by Urmila Chanam
-India-

I had heard about the prevalence of child marriage in India, but Nikita, 11, personalized the institution for me. I met her in a government school in the remote village of Doodiya, eight kilometers from Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Tiny, fragile-boned, and inhibited, she is a student of class six. In other parts of the world, Nikita would have lived the life of a growing child, but here in the heart of India, Nikita behaves like a small lady. She is soon to be married. A child bride at 11 years, soon to tie the knot with a 15-year-old boy, also in school, but certainly not an adult himself.

by Katie Palmer
-Canada-

Child sex trafficking is rampant throughout the Philippines. Both anti-trafficking non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government agencies estimate that 60,000 to 100,000 Filipino children, a majority between the ages of 14 and 17, are trafficked each year for purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Contrast this to Sweden, a high-income country that espouses gender equality, where national authorities estimate that between 400 and 600 children and women are trafficked annually.

by Stephanie Koehler
-USA-

The vision of “Female Perspectives on Ending Sexual Violence” is to unite women from all over the world to document the pain they suffer as a result of sexual violence and the healing approach they have taken to grow from victim to survivor. Each installment will include photography of a female survivor and provide a platform to tell her story. Stephanie’s vision is to grow this project into an international sexual assault awareness campaign.

Brandi and I met at her home after several prior conversations about my project. She agreed to be the first participant in this series of photo-journalistic accounts.

by Priyanka Bhardwaj
-India-

Every afternoon 8-year-old Raj Kumar and his younger sibling trudge along the ten kilometer expanse of Golf Course Road to take free classes at a school ensconced in a posh pocket of Gurgaon in the Indian state of Haryana. The zeal of their car-washer parents to conquer their poor living conditions has led them to push their children to get an education despite the hardship forsaking the extra income two sets of helping hands would have earned.

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

Empowerment is opening up new spaces for personal development for women in Pakistan. As opportunities for education come within their reach women are learning how to upgrade their lives. This has brought the realization that a big family may not be a blessing, and can actually handicap women. This is a big leap from where women were a few years ago, when motherhood was widely regarded as a status symbol. The more male children women had the more respect they could command. Sons brought a sense of security as they consolidated a woman’s position in the household and ensured that a second wife would not displace her.

by Michelle Tolson
-Mongolia-

One night while relaxing at home after a long day of horseback riding, I heard a loud banging on a door downstairs. It was a man adamant to be let in. He was probably drunk. This type of thing had happened before. I thought nothing of it, but then I heard a woman scream. I also heard the man yell and throw things. I wanted to help, but I was too frightened. I did not know what to do.

I wanted to call the police, but I did not know the number. Besides, I was new to the country and did not speak the language. Would they even understand me? What was my address anyway? There were other people in the building who were quiet during the episode. Why did they not do anything? I heard the man leave and the woman crying below.

by Susan Enuogbope Majekodunmi
-USA-

My maternal grandfather’s mantra was, “Educate a woman, and you feed and educate her family.” He educated his daughters when Nigerian fathers rarely did. My grandfather was also very interested in my education and often questioned me about it. It is a shame his passion for educating women is not emulated by some African governments.

In Nigeria, as in much of Africa, women are the greatest underutilized resource. As a continent of developing countries, African governments are not effectively advancing women’s skills even though women constitute roughly 50 percent of the population.

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

The story of Parveen Lateef and her home school was first published on October 22, 2010. This version includes an update on Lateef and her students. It is as relevant today as it was when it was originally featured. – Ed.

Floods in 2010. Earthquake in 2005. Pakistan has been severely battered by the elements. Thousands have died and millions have become internally displaced. But even without Nature’s unkind revenge, life in Pakistan is not easy for the teeming masses who toil hard to feed themselves and their families. Poverty is their biggest adversary, and according to one estimate over 40 percent of the country’s 180 million live below the poverty line.

by Mandy Van Deven
-USA-

An unfortunate oversight of the recent media attention on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) bullying is the advocacy potential that decades-old legislation has to prevent gender-based harassment in schools. Title IX of the Education Amendment is the federal civil rights law passed by the United States government in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds.

by Rachel Muthoni
-Kenya-

Since they were evicted from the Mau Forest complex two years ago, more than 10,000 families have known no better life than that of suffering, sleeping in the cold, hunger, and lack of access to basic amenities.

