{"id":312,"date":"2008-07-16T04:16:52","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T12:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/?p=312"},"modified":"2008-07-16T04:51:36","modified_gmt":"2008-07-16T12:51:36","slug":"saving-schools-a-vital-asset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/saving-schools-a-vital-asset\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Schools: A Vital Asset"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think most of us would agree that a basic education is vital to a person’s individual success as well as the success of the greater community and even a nation.\u00a0 We might start going different directions when we discuss what actually makes up a basic education – some might say foreign language learning is basic, while others would say we just need the 3 R’s Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmatic.<\/p>\n

All of those details aside, did you know that over 115 million children worldwide never go to school? That is a lot of kids that don’t even get a basic grasp of anything – which leads to major problems later in life.\u00a0 There are a lot of shocking stats that I could awe you with; but we all forget or can easily ignore statistics like 1\/3 of all children receive less than 5 years of education the minimum needed for basic literacy skills, or that 2\/3’s of the world’s 875 million illiterate adults are women.<\/em> It is important to know that Education Reduces Poverty<\/strong>. (You can read lots of stats at the World Vision Education Page<\/a> if that is your cup of tea!)<\/p>\n

During my time in Ghana and South Africa I got to visit a variety of schools.\u00a0 I\"\"n South Africa we were spending a few hours at several schools throughout a week talking about things like goal setting, HIV\/AIDS, child abuse, and of course what America is like.\u00a0 Most of the schools were impoverished to some degree but varied from something you might see in the US while others looked more like a group of row huts put together in a field (see picture at right).<\/p>\n

\"\"In Ghana, I was doing evaluation work for a community center which included interviewing a variety of “customers” many of which were teachers that were able to purchase their bicycles through the center on credit (a pretty novel idea in Africa).\u00a0 So we visited a lot of schools during my time.\u00a0\u00a0 You can see by the picture at left that these didn’t amount to a whole lot.<\/p>\n

In both countries almost all the schools that I visited lacked basic amenities such as electricity, running water, and enough seats for students.\u00a0 Some even had major holes in their roof and lacked a truly enclosed room.\u00a0 I think all of them still had chalk and chalk boards and most schools at least had an outhouse or something! Many of these building still had tin roofs – this is important to note since you can’t hear anything being said or taught while the rain is pelting them.<\/p>\n

A portion of your donation to Team World Vision (in support of me) would support their educational programs<\/a>. They have a three-pronged approach to improving education:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Increasing Educational Opportunities – through financial assistance, school tools (providing basic materials), advocacy, and special needs education.<\/li>\n
  2. Improving School Environment – building\/fixing school.<\/li>\n
  3. Adult Education – vocational and literacy training.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Please consider making a donation today in my honor by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Team World Vision<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Team World Vision is a fund raising arm of the organization which uses ordinary people like me, to get ordinary people like you involved in ending poverty and injustice across the world. I have decided to commit the 26.2 miles of my first marathon to the memory of and in honor of the children I have met during my international travels. I can\u2019t remember all of their names, but I have many pictures and stories.<\/p>\n

    On the right side of my blog there is a widget that will allow you to support me during this race or you can visit this secure page<\/a>. I have set a goal of raising $2,000 which will help children have a chance at living to become adults across Africa.<\/p>\n

    Technorati Tags: World Vision<\/a>, Team World Vision<\/a>, Africa <\/a><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I think most of us would agree that a basic education is vital to a person’s individual success as well as the success of the greater community and even a nation.\u00a0 We might start going different directions when we discuss what actually makes up a basic education – some might say foreign language learning is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charity","category-world-vision"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4iaAv-52","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5459,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2014\/summer-plans\/","url_meta":{"origin":312,"position":0},"title":"Summer Plans…","author":"crossn81","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What are your plans for summer? This is a good question to ask middle schoolers. You can't ask too early or they might not stop thinking about summer. But honestly, after spring break many people at a school can't help but think about it! And we spend a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/random-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3546,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2010\/basic-winter-survival\/","url_meta":{"origin":312,"position":1},"title":"Basic Winter Survival","author":"crossn81","date":"March 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The final \"class\" for my group's experience at Wolf Ridge was a Basic Winter Survival. \u00a0After giving the kids basic instructions about starting a fire, they were given the\u00a0necessary\u00a0tools and hot chocolate mix. \u00a0Their goal was to have a some hot chocolate before we needed to leave. 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The basic motion came somewhat easily. However, getting up the hills was a struggle! I almost lost my balance several times on the flat, but only fell on the one hill that I usually fall on! I ended up doing just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Skiing"","block_context":{"text":"Skiing","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/skiing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}