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
category
but what about the established right to
an education
how does this happen gaps in policy
as well as the effects of forced
migration often result in refugee youth
losing
years of schooling to date many of the
children that i’ve worked with
are displaced undocumented inspiring
refugee youth
and non-profits and ngos like mine are
sometimes the only groups directly
addressing these educational gaps still
regrettably it remains that refugee
youth have some of the most limited
access to educational opportunities
worldwide
the kova 19 pandemic has resulted in an
emergency situation for educators
worldwide
it has magnified certain gaps
exacerbated
obstacles and widened disparities in the
education sector
displaced youth have been
disproportionately affected as school
often serves as more than just a place
for learning
but protection at the peak of the
pandemic
an estimated 91 percent of schools
around the globe were closed
as education is necessary for global
progress
it has become imperative that educators
create innovative
learning opportunities during these
school closures
yes there were massive online shifts to
online learning
but what if students in areas where that
remote access
to such learning isn’t an option where
perhaps connectivity just
isn’t available again we can highlight
particular challenges
for displaced youth and we’re now faced
with the challenge of addressing
pre-existing inequalities
while also recognizing new
marginalization
post-pandemic today i am sharing some of
my personal
and professional experiences in an
effort to learn from them
i seek to use what i have seen and what
i have done to help people
and those are people who need help in
ways i think
most people don’t understand the point
of my ted talk today
is to acknowledge that kids are out of
school
everywhere and we should be doing more
about that
so what i have been doing is trying to
work on increasing access
for the most marginalized the most
vulnerable
the most resilient of children
kids are out of school and i have tried
to focus on why since
learning why i now seek to work with
kids who are up against
the most unjust challenges
so how do we do that by creating
educational opportunity
that’s what my organization moji has
been working to do
and that’s why i now strongly believe in
expanding and scaling our programs
i’m constantly reminded that education
is something that can change
lives i value my education today more
than i ever have before
and my moji students continue to remind
me what a privilege it is to be educated
in this world
it always comes back to education for me
access
and inclusivity kids need better access
to educational opportunities and those
educational opportunities
should have a focus on inclusion more
effective
inclusion means looking at kids who
might not be
in school yet but they have just as much
of the right to be there
do you remember when i asked you if you
could ever imagine sneaking into school
well the reason i asked you is because
that’s exactly what one of my young
moses students had to do
kids inherently want to learn and
different kinds of kids in different
learning spaces
is good for everyone the irony is i’ve
learned more from my students than i’ve
taught them
sure maybe i’ve exposed them to this or
that but from them i’ve learned about
life
actually i’ve learned about it with them
their regular use of creativity and
ingenuity
continues to inspire me these kids have
taught me how to plant and grow my own
food
how to best hang my clothes on the line
so they dry quickest in the sun
how to appreciate what i have rather
than focusing on what i don’t
and how to share always
the children i am talking about come
from so little
and yet contribute so much wherever they
go
these kids are not looking for a handout
all they desire is to be seen and heard
from this talk i hope to see more
institutional partnerships that create
inclusive
educational opportunities perhaps via
academic scholarships
i would like this discussion of
diversity and inclusion to involve the
kids that so few
are able to see but they’re there
policy change requires advocacy advocacy
requires understanding
and it requires a level of honesty that
at times
brings uncomfortable reflection
if we are to truly have a discussion
about some of our world’s most pressing
issues then these voices absolutely need
to be a part of that discussion
we should be listening to the voices of
youth who are out of school
because ultimately it’s us who will be
learning from them
thank you