http://www.ungei.org/ News from UNGEI en-us Copyright 2007, UNGEI http://www.ungei.org/rss/ http://www.unicef.org/images/hp_ungei_banner_thn.gif http://www.ungei.org/ http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2365.html Zainab Salbi is co-founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a grassroots international humanitarian and development organization helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives, families and communities. A survivor of war herself, Ms. Salbi grew up in Iraq, and was sent to America for an arranged but ultimately abusive marriage. Stranded in America by the Gulf War, she escaped the marriage and started her life over. She co-founded the organization in 1993, at the age of 23, as a response to the trauma endured by women survivors of the Balkan wars. Here she talks to us about her life, work and girls' education and gender equality. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2364.html Zainab Salbi is the founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a group that is dedicated to helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives. A survivor of war herself, Ms Salbi started Women for Women International in response to the rape and concentration camps in Bosnia in 1993. Since then, the organization has served more than 250,000 women in 8 conflict and post-conflict areas from Congo and Rwanda to Afghanistan and her native country Iraq. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2363.html Moderator Amy Costellodiscusses theadvances made and challenges ahead for girls' education with Tamara Kreinin from theUnited Nations Foundation, and the Kenya's Minister of Education, Honourable Ambassador Professor Samson Kagengo Ongeri. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2360.html The United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI) and UNICEF will host a screening of Rising Voices: Raising Yusriyaon the occasion of the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) taking place 1-12 March 2010 at the United Nations in New York. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2349.html http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2345.html In the developing world, girls need new skills and capacities for the 21st Century. They need to have the ability to be flexible, adaptive, and innovative to grow into positions of influence in their communities and countries. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_2343.html During the Taliban's reign, fewer than one million children went to school in Afghanistan. Now about six million children are registered in schools and about one third of them are girls. Sida's efforts in educating boys and girls in Afghanistan have delivered results. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2311.html In a message on the occasion of World AIDS Day, Director-General of UNESCO Ms. Irina Bokova says: 'All people have the right to education, information and services that will enable them to avoid HIV infection, and for those living with HIV, to have the best possible quality of life free from stigma and discrimination.' http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2307.html NEW YORK, USA, 30 June 2009 – The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) represents a major milestone in the historic effort to achieve a world fit for children. As a binding treaty of international law, it codifies principles that Member States of the United Nations agreed to be universal – for all children, in all countries and cultures, at all times and without exception, simply through the fact of their being born into the human family. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/cameroon_2305.html Hawa Mahmadou, 12, was devastated when she was forced to drop out of school two years ago because her parents couldn't afford the fees. She spent her days doing household chores. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/2253_2302.html The Asia Pacific Knowledge Network on Youth Employment (APYouthNet) is a community of practice that connects youth employment experts from across the Asia Pacific region. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/2253_2300.html Dinh Thi Ha, a girl from Monic village in Vietnam, faces greater difficulties than many attending school. Her village lies in Son Ky, a mountainous commune in Son Ha district. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/india_2294.html RAJASTHAN, India, 14 October 2009 - For years, twelve-year-old Madhubala Bishnoi's life was not very different from that of generations of girls before her in this far corner of Rajasthan. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/thailand_2280.html Bangkok, Thailand, 8-11 September 2009 - UNICEF and UNGEI joined hands in support of stronger evidence-based advocacy towards gender equality in education. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/srilanka_2248.html MONARAGALA, Sri Lanka, 08 October 2009 - Using tele-cinema to communicate challenges children face, and to advocate possible solutions to their own issues, would seem a little unconventional in the Sri Lankan context. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2223.html International Youth Day will take as its theme Sustainability: our challenge, our future. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2224.html http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2217.html Gender Equality In and Through Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crisis and Early Recovery CALL FOR PAPERS & CASE STUDIES: August 2009 http://www.ungei.org/resources/1612_2219.html http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_2216.html In Afghanistan, more than half of the population is below the age of 18. Youth literacy rates are low. For young women and girls, the situation is of particular concern. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2212.html It is often said that young people are our future. They are our present, too. It is today, and not tomorrow, that we must invest in young people and include them in solving the great challenges of our times. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2211.html The UK is set to remodel its education programme in the world's poorest countries in an attempt to help children who are considered the hardest to reach and revive international efforts to get all primary aged children into school by 2015. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2209.html The financial and economic crises of 2008 had gender-specific impacts and placed a disproportionate burden on women, in particular poor, migrant and minority women. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/benin_2162.html "Before, I had to take food from home," says Mamanfati Issifou, an Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program (AGSP) scholar; now, thanks to the scholarship lunch, I have lunch at school". http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/opt_2156.html GAZA, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 25 June 2009 – Brightly coloured cones, triangles and measuring tools were scattered across the school desks in the sparsely furnished fifth-grade classroom of the Mustafa Hafez primary school in Gaza City. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/drc_2153.html KIPUSHI, Democratic Republic of Congo, 12 June 2009 – Covered in powder, Sylvian, 2, sits alongside his mother, pounding rocks with a mallet in an ore heap in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/nepal_2154.html KATHMANDU, Nepal, 12 June 2009 – Maya Waiba was still shy of her 10th birthday when a labour contractor in her impoverished village in the south of Nepal promised her parents that she would receive a decent salary and an education in Kathmandu. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2147.html Media summary of the ILO report: Give girls a chance - Tackling child labour, a key to the future. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2135.html The World Day Against Child Labour will be celebrated on 12 June 2009. The World Day this year marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the landmark ILO Convention No. 182, which addresses the need for action to tackle the worst forms of child labour. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2131.html Global, 18 May 2009, The Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are a 'make or break'moment for whether the G20 deal will benefit the millions of children and adults struggling to get aneducation, according to a new policy report from the Global Campaign for Education (GCE). http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2129.html Global, May 8, 2009—A global push to enroll children in school faces an immediate financing gap of some $1.2 billion—a situation that threatens the goal of universal education by 2015, say backers of the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI). http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/usa_2120.html LOS ANGELES, USA, 22 April 2009 -The African First Ladies Health Summit concluded with a commitment by these influential women to use their positions to improve maternal health, stop the AIDS epidemic and promote girls' education. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_2122.html Limerick, Ireland, 18 to 29 May 2009 - UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Education are organizing an e-Forum on "Teachers and HIV & AIDS: Reviewing achievements, identifying challenges" from 18 to 29 May 2009. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/zambia_2119.html Lubwe, Zambia: Saturday, April 18th - Minutes before the Impact Fair starts, the students from the Leadership & Enterprise Course are practicing their presentations and fine-tuning their posters, putting the finishing touches on drawings of chickens and cell phones and overstuffed couches. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/thailand_2115.html As part of the initiative to promote gender equality in education, UNESCO Bangkok - along with the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI), East Asia and Pacific (EAP) and South Asia (SA) - is pleased to invite entries for the Photo Contest 2009 on the theme of: Reversing Realities: Seeking Gender Equality in Education http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/ethiopia_2098.html ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 9 April 2009 – Adolescent girls in developing countries are the world's greatest untapped resource for stability and growth. As economic actors and future mothers, safe, healthy, educated, economically empowered girls have the means to escape poverty and ignite progress. http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/bhutan_2097.html THIMPHU, Bhutan, 6 April 2009 – The Young Champions of Bhutan participated in a Youth Festival organized by the Department of Youth and Sports under the Ministry of Education this past December.