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Education
for All Week
6
- 13 avril 2003
All for Girls'
Education !
Français
"
To educate girls is to reduce poverty "... So said Kofi
A. Annan, United Nations Secretary-General on april 9th, to
support the third Education for All week which took place from 6th
to 13th April 2003. As each year, EFA Week was an opportunity to
remind the objectives set during the World Education Forum hold
in Dakar in 2000, and increase public awareness on the Education
for All objectives. This year, the week was focused on girls/boys
parity in primary and secondary education by 2005.
Participation to EFA week has been massive : UNESCO/BREDA,
but also World Campaign for Education, UNICEF, ENDA, PLAN, ANCEFA,
OXFAM GB, National Coalition for EFA, FAWE Senegal, CONGAD, FAFS,
Concertation Table of Basic School and the Ministery of Education
in Senegal got together to defend parity and to make this week a
symbol of the partership for a same cause : education for all.
The week main activity, the "Greatest Lesson of History",
was held on april 9th. On World Campaign for Education initiative,
in partnership with the Global Movement for Children, lessons on
girls' education were given simultaneously in more than 50 countries,
by any person who wished to participate. The aim of that process
was to outstrip the world record to the highest lesson participation,
which went up to 28 801 pupils... WE BROKE THE RECORD ! According
to the last estimations, participation to the Great Lesson went
up to 1,3 million pupils worldwide. You have been numerous to participate
to the biggest simultaneous lesson in the world.
In Senegal, the Great Lesson,
was held in Ndiarème B school in Dakar suburb, gatherering
more than 1000 pupils, from the formal and informal sector. At 2:00
o'clock precisely, they were all ready to answer, in their own way,
Mrs. Abibatou Ndiaye 's questions, Head of Association Féminine
du Sénégal. To the question : "How do you call
someone who doesn't know how to write or how to read?", a pupil
answers : "An ignorant!". Laughs, then, during that day
that raised a matter yet serious. The bet, as hard as it might be,
to make tacfully children understand world realities, was won.
But BREDA also took part in the organisation of other mediatic events
: the briefing session for the
press, that was held on Thursday 3rd April in the BREDA premises,
convened all journalists to come and listen to the allocutions of
various personnalities by way of introduction to the EFA week :
the week was started up. The press
conference for children, that was held on Tuesday 8th April,
invited four girls to testify to the difficulties they had to overgo
before being able to go and stay at school, under the protection
of their guardian angels, Coumba Gawlo Seck and Suzanne Camara.
The career days, organised
by FAWE-Sénégal, CNEPSCOFI and UNICEF, will be held
from 12th April to 31th July. Pupils from 28 highscools will be
informed in a practical and lively way by "model women"
who especially came to testify to their experiences. Afterwards,
these same pupils will sponsor their little sisters from primary
school to help them find a proper specialization.
For
any further information on the week, you can consult the website
of the World Campaign for Education : http://www.campaignforeducation.org/,
on the UNESCO website :
http://www.unesco.org/, or on the netaid website to get the
last news on the world record : http://www.netaid.org/campaigns/actionweek/gce_home.pt.
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