Decreasing vulnerability: Inclusion in education and community resilience

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session (English)

Proposal

Marginalized children are often located in high poverty, low income regions of a country, sometimes living at minimum subsistence levels. These communities are also the most vulnerable to increased variability, intensity, and frequency of weather events and climate change impacts. It is essential to ensure that the most marginalized, vulnerable and disenfranchised have opportunities to access the very foundational education that will build the seeds of critical thinking, problem solving, social skills, and resilience needed to face a world of every increasing insecurity and fragility—socially, politically, and environmentally.

At the same time, the investment in foundational education must also consider the potential children will have to use their education to survive and thrive in their local communities. It is in enabling a population to develop the skills to critically think, adapt and learn that leads to resilience and creative problem solving. What then of the millions left behind without any access to or opportunities to receive an education? Not only for them, but for our shared future? How do we enable those who are and will be the most affected by raising temperatures, environmental changes and the increasing social and political insecurity when very often they are not only denied education, but their very existence is in question?

In what ways can we generate sustainable solutions to providing educational opportunities for the most vulnerable and create strategies to ensure strong and viable communities? What investments have been made in sustainable solutions to reaching those most marginalized from education and engage community ownership and investment?.

This panel will explore ways in which programmatic interventions and initiatives are working to ensure that the most marginalized are not forgotten in areas of the world the worst affected by both climatic and social-political insecurities and changes. Presenters will examine how programs have worked to enable the most vulnerable children and their communities to learn, plan, and adapt to ensure the education, health, vitality, and resilience.

Presentations will focus on :

1. Including mobile populations in the education offer: Provision of education for children who are out of school as a result of migration, mobility, or displacement requires innovative solutions. Education strategies succeeding in reaching these children are also scalable in other situations where children are the hardest to reach. Program examples include pastoralists in Ethiopia with imagine1day, UNHCR selected countries.

2. Adapting religious education for greater educational inclusion: Parents and communities choose to send their children to receive a religious education for many reasons. Introducing the formal curriculum in Koranic schools mitigates the risk of these children never attending school. What strategies are used in creating a “Renewed Koranic School.” How is community support essential to the success of this model?

3. Decentralization of initiatives to ensure local stakeholders’ ownership. The key idea behind a successful intervention is decentralization of initiatives which gives implementers ownership and ensures activism based on directly affected individuals and groups. To ensure education that leads to resilience, commitment from the local community is essential, as the investment in education contributes to the ability to survive and thrive. The Reach Out to Asia (ROTA) program invests in the community and ensures the support of all stakeholders as they are the most informed about their natural setting and better able to carry on education and contribute to community resilience for the long term. Projects ROTA carried out in natural disaster prone areas in Bangladesh and Nepal gives a clear example of how education and community resilience work hand in hand to ensure proper measures are in place to enable continuity and sustainability for the future.

4. Drawing on communities to bring vulnerable children into the light: Children living with disabilities while facing extreme poverty and harsh environmental factors become practically invisible in the provision of mainstream education. Community groups, disabled peoples associations, and education and health authorities, can be drawn on to change the status quo and shift community mindsets toward the education of children with disabilities in mainstream schools. How does the inclusion of CWD promote more inclusive communities?

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Said Yasin, Education Above All/Educate A Child

Individual Presentations

• Reaching those most vulnerable to climate impacts with education opportunities - Farida Aboudan, Education Above All Foundation/Educate A Child

• Renewed Koranic Schooling in Mali : Expanding a traditional form of schooling - Christina N'Tchougan-Sonou, Education Development Center (EDC)

• Decentralization of initiatives to ensure local stakeholders’ ownership - Samah Al Sabbagh, Education Above All Foundation/ROTA

• Unveiling the Invisible: Experiences and lessons learned from implementation of Inclusive Education programming in West Africa - Sabrina Muire Hervey, Education Above All/Educate A Child