|
INTENTION : |
That children who are suffering, especially those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war; may they be guaranteed access to education and the opportunity to experience family affection.
|
Child's cry rises up to God
Pope Francis insists that "every child who is marginalised, abused, abandoned, without schooling, or without medical care, is a cry that rises up to God."
An appalling number of suffering children
Children make up more than half of the 900 million people who survive on less than Ten Ringgit (UNESCO $1.90) a day. And in 2019, 149 million children under 5 suffered stunted growth.
In education, even though progress has been made in school enrolment, more than 175 million boys and girls don't go to pre-primary education - a problem exacerbated by armed conflicts, which in many places, are lasting longer and longer.
Unfortunately, nearly 250 million children live in countries or regions affected by armed conflicts. These social and economic conditions and living in a state of war impede their normal development and search for a promising future.
Low levels of learning for a third of 10-year-olds globally!
NEW YORK, September 16 2022 - UNICEF warns of shockingly low levels of learning, with only a third of 10-year-olds globally estimated to be able to read and understand a simply written story.
"Under-resourced schools, underpaid and underqualified teachers, over-crowded classrooms and archaic curricula are undermining our children's ability to reach their full potential," said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director.
"The trajectory of our education systems is, by definition, the trajectory of our future. We need to reverse current trendlines or face the consequences of failing to educate an entire generation. Low levels of learning today mean less opportunity for tomorrow."
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated a pre-existing learning crisis that has left millions of schoolchildren worldwide without foundational numeracy and literacy skills.
To draw attention to the education crisis and the need to transform learning worldwide, UNICEF has publicly unveiled on September 16, 2022, the 'Learning Crisis Classroom,' a model classroom that represents the scale of children failing to learn critical foundational skills.
A third of the desks in the model classroom are made of wood and are fully functioning, with an iconic UNICEF backpack placed on the school chair behind it.
The remaining two-thirds of desks are almost invisible and made of transparent material to signify the 64 per cent of children estimated to be unable to read and understand a simply written story by age 10.
Leaders who met at the Transforming Education Summit, UNICEF, between 16 and 26 September 2022, are calling on governments to commit to reaching all children with quality education. We are urging new effort and investment to re-enrol and retain all children in school, increase access to remedial and catchup learning, support teachers and give them the tools they need, and ensure that schools provide a safe and supportive environment.
What can be done to improve children's fortunes?
2022 sees us entering a third year of the pandemic, and the harm done to children is increasingly evident: A record rise in child poverty. Setbacks to progress on routine vaccinations. Disruption to education for an entire generation. That harm has emerged as an unintended side-effect of the world's efforts to manage the crisis.
COVID has been a uniquely dis-equalising crisis. Lopsided access to vaccines aside, learning losses have been most significant among the poorest children, and job losses have been disproportionately borne by women and youth.
What next for the world's children in the year ahead?
As in the past two years, prospects for children will continue to hinge on the pandemic and its management.
Our analysis zooms in on the next 12 months, taking an in-depth view of key trends impacting children - and helping all of us working to support children to survive and thrive, to better understand where we are, where we are going and what we need to do.
Key findings include:
- In 2022, the global community needs to recast its COVID strategy to mitigate the virus and its effect on society - particularly children.
- Consequences of school closures will increasingly be counted: learning losses are worse than anticipated, and negative coping strategies - including child labour and marriage - are mounting.
- A lack of global cooperation puts at risk the G20 target to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of the population in every country by mid-year. This increases the odds of further escape variants, delaying the virus's eventual containment and allowing the costs for children to continue to accumulate.
- Inequities are set to take new forms: access to COVID mRNA doses and boosters will remain restricted, and access to life-saving treatments will be even more exclusive.
- Record humanitarian needs are forecast for 2022. As the impact of climate change grows, it will trigger new disasters, drive instability and exacerbate existing vulnerabilities.
- But children and young people express greater optimism for the future; for instance, technology and infrastructure developed for the pandemic can drive the next revolution in child survival.
Play with your children - To play is to dream
Fr. Frederic Fornos, SJ, International Director of the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, emphasises the Holy Father's call to pray and also invites "every country to have the determination to take the necessary measures to make the future of the very young, especially those who suffer a priority."
Thus, we are not exempt from working towards achieving this goal in our daily life - each of us within our own possibilities, in ways that could seem quite simple.
Remember Pope Francis' words to families
And tell me, Mr. or Mrs., do you play with your children?
"Excuse me, Father?"
Do you spend time with your children? Do you play with your children?
"Well, no, you know, when I leave the house in the morning," the man tells me, "they are still asleep, and when I come home, they are in bed."...
The availability of a father or mother to their children is essential: Spend time with your children, play with them. (...) Every time a child is abandoned ... not only is it an act of injustice, but it also ensures the failure of that society.
The Holy Father says that every boy and girl "is Christ, who came to our world as a defenceless child." Helping them, keeping them from suffering, and offering them opportunities is a way to keep their roots from being cut and their future bright because "it is Christ who looks at us through the eyes of each of these children."
UNICEF and Aleteia.org
|
|
