How education can change?
Sure you heard about "Give a fish and you feed a men for a day. Teach a men how to fish and he can feed himself for a life."
But is education really the key for changes? Many people says: "If children are hungry they cannot learn." Not true at all... Children in many countries around the world, even with hunger, still going to school. They are hungry, but their hunger is for knowledge... Even children knows that if they can go to school the chance that they will solve their hunger problems are real. Schools in most of developing countries teaches agriculture skills, that can change the way they can acquire food.
In Zambia, as model, most families in rural areas have just 1 meal per day. Even thou, the percentage of children at school its the incredible number of 92%!
The problems that we have in this poor countries is not only corruption from government (that we have everywhere), the problem is that every "help" that is sent to there is addressed to wrong projects.
Why would you provide HIV lessons to one specific group of 10-50 people, spending hundreds of dollars, when you could improve the quality of education at community schools (where teachers DO TEACH about HIV) so you can change the future of this children and also the present, since children use to talk about what they learned to their parents and relatives...
When you teach a group of adults, its less likely that this parents will tell their children about this problem, since in almost every culture, talking about sex with children is a taboo.
This is what we call "feed poverty". You dont bring changes, you just emend one problem, but keeping it alive (through the new generations) so you can keep making courses (and usually making money with it through donations).
You will see that everybody who came out of poverty did through their OWN EFFORTS, sometimes with a little push from someone else, but they did fight for it by themselves. And almost everybody who did it, who came from a really poor situation to a stable and sometimes rich life, was through education...
When we keep the "education gate" open to everybody, changes come through development... People change by their own efforts, and any change that come through our own efforts are the most valuable and permanent ones.
But is education really the key for changes? Many people says: "If children are hungry they cannot learn." Not true at all... Children in many countries around the world, even with hunger, still going to school. They are hungry, but their hunger is for knowledge... Even children knows that if they can go to school the chance that they will solve their hunger problems are real. Schools in most of developing countries teaches agriculture skills, that can change the way they can acquire food.
In Zambia, as model, most families in rural areas have just 1 meal per day. Even thou, the percentage of children at school its the incredible number of 92%!
The problems that we have in this poor countries is not only corruption from government (that we have everywhere), the problem is that every "help" that is sent to there is addressed to wrong projects.
Why would you provide HIV lessons to one specific group of 10-50 people, spending hundreds of dollars, when you could improve the quality of education at community schools (where teachers DO TEACH about HIV) so you can change the future of this children and also the present, since children use to talk about what they learned to their parents and relatives...
When you teach a group of adults, its less likely that this parents will tell their children about this problem, since in almost every culture, talking about sex with children is a taboo.
This is what we call "feed poverty". You dont bring changes, you just emend one problem, but keeping it alive (through the new generations) so you can keep making courses (and usually making money with it through donations).
You will see that everybody who came out of poverty did through their OWN EFFORTS, sometimes with a little push from someone else, but they did fight for it by themselves. And almost everybody who did it, who came from a really poor situation to a stable and sometimes rich life, was through education...
When we keep the "education gate" open to everybody, changes come through development... People change by their own efforts, and any change that come through our own efforts are the most valuable and permanent ones.
When people rely on "charity"
The worst poverty is the one that live inside us.
First
of all, sorry for my english if its not good enough... it's not my
native language. If there will be any error, forgive me.Well, when I went to African Continent first time, I went to Zâmbia, a country landlocked between Angola, Mozambique, DR Congo, Tanzania and other countries. Nice country with very sweet people (at least most of them). My idea at that time was that they needed knowledge about specific things (as most people do), so, I went there with focus on it.
After finding out that the organization that sent me there was not "non-profit" as their 503 documents says, I found out the worst reality. Most organizations create one net of projects in way to keep people depending on them. And Zambians were completely used to it. They are always waiting for things to come straight in their hands, no need to work or to fight for it. No effort at all.
It scared me that organizations PAY for people from community to go to their "workshops". Anywhere else in the world, we need PAY to learn, in Zambia organizations are giving money away so people can go... And it's not about culture. Its just that NPO's, NGO's and Governamental organizations from all over the world make it as something normal, since they need to report to their suporters that "20 people attended to our workshop for development".
When I went back again, this time with my wife (recent married), our goal was not to make workshops, our goal was to give young zambians the challenge of changing by their own efforts through education.
Most people still doesn't understand how hard is it to fight old habits. It's not easy for us to work there, most of the time we need people from community to step ahead and do something but now what happens is that, if you call people for any meeting, many of them will ask at first glance: "How much we can receive?"
Seriously??! This workshops doesn't mean anything for them anymore (about learning), its just about easy way to make money...
It make me sad and mad. When I say that Organizations are FEEDING POVERTY, this is what I meant to say: If you can make money without any effort, why you will change?!
As I just said, its really hard to fight old habits, but that's where Education come's in... Teaching new generations (since the old ones are already gone in this lost world of bribe), giving them new views about a brighter future that THEY CAN BUILD IF THEY WORK FOR IT and knowing that nobody will give them a LIFE CHANGING BOX, that they will open and everything bad will be gone... They need to change through their own efforts, fight for it and have as reward a brighter future.
Alexandre Lago
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