by Chumile Jamela
-Zimbabwe-

Lisa Kunene’s* path to higher learning has been a painful one. A 20-year-old first-year engineering student at one of the top universities in Zimbabwe, she was born to a poor communal farmer in rural Matebeleland South, one of the country's driest provinces. She has had to endure the worst economic hardships. So it came as a big surprise and relief when she learned that she had been admitted into university. This was supposed to open the way to a very bright future, as well as provide a stepping-stone to the empowerment she had been waiting for all her life.

by Lesley D. Biswas
-India-

Poverty, illiteracy and gender disparity are engrained in the Indian society. Key indicators of social development such as health and education are below average. The World Bank estimates India is home to 456 million people who live below the poverty line, earning less than $ 1.25 per day. This is equal to 33 percent of the world’s poor population.

by Louise Hancock
-Afghanistan-

Nazifa is typical of millions of Afghan girls. She was forced to drop out of school as a teenager when the Taliban came to power and began to close down girls’ schools. For three years, she attended classes in secret and dreamed of the day she would be able to resume her education. Now 20, she is hoping to graduate this year and move on to college.

by Alexandra Marie Daniels
-USA-

The Lottery, one of two films about American public education to make the short list for the 83rd Academy Awards, gives hope that public awareness about the dire state of American education will continue to build.

The statistics that cross the screen at regular intervals during The Lottery are difficult to digest. Nationwide, 58% of African-American fourth graders are functionally illiterate and in Harlem, the neighborhood where the The Lottery takes place, 19 out of the 23-zoned public schools have fewer than 50% reading at grade level. Tragically, children who fall behind in elementary school are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to end up in jail or juvenile detention.

High school dropouts are an economic loss to the entire country. As President Obama points out during the film, the achievement gap “costs us hundreds of billions of dollars in wages that will not be earned, jobs that will not be done, and purchases that will not be made.”

by Liz McGinn
-UK-

My eldest daughter is going to university in 2012. She is academically gifted and wants to study mathematics and French. She has no idea what she wants to do with her degree, but she wants to study subjects she enjoys and is good at. Her choice of degree course should open doors for her in years to come and give her a head start in the working world. Instead, she is heading for a potential lifetime of debt courtesy of the U.K.’s coalition government.

Beginning in 2012, students will be facing rises in tuition fees from £3,290 ($5,187 USD) per year up to a maximum of £9,000 ($14,190 USD). This means that a student on a typical three-year degree course faces tuition fee debt of £27,000 ($42,571 USD).

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

Floods in 2010. Earthquake in 2005. Pakistan has been severely battered by the elements. Thousands have died and millions have become internally displaced. But even without Nature’s unkind revenge, life in Pakistan is not easy for the teeming masses who toil hard to feed themselves and their families. Poverty is their biggest adversary, and according to one estimate over 40 percent of the country’s 180 million live below the poverty line.

Yet in this gloom there are beacons of hope - many of them women - showing the way to people who are on the verge of despair. Parveen Lateef, age 40, is one of them. Her story reads like fiction. But fortunately, it is a true account of a woman’s struggle to change her life and that of her children.

The eldest of nine siblings, Lateef was married at the age of 12. Her father arranged her marriage to a man older than him. Lateef had attended primary school in her village for only three years. Given the short duration of her schooling she should have lapsed into illiteracy by all standards set by educational specialists. But that did not happen even though Lateef’s preoccupation with child-bearing and child-rearing did not allow for any kind of literary activities.

On Saturday, October 2, an estimated 175,000 people joined together at the Lincoln Memorial for the One Nation Working Together rally for jobs, justice, and public education. Marian Wright Edelman is a lifelong advocate for disadvantaged Americans and is the president of the Children's Defense Fund. Following is the transcript of her speech. - Ed.

