Save the Children Acts to Save Children’s Future by Keeping Their Education Alive
For the first time in human history, the education of an entire generation is interrupted. The coronavirus pandemic forced schools to close and changed the way education works. Before the pandemic, more than 258 million children around the world were already out of school (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk). By April 2021, 1.6 billion learners were out of school (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk), which has drastically increased due to the coronavirus crisis. Some 9.7 million children in marginalized regions are predicted to never return to education (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk); they might instead need to survive poverty, violence, unwanted pregnancy, child marriage, or their country’s civil wars. The risk of girls not returning to school is estimated to be higher than boys.
Unlike children in financially stable households in developed countries, many children in remote areas have no internet or online learning access. Save the Children is a nonprofit organisation based in the United Kingdom (UK) dedicated to promoting health, wellbeing, and education of children in the UK and around the world. Throughout the pandemic, the organisation operates a camel library in remote areas to provide books to children. In Ethiopia, 21 camels carry 200 books at a time, currently giving 22,000 children from 33 villages access to books. Their goal is to enable learning during the pandemic and to ensure safety when the children return to school.
In India, a second wave of COVID-19 in April and May 2021 has put many more children at risk for isolation and hunger. Similar to children in other marginalized regions, they are now also more likely to miss life-changing education opportunities. The Save the Children Emergency Fund has collected £160,000 in donations (as of June 23rd, 2021) to improve the wellbeing of children in India and other countries. To date, over 34,000 children and adults are getting support from the Emergency Fund during the pandemic in various aspects of life, including but not limited to gaining access to distance learning and food.
To learn more about Save the Children’s COVID-19 response for children and other initiatives, visit https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/covid-19-india. To donate to the Emergency Fund of Save the Children, visit https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/support-our-emergency-fund