Tuesday, January 18, 2011

25,000 Ivoirian Refugees in Liberia - Food and Water Scarce

Nine year-old Sanata was home alone when chaos erupted in her village on the western border of Ivory Cost and Liberia. Sanata’s parents were working in the fields and her brothers and sisters were out when the neighbours decided to run from the village and across the Nior river into Liberia – a long days walk under a baking sun.

Following the elections in Ivory Coast last November, many villages like Sanata’s experienced confusion, and fear that there would be violence when the two presidential candidates both claimed legitimate victory in early December.

Many Iviorians crossed into Liberia as early as 28 November – some seeing continued stalemate and growing aggression in the capital of Abidjan as the dangerous next step to another civil war.

To date UNHCR has registered Ivoirian 25,088 refugees in Liberia. A report from the Liberian-Ivoirian border For UNICEF (January 2011).

Children the Key to Adult Literacy in Mozambique

The legacy of colonization left Mozambique with a staggering 97% illiteracy after independence in 1975.

Since then, the government has managed to reduce illiteracy to just under 50% - but the lack of basic reading, writing and arithmetic for much of the population remains an immense challenge for the country's development.

An innovative programme working with children, however, is turning that around.

A UNESCO Initiative that came about in 2003, the Government has taken the reigns and is now rolling out the programme nationally. Children are taking the lead, teaching their parents a thing or two.

For: EuroNews: Learning World (Nov/Dec 2011)