Everything our nation and all of us need to know about life can be learned from Noah’s Ark, according to an anonymous writer. Lesson one, don’t miss the boat. The United States is going to miss the boat to lead and compete in our globalizing world, because we are not preparing a majority of our children for the future. The greatest threat to America’s national security comes from no enemy without, but from our failure to invest in and educate all of our children. Yet every eleven seconds of the school day, a child drops out. A majority of children of all racial and income groups and over 80 percent of black and Hispanic children cannot read or compute at grade level in fourth, eighth or twelfth grade, if they have not already dropped out. Any nation that is failing to prepare all of its children for productive work and life is jeopardizing everything and needs to correct course right now. And all of us—all of us, parents, educators, community and religious and political leaders—need to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. God did not make two classes of children. Every single one deserves a quality education.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Rebel was the theme of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The message was everywhere: On screen before every film; on the front cover of the film schedule, which read “This Is Your Guide to Cinematic Rebellion”; and in the originality and creativity of almost every film selected by Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford and Festival Director John Cooper for this year’s festival. Rebellion meant great films, particularly documentaries.

In addition to established competitive categories (U.S. Documentary, U.S. Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and Shorts) and non-competitive categories (Premieres, Spotlight, New Frontier, and Park City at Midnight), there was a new category for low-budget independent films appropriately titled Next. In every category, there were films whose themes seem particularly relevant for our time – films about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recession and resulting unemployment, political revolutions, the search for environmental alternatives, and the incredible resilience of people when faced with extreme adversity.

by Priyanka Bhardwaj
- India -

Education remains an emotional subject in a poor and developing country like India, where it is seen as the primary means for social and economic mobility. Indian families are known to sell land and spend their life’s savings to educate their children, especially males. Such desperation means that any change in the sector is a highly debated subject.

by Shreyasi Singh
- India -

Sometimes, just asking for a small cup of milk to brew your tea can bring domestic violence to a halt. Sounds too simple a solution? Well, it need not be as a recent public awareness campaign in India has proven.

The Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell) campaign urges men to take a stand against domestic violence. The comprehensive campaign, launched in August 2008 with TV and radio spots, print ads, mobile video vans and an online campaign, is aimed at building conversation around domestic violence in India, critical for an issue that has grown with society’s tacit acceptance and uneasy silences.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

During its midcentury glory days, Weequahic High School was a prestigious public school located in a predominantly Jewish enclave of Newark, New Jersey. Students were expected to excel post-graduation, as evidenced by noteworthy alumni, including author Philip Roth and NBA star and coach Al Attles. By the time Newark native Ronald Stone became principal in 2001, the high school’s demographic had changed and daily life was so riddled with gang violence that Stone wore a bulletproof vest when walking outside the campus’ main buildings.

by Emily Rose Herzlin
- USA -

Katie’s eyes twinkle mischievously from across the classroom, sparkling from behind her red hair falling over her face. I wave at her, and her gaze never totally meets mine. She raises her hand and gestures back to me briefly, not sure whether I am a friend. Just as quickly, her attention goes elsewhere, back to her work.

Eleven-and-a-half year old Katie attends a rigorous school where the students are pushed harder than most of us have ever been pushed in our lives. Her curriculum consists of learning how to identify familiar people, make a snack, sort laundry, and rollerblade. Katie has autism, and is one of just a handful of girls at the school she attends that specializes in the disorder. The student body consists of just under thirty students, only four of whom are girls.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

As many as a third of California’s teachers may retire over the next decade leaving California with a shortage of approximately 100,000 teachers. While budget cuts limiting opportunities for new teachers are compelling enough reasons to choose different professions, it is well understood by most prospective teachers that teaching, while honorable and at times rewarding, is a stressful, unappreciated, and undervalued career choice.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

In an age of ever-busier schedules, escalating costs and dwindling funding for public education, the image of the full-time college student, loafing in libraries and flipping through volumes of political theory in campus cafés, is less a plan than a distant dream for many of California’s young people. Lucky young intellectuals can still be spotted in droves on the Berkeley and Stanford campuses, sporting fashionable clothes or long, flowing hair and modern hippie attire, but most of the state’s less privileged will never live those idyllic four years of limbo between adolescence and adult life.

