Tuesday, September 12, 2006

War Keeps Kids from School

Along with all the other terrible costs of war to a society, it keeps kids from going to school. This new report from Save the Children says that more than 43 million children worldwide can't attend school because of armed conflict. Here's the PDF of the report itself.

And a country doesn't have to be involved in a full-blown war in order to have this problem. Here in Tecwil we know that, since many children here aren't able to go to school due to the violence in their neighborhoods. Here are the countries, according to the report, where this kind of educational disruption is taking place right now: Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Timor Leste, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe.

Whew. I don't know about you, but I feel pretty overwhelmed by that list.

Forty-three million children who won't get another chance at a childhood.

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