Included Not Ignored

can you imagine

sneaking into school into school

as in when the teacher is not looking

you sneak into the classroom

i don’t know about all of you but i know

that when i was younger

i spent a lot more time thinking about

how i could get out of class

rather than sneaking into it

education is a human right this right

isn’t a point of philosophy or rhetoric

but one that is upheld by international

law

as such states have an obligation to

ensure that children

and young people living in their country

receive a quality education this

responsibility holds true regardless of

a child’s status or their country of

origin

and yet i have met so many kids who

don’t get to go to school

children are out of school for many

different reasons

and i think that it’s really important

to maintain a contextual understanding

of which children we’re talking about

and where and i think we really need to

be sure that we are asking questions

before we think that we have the answers

this idea of asking questions before we

have answers comes from my own learning

and a time where i was actually quite

wrong

in what i thought i knew i remember i

was working on an education initiative

in indonesia and i was working with a

field team to do research on

why classrooms were experiencing lower

levels of engagement

and and i remember thinking that i knew

why kids weren’t going to school right i

had seen this in so many places

and it wasn’t until i started speaking

with some of the community leaders and

some of the

the head teachers at the schools

when i learned that kids weren’t going

to school

not for lack of resources and not for a

lack of infrastructure but rather

climate change climate change what do

you mean climate change

during the rainy season in indonesia

this particular island that i was on

mudslides actually have become quite

prevalent and

the rural mountain village that i was

doing research in actually experiences

so many mudslides during rainy season

that the roads children use to travel to

school

are often covered and children have

unfortunately lost their lives on that

very road before

and so parents were actively choosing to

keep their children home during that

season

in an effort to keep them safe

when i was in haiti following one of

the more devastating earthquakes

i again saw children out of school and

i assumed that this was because of the

natural disaster and i assume that that

schools were still closed because of the

flooding and the lack of electricity

but after spending a bit of time there

and actually getting to know some of the

children i was working with

i learned that these kids weren’t going

to school even before the earthquake

and that an actual lack of physical

schools where they live

in this more rural mountain village is

in fact

why children don’t often go to school i

did the walk with some of those kids

up that mountain and it was multiple

hours one direction to get to school

when i was in south africa i actually

had quite a different experience

the area where we were struggled with

high dropout rates due to drug addiction

and gang initiation

and so the peer pressure actually on

students

to instead participate in a listed

activity rather than investing in their

education

was so strong and could quite literally

be felt

on a weekly basis in this area

so again we can see that children are

often out of school for reasons that are

beyond their

control and i think this is really

important for us to remember

specifically when we’re talking about

children out of school

and so over the years i continued to

work with homeless youth

in places such as ghana and greece and

zambia

and i continue to see that children are

regrettably out of school everywhere

still i wanted to better understand why

and what we could do about it

and as time has gone on i believe i’ve

become better at asking questions

and learning from others

i would like to be very clear that out

of school youth

is by no means an africa problem and

i am most certainly not here to paint

that picture

much of my unique experiences have in

fact

been spent with youth on the continent

however what i am what i am here talking

about today

i have seen everywhere including america

i’m from new york city and believe me

you see a lot there

so yeah i’ve seen out of school youth

everywhere and we can talk about why

this is

about why kids end up in these

situations albeit

poverty or politics but what i would

like for us to most focus on now

is that by better understanding these

kids

we can better support their healthy

learning

and why should we do this because

ultimately

education is a proven intervention to so

many

societal challenges

an educated society benefits our

collective community and so

people who wish to continue learning

should be supported

i continue to learn from out-of-school

youth in zambia

zambia is a beautiful african nation

plagued by incessant poverty

the majority of the population is in

fact of

school age however a minority of the

population in zambia ultimately complete

grade 12.

why is this a combination of social and

financial barriers

ultimately prohibit children from

accessing school many lack the resources

and the supplies needed to continue with

their schooling

no matter the reason children are too

often robbed of their right to an

education

the longer i spent in zambia the more

i learned from out of school youth there

from their lessons i ultimately came to

found

mozi modzi means one

in china which is one of more than 70

languages spoken indigenously in zambia

and moji came from the idea that change

can start with just one person

we are a registered non-profit

organization working with vulnerable

inspiring youth

we combine a series of formal

scholarship and informal mentorship

opportunities

to help children thrive in both an

academic setting

and in their communities we work with

children who come from severely

impoverished areas

a majority of whom have in fact spent

time living on the streets

and i think it’s really worth noting

that i started moji

after gaining a unique situational

understanding of

these systemic challenges in zambia and

i did so

alongside zambian youth

as a result of combating so many

obstacles children in zambia often find

themselves living on the streets

these children are commonly referred to

as street kids

a phrase assigned to those who are less

fortunate

and who have for one reason or another

found themselves unprotected

you will never hear me refer to my

students as

street kids because after getting to

know them better

i’ve learned from them that this label

is actually so hurtful and can in fact

be so

damaging these kids have taught me

once again the power of stigma

stigma is strong and i think this idea

of street kids is something that most

people are uncomfortable talking about

i also think that this group of kids are

often underestimated

in the sense that people don’t expect

them to succeed

when in fact in my humble experience

they are quite literally wired to

succeed

these kids are resilient these kids are

survivors

these kids are more clever than you or i

are on a regular basis

and they know what life looks like

without education

these are not kids who you have to tell

to study these are not the kids who take

school light-heartedly

these are the kids who work hard and

motivate others around them

these are kids who use their own

personal experiences

of survival and apply that same critical

thinking

to whatever it is that they’re currently

faced with in an academic setting

what we must remember is that most

children who are living on the street

didn’t end up there by choice and that

these children face

not only the challenges of homelessness

but also the pain

of being labeled with such stigma

children don’t choose the circumstances

into which they are born

and lack of opportunity is something

that no child should have to struggle

with

despite all of these obstacles children

still want to learn

for us and the children we mentor moji

is so much more than an

organization it’s a family

by empowering our world’s children we

can empower tomorrow’s global leaders

one by one

since founding modsi i have continued to

advocate for more inclusive protection

and increased access to educational

opportunities

a few years ago i was actually brought

in to help manage a refugee camp in

europe and the informal

educational programs there as a

protection lead i was also responsible

for training teams

in trauma-informed emergency response

formal schooling remains very difficult

for children residing in camps to access

and integration into national education

systems

is also not usually such a simple matter

still i saw children’s unimaginable

resilience

and their unquestionable desire to learn

and again i observed students struggling

in school

not for lack of ability but for lack of

opportunity

at this point i can conclude that

displaced undocumented youth are some of

the most

marginalized at risk and in need of our

attention

a refugee in any country should have as

much of a right to an education

as any citizen of that country

and yet the percentage of refugees

formerly enrolled in education

is strikingly lower than the global

average

to put it in global context

numbers plummet when considering number

of refugees attending university

where only three percent are enrolled

globally

consider the perspective of a young

refugee and

how they are forced to think about their

future on their own

exclusion and lack of access to

schooling are perhaps not intentional

barriers for refugee youth

but remain challenges nonetheless

people’s lives could be dramatically

improved

via education and yet so many are barred

from accessing such opportunity

prevented through no fault of their own

refugees too often fall into this