That’s because many young people are thrown into the water before they learn to swim. It might be easier to look the other way, but it’s our responsibility as a state to make sure that they have a chance to make their way to a satisfying life.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

It’s clear that school budgets are woefully inadequate and underfunded. But, will simply throwing money at a system that is flawed, broken, and unequal successfully nurture the academic achievement of under-performing students? The great state of California has the third highest student teacher ratio in the country and the dubious distinction of coming in dead last in total school staff - principals, teachers, guidance counselors, and librarians. Lack of adequate resources is exacerbated by grave inequalities in many school districts throughout the state. Often under-performing schools suffer from a lack of qualified teachers, textbooks, access to a curriculum that prepares students for college, and safe school environments.

by Sumukha S. Ravishankar
- USA/India -

In Indian society, where everyone aspires to be perfect in all matters, learning disabilities are not discussed, even within families. Where it is socially acceptable and even encouraged to blatantly compare and contrast children’s achievements among parents, social life is very stressful for those who have children with disabilities. Traditionally, individuals with learning disabilities are labeled as dumb, imperfect or inferior. They are typically marginalized, not only by the members of the larger society, but also within their own homes.

After struggling within the social and educational systems in India, my husband and I made the difficult decision to move to the US to provide our daughter with the education that our country could not.

by Pushpa Iyer
- USA -

It was close to 8pm on a Saturday two months ago. I was walking down a big, busy street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with a colleague, returning to our hotel after having dinner. As we passed a poor section of the city, I felt a slight movement behind me. When I turned my head, someone put their hands around my neck, strangling and almost choking me. In those few moments, the only thought in my head was: someone’s trying to kill me! Seconds later when I screamed, I felt a tug at the gold chain around my neck as my assailant let go. I was being robbed! The realization was a relief, and more so when I found my chain in the collar of my shirt - broken but still there.

by Janelle Weiner
- USA -

As school districts across the United States brace for midyear budget cuts, nervous teachers are whispering about the layoffs that could follow. In this bleak economic climate, where one state’s proposal calls for eliminating $10.6 billion in education spending, teachers are hesitant to ask administrators for classroom extras or even necessities.

Teachers often reach into their own wallets to bridge the gap.

by Blaire Dessent
- France -

For the 2008 Dak’Art Biennial, an international art exhibition held in Dakar, Senegal, a group of artists and thinkers associated with the Action Lab project of the Brooklyn-based freeDimensional (fD), collaborated on the production and distribution of Gorée Gazette. A one-time, free newspaper, the Gazette includes personal narratives, drawings and statistics related to the crisis of economic migration - specifically ocean crossings from Africa to Europe and the United States.

by Zakeer Fehmida
- India -

Not long ago, a young man named Srinivas and his friends had just planted saplings along one of Chennai's busy thoroughfares and stood wondering how they could ensure the plants' survival amidst the sidewalk bustle. A nearby bicycle shop owner offered discarded bicycle tubes and suggested converting them into plant barriers. The tubes were piled together and the saplings got a new lease on life. Their efforts were part of their work with Diya, a social welfare organization that Srinivas and a group of his fellow IT professionals formed in response to their desire to help provide a platform for citizens to come forward and participate in resolving issues of public interest. Srinivas is one of Diya’s co-founders and says of his organization’s objectives, “We keep looking for ways to step out and make a genuine difference to our society, whether that means a slum development initiative, or a tree planting drive, or lending a helping hand to a blind school.”

by Mridu Khullar
- India -

Couples in India are finally figuring out that hours of horoscope-matching sessions followed by measures to correct planetary positions make not a good marriage. Urban educated twenty-somethings of today are ditching the priest's grass mat and heading to the counselor's leather couch.

Pre-marital counseling, a concept that has so far been alien to Indians, is making an entry into the psyche of the young middle-class. Counseling of any sort has traditionally been seen as a "western idea," and something that is not part of the Indian culture. Formal and professional pre-marital counseling is looked upon even more skeptically by a generation of parents who met each other no more than once or twice before their own arranged marriages.

by Halimah Abdallah Kisule
- Uganda -

Ms Akullo Flavia, a retail shop owner in a Kampala suburb, stands puzzled in the local market not knowing what to buy for supper. Her initial plan to buy fresh fish is ruined - there is no fish for sale at the stalls. A local hajati, or fish dealer, is disappointed too. She explains that the moon’s recent brightness is helping the big fish to see the net and escape. The little fish that get trapped in the nets are all sold on the beaches at much higher prices to the waiting refrigerator trucks of fish processing companies who export to countries like China and several parts of Europe. Officials from the fisheries department say that even these companies are facing a deficit and only exporting a third of their capacity due to declining fish populations in the lakes and rivers.

by Zubeida Mustafa
- Pakistan -

Anil is now a young man of 19, studying for his high school examinations at Bahria College. He is also working a summer job with a cell phone company to earn a few extra rupees for his family.

