn't know if there were cars, cows, and other countries. We wouldn't have any knowledge of these things. We wouldn't know anything. Life without our school would be terrible. It is great to study so that we can learn more, and there will always be things we can learn in the future. >>TITLE: [end credits]