Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education for Children

Educated children have better access to economic opportunities, are less vulnerable to disease, and contribute more to their communities.  And yet, more than 100 million children are not in school today.  Seventy percent of those children are girls. 

The target of Goal Two is to ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

Making It Real

 

Episcopal Relief and Development is working toward universal primary education.  For example, ERD is providing opportunities for children in Zambia who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS to attend school.  Over 750,000 Zambian children are orphans, with the number estimated to reach over 1 million in the next ten years.  If left alone without a support network, these children often drop out of school because they have to work to support themselves and their siblings. 

Through our partnership with the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation, ERD is providing children orphaned by HIV/AIDS opportunities to attend school.

Vastiganda lost both her parents to HIV/AIDS.  Now, as just a young girl, she is the primary caregiver for her four siblings. Because Vastiganda and her siblings live in the district of Katete in eastern Zambia, they are able to receive assistance from a program partnership between Episcopal Relief and Development and the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation designed to help children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.  Vastiganda has the opportunity to go to school, and receives basic living supplies to support herself and her siblings.  She gets up at dawn to do the chores before going off to school.  Some days, she has to stay home to care for a sick sibling.  With her dedication, and a little help from ERD, Vastiganda will be able to build a stable future for herself and her siblings.

What You Can Do: ACT.
Create a bulletin board about children of the world who are unable to attend school (for example, child soldiers, children orphaned by AIDS, and displaced children). Place the bulletin board in a high-traffic area of your church and update it often. Find resources and images for your bulletin board in newspapers, online, and in the links below.

Ask your company to support an essay contest -- with the importance of primary education as the topic.  Open the contest to students at a local public school.  Or, advertise the essay contest (and your company) online by submitting it to a scholarship database such as FastWeb.

For Further Consideration

Go on to Goal 3  >>

How ERD is making a difference...

Countries
We lift communities out of poverty around the world in areas such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. We partner with local organizations in the Anglican Communion to ensure vulnerable people have healthy food to eat and get proper health care.

Domestic
We provide critical supplies to people through local dioceses after natural and human-made disasters. We partner with the dioceses to get life-saving aid to children and their families and stay with communities after the crisis to provide ongoing support.





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