• Shabina (standing at left) and her first group of students at the original Garage School site. •

by Cathy Oerter
- USA -

I ran through the Iowa countryside, young and carefree, unaware of the life I had been richly blessed with. It was just me and the breeze and the green methodical cornfields. The gravel roads, loose with sand and oversized rocks, could easily sprain an ankle yet were gladly accepted in lieu of a track that did not exist. Small towns in Iowa could not afford that luxury and I knew I wanted to run. The gravel became my path into another world.

• Al Oerter at the 1960 Olympic Trials in California. •

Al was tall and muscular and boyishly handsome; he was a gentle giant. No loud bravado, just a common man who had unusually large muscles and monstrous hands that made mine disappear completely in their grasp.

by Carrie R. Sparrevohn
- USA -

In 2005 I traveled to Uganda, East Africa, for the first time. I met Margaret Nangobi on that trip, in Mwanyangiri, a tiny village about an hour’s drive from the capitol. What transpired between us broke my privileged self in pieces and I became the receiver one hundred fold of what I was to give.

• Margaret and her granddaughter Loi with their kitchen and home in the background. •

For every mother that dies in the US of pregnancy, Uganda loses 50. Around the world, each minute, we lose one mother as a direct result of her pregnancy. Improving women’s access to experienced care providers, antibiotics and medication to prevent or stop hemorrhaging would prevent over half of these deaths.

As I prepared to spend November 2005 in Uganda, a wonderful friend and mentor, Jan McNabb, began to tell her friends what I was planning to do. People began handing her money for the needy in Uganda. As a result, the Sally Clinic Project of With Woman was born.

by Anna Clark
- USA -

Who talks about prisoners these days? Certainly not the US presidential candidates or most others up for election in 2008, unless it’s in tangential “get tough on crime” rhetoric. In the media, quality coverage such as Jeff Gerritt’s Pulitzer-nominated series on medical care in Michigan prisons, which appeared last year in The Detroit Free Press, is overshadowed by courtroom dramas and legal thrillers. MSNBC has built something of a franchise in its “To Catch a Predator” series, which lures people to a Dateline set, humiliates them by reading their chat room transcripts with someone they thought was underage, and then calls on a police crew to rather unnecessarily tackle them in an arrest sequence right out of a summer blockbuster.

Authentic communication from and about prisoners exists, but it’s relegated to a niche market outside of most print and online news sources, of influential political blogs, of the catalogues of big publishers, and of the speeches of election year candidates. Presumably, its minimal share of attention is justified because decision makers think their audiences don’t care much about prisons and the people in them.

by Sarah Wyatt
- USA -

Years of hardship and backbreaking labor in the riot-stricken slums of Kibera in south Kenya have worn 18 year old Eshe Koome to the bone. A single mother of two, she walked out on her abusive husband and survived for two years as a daily wage laborer, loading vegetables and other goods for sale.

• Eshe is now able to earn a living wage at Kazuri. Photograph by Sarah Wyatt. •

Eshe's story captures in a nutshell how a group of formerly indigent, urban women operates a business for themselves. The Kazuri Bead Factory, located in the Nairobi suburb of Karen, is unique in that it is Kenya’s first visitors’ attraction of its kind, created for and by women. Founded by Lady Susan Wood in 1975, the company is known for its beautiful, hand-painted beads made from the authentic clay from the Mt. Kenya area. Kazuri (Swahili for “small and beautiful”), also produces a number of other goods popular with tourists including pottery, hand-beaded sandals and purses. The beads are often featured on three-dimensional art cards and can also be found in shadowboxes.

by Ellen Snortland
- USA -

Let me introduce you to my friend John Stoltenberg, a warm and generous American man full of good will and humor, who is also one of the United States’ leading male feminists, widely respected as a thoughtful activist, scholar, author, and magazine editor, all at once. He holds degrees in divinity and fine arts.

He was the husband of Andrea Dworkin, the noted radical American feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she believed was linked with rape and other forms of violence against women. Andrea died prematurely at 58 in April 2005.

by Ellen Snortland
- USA -

Midnight. Intensely urban downtown neighborhood in Los Angeles where the alleys reek of urine and garbage. Dark Craftsman house in the Carpenter-Gothic style. My home. I cross the threshold and meet an interrupted burglar who raises his knife, ready to plunge it into my throat or heart. My scream is so intense he drops his knife, grabs his ears and runs like hell. “Thank you, mister,” I neglect to yell, because I was yet to know the impact this event would have on the balance of my life.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

Before we had our own children, my husband and I began sponsoring a child in Senegal named Absa, a pretty little girl with clever eyes.

• Absa in Senegal. Photo courtesy of World Vision Germany. •

It has been seven years and our children know the pictures of Absa, standing behind a large wooden bowl and holding onto a tall wooden mortar.

Recently, we received a check-list with a blank space next to school attendance. My eyes rested on the latest picture of Absa, now almost a woman, and I wondered what would become of her?

I called the aid organization and asked why Absa was no longer in school. The woman on the other end of the telephone line sighed.

by Constance Manika
- Zimbabwe -

“The stories we listened to made us bleed inside, the genital wounds we later had to help nurse evoked us, the long distances we traveled every day and night to educate girls on their rights made us strong, the songs of joy and sorrow the girls sang made us more passionate, everything to do with girlhood and the fact that we were there for the girls pushed us to do even more and more from the heart, soul, mind and all. The fact that we finally claimed the girls' spaces where the girls now live and develop free of violence makes it imperative that we share these great tidings” - GCN Director and Founder Betty Makoni

• Betty Makoni has led thousands of girls towards a brighter future.
Photograph courtesy of GCN •

When I first heard Betty speak back then, I immediately fell in love with her. This woman spoke with so much passion and emotion about the issue of rape and abuse of young girls. She was equally disturbed by girls’ general lack of opportunities in life when compared with those given to boys.

by Jessica Mosby
USA

100 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa will have been infected with HIV/AIDS by the year 2010. Another 26 million children will be orphaned by the virus. The idea that two ordinary people could affect, much less save, the lives of hundreds of children dying of HIV/AIDS in Africa seems naively idealistic. For many of us, myself included, our main contribution to the epidemic in Africa is buying a Red iPod.

• Image courtesy of
Dream Out Loud Films •

What really resonates is the ability of the children, even those that are HIV-positive, to still have hope while living in a country that isn’t exactly blazing any trails in its response to the virus. There are countless scenes of kids dancing, singing, chasing chickens, and having fun. The Cloetes have not only built a safe haven for children to live, they have created a future for hundreds of children that would otherwise be dead or living in extreme poverty.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

• Students line up to enter KGIA on the first day of school. Photograph courtesy of Brooklyn Paper (Tom Callan) •

The recent New York Times article focused on key players in the political wrangling over the school. We believe the WIP’s coverage of this issue complements the Times’ investigation by highlighting the voices from the communities involved–students, grassroots groups pushing for multicultural education in the city, and the youth activists who, in an effort to bring visibility to Arab community issues, found themselves swept up in a political firestorm.

by Nancy Van Ness
USA

As director of a performing ensemble, one of the joys of my life is to support other artists and witness their work. There is nothing more satisfying than watching my young colleague Lena Gilbert unravel the knots of a creative problem.

• Anne Folke Wells and Lena Gilbert. Photograph courtesy of American Creative Dance. •

In sharp contrast, it breaks my heart to see talented people who could be artists fail to do their work because they aren’t confident enough of their own ability to create. Perhaps they have been taught to be too self-critical, as can happen, especially in academic circles. An emphasis on critical thinking can kill the drive to create freely. Sometimes I think the prevalence of university degrees in the arts hinders rather than helps in this matter! (However, I certainly don’t discount that aspiring artists without degrees also suffer inhibitions that hold them back.)

by Courtney E. Martin
USA

You might guess that this subject was a perfect stranger, someone I was intimidated by or nervous about getting to know. Instead, she was my best friend.

Don’t get me wrong. Reporting and writing my recently released book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body did involve speaking with a lot of strangers. I interviewed over 100 girls and women between the ages of 9 and 19, as well as dozens of experts, including psychologists, nutritionists, medical doctors, and media critics. Nonetheless, I was convinced that to tell the real story of contemporary girls and their bodies, I would also need to sit down with my nearest and dearest—many of whom were my inspiration for writing the book in the first place.

by Imelda V. Abaño & Esther Nakkazi
Philippines/Uganda
Reporting from Sydney, Australia

One of the greatest public health failures in the fight against AIDS is the world’s inability to prevent widespread HIV infection among Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), according to officials from the Foundation for Aids Research (amFAR). MSM is the most prominent method of HIV transmission in nearly all Latin American countries, as well as the US, Canada and some Western Europe countries. The roots of this public health failure are denial, discrimination and criminalization.

by Imelda V. Abaño
Philippines

• Photograph courtesy of IRRI •

Yet according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), only 16 percent of mothers in the Philippines breast-feed their children, an extraordinarily low rate for such a poor country.

by Delphine Zulu
- Zambia -

• Zambian school children. Photograph by Jennifer Milner. •

Because this problem continues to plague Zambia’s children and in addition accelerates the spread of AIDS, Zambia’s High Court judges have urgently called for the amendment of the Defilement Act: the hope is that publicly parading and photographing the offenders will deter them, where prison sentences have not.

At every court in Zambia, whether in lower or higher courts, at least three to four defilement cases are now being handled per session, compared to recent years past, when defilement cases only came before the courts about once every three months.

by Juliette Terzieff
USA

View larger image
School children in Rajasthan.
Photograph by Sarah McGowan

By Suad Hamada
Bahrain

A young girl has faced the threat of being expelled from her primary school only because her mother is infected with AIDS.

This secret was neither known to the girl nor the school, but was exposed by a parent who insisted on suspending her to protect other children from infection. Despite the mother’s adamant protestations that her daughter was not infected with the virus, the school persisted until a blood test was performed on the girl. The test revealed what the mother passionately claimed from the beginning - her daughter is HIV negative.

The girl’s story is but one account of the many injustices suffered by youngsters with infected parents and those children who have HIV/AIDS.

by Pilirani Semu-Banda
Malawi

The on-going adoption process of a one-year old Malawian orphan, David Banda, by Pop Star Madonna has highlighted the plight of orphans in Malawi.

A million children are orphaned in Malawi, of which half were AIDS-related illnesses affecting one or both parents, most of whom are cared for by relatives who are already experiencing severe economic hardship. About 8 million of Malawi’s 12 million people live below the national poverty line of $1-a-day. Child-headed households are becoming increasingly common, where many households have been discovered to be run by children as young as 12 years old.

One of the orphanages benefiting from Madonna’s financial assistance is the Consol Homes in Malawi’s Central region. When Madonna visited this orphanage with David on Thursday, April 19, she urged the multitude of orphans and the poor who gathered to see her to help themselves.

"This is a partnership, it's not only for me to do everything, but we need to work together and you have to help yourselves," Madonna said.

But the orphans have already been doing what Madonna is urging them to do.

by Pilirani Semu-Banda
Malawi

In recent months, Malawi’s president, Bingu wa Mutharika, has embarked on a series of whistle-stop tours during week days. Consequently, female teachers feel compelled to dance for him for fear of reprisals from authorities. In Malawi there is a lot of hero-worshipping for politicians, which started during the 30-year dictatorial rule from 1964 to 1994.

Malawians, especially women, sing and dance to songs in praise of politicians they support and conversely castigate those they do not. The president, however, uses civil servants for these demonstrations, including teachers.

A spokesperson for the country’s most influential opposition party, Sam Mpasu, describes this tendency by the president as detrimental to the country’s education standards, which are already grim.

Malawi’s education standards started declining as soon as the country attained democracy in 1994 and abolished school fees for primary education; this resulted in an increase in enrollment from 1.9 million pupils to 3.2 million.

by Janelle Weiner
- USA -

Johnny realized late in his high school career he needed to make a change or face the fate of not graduating with his class. After cutting school regularly his first two years, he decided he didn’t want to struggle like his mother and father, both of whom never graduated.

Once he made that decision, his behavior changed.

“I started coming to school a lot and not getting into fights,” he said. “Stayed away from the bad behavior and drugs.” Johnny’s turnaround is exactly what every teacher and administrator in the Sacramento public school Johnny attends wants to see.

However, Johnny has a major hurdle remaining: the California High School Exit Exam. (CAHSEE). He has failed it four times.