Photo credit: Action against Hunger
Children in South Sudan. Photo: ACF South Sudan
Photo credit: WVC
Local training in gardening techniques in the Sahara desert (refugee cam:p in S.W. Algeria) – Engineer Taleb Brahim teaching a woman and her children.
Tomorrow 193 world leaders will come together to commit to 17 Sustainable Development Goals that could end extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Three-quarters of the world’s poor people live in rural areas, and many don’t have enough food to eat. Nearly 800 million people go to bed hungry every night.
We want the world to know that rural people, when given the right tools and opportunities to thrive as smallholder farmers, are critical to ending poverty, feeding the world and protecting the planet.
Help us reach 500,000 people, on one day, with one message by signing up today to this Thunderclap.
Help us spread this message
For the last two weeks, we have been spreading the message online that investing in rural people is key to achieving the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Tomorrow is the final day of the campaign, and we are almost halfway to our goal!
Help us spread the word today by simply clicking the red Facebook and Twitter buttons on the page in the link.
Your support makes a huge difference to our goal of reaching thousands of people.
On Friday, September 25th, we will flood the social channels with this powerful message:
Achieving the sustainable development goals means investing in rural people and building a better world for us all.
HOW TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT:
Click the link (http://bit.ly/1it1d04) and support via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr. Also, spread the word to your friends and followers to do the same.
At 3 pm CEST this Friday, we’ll speak with one voice.
Photo credit: Food Tank
The Green Shoots Foundation (GSF) works in six different countries throughout Asia, including Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Kyrgyzstan. GSF’s work, along with programs targeting healthcare and education, include a dynamic initiative developed over the last few years, called the Food & Agriculture and Social Entrepreneurship (FASE) program. Two projects currently underway in Cambodia are gaining momentum and recognition in the region for their unique combination of agriculture, peer education, and community building. Head of Monitoring& Evaluation for GSF, Muneezay Jaffery, highlights the ways in which these FASE initiatives are engaging young people in an effort to secure the future of sustainable agriculture in rural communities in Southeast Asia.
The two most noteworthy programs are targeted at educating rural communities about the immediate and long-term benefits of sustainable agriculture. The first, in North West Cambodia, Jaffery explains is “assisting with the management of a 5.5 hectare rice field for an education center run by local partners Enfants du Mekong.” Despite initial skepticism from the local farmers, GSF and local partner, Enfants du Mekong have demonstrated the real-time value of sustainable agricultural practices, which Jaffery describes as “mixed cropping/co-cultivation” and “integrated pest management”. Through the use of these sustainable practices, GSF’s rice field is producing increasingly tremendous yields, which is surprising local farmers and inspiring more involvement from community members. These yields not only provide opportunities for education, as Cambodian youth learn about how to use natural farming methods, but also provide the chance for young people to experiment with agricultural entrepreneurship and how to manage agriculture-based business.
Read the full article: Food Tank
Photo Credit: Hélène Clybouw
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School garden in Sambel Kunda (The Gambia)
by Prof. Dr. Willem Van Cotthem (University of Ghent, Belgium)
Suppose some donors want to help the schools of your country by offering them a present to contribute to the development of the pupils or students.
Suppose you are responsible for the choice between :
(1) a hardware kit for your students to build and operate their own weather station
(2) a school garden.
Now then, take into account
(1) that the kits teach students a lot of things about weather data
(2) that the school garden provides fresh food and fruits for the students.
(3) that the sustainability of the global project is an determinative factor, seen the importance of the investment for all the schools.
And now the decision is yours.
Photo credit: South Africa
Raspberry Pi hardware kit for students to build and operate their own weather station. (Image: APO)
Oracle Raspberry Pi Weather Station for Schools is an ambitious project to join thousands of schools in Africa and around the world in a global science experiment.Organisers Oracle Academy and the Raspberry Pi Foundation said participating schools would receive a Raspberry Pi hardware kit for students to build and operate their own weather station.
The aim is to gain valuable skills spanning computing, meteorology and geography. Interested schools must register on Raspberry Pi’s website.The first 1 000 kits have been funded by a grant from Oracle Giving, which along with Oracle Academy, is part of Oracle’s philanthropic efforts. The kits will be provided to schools free of charge while supplies last. Half of the free kits have been set aside for Oracle Academy schools. In addition to building a weather station, the kits teach students to write application code that logs a range of weather data, including wind speed, direction, temperature, pressure, and humidity. Supplemental teaching materials for classroom use will be made available on the Oracle Academy website.
Read the full article: South Africa
Photo credit: Google
Young people should be supported to develop agricultural enterprises and view agriculture as a viable career option (SPC)
EXCERPT
The creation of business opportunities for unemployed youth in the agricultural sector is at the center stage of an African wide initiative led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.
More than 60 youth participants from six countries across Africa are attending the business training “Empowering Agripreneurs on Agripreneural and Business Management” taking place 3-6 February at the headquarters of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
Dr Nteranya Sanginga, the Director General of IITA, had started the IITA Youth Agripreneurs—a landmark program that provides youth from diverse disciplines training and opportunities to engage in agricultural business or entrepreneurship. During the opening program, he invited participants to proactively seek synergies for answering needs in the development of youth and agriculture. “The African Development Bank has declared a big interest in partnership engagement for youth and agriculture, the reason why I call upon you for your ideas and support”, he said. He emphasized that he does not see a development in Africa without unemployed youth engaging in agriculture.
Sanginga further explained that inclusive growth of the continent could be achieved through the joint implementation of mechanisms in agribusiness which would work for both farmers and consumers. “A young ‘agripreneur’ coming from a communication background is working with fish now. First, you might think communication and fish―where is the link?… but when you start understanding how sales figures of fish products can increase throughout value chains by involving young people coming from different sectors, such as communication or marketing, it might become an eye-opener for you in engaging in new partnership opportunities.”
Read the full article: IITA
www.Africa in Data.org A Data-Visualization-Presentation fromwww.OurWorldInData.org.
EXCERPT
One of the most fundamental changes in Africa is the huge improvement in education.
Read at :
http://www.scidev.net/global/innovation/opinion/african-students-innovation-training.html
Teaching innovation in universities would show future leaders that it’s about more than R&D, says Rebecca Hanlin.
Innovation is a hot topic these days in Africa. The success of African innovation and enterprise is increasingly recognised — examples include the mobile money-transfer service M-PESA for banking, bladeless wind turbines for energy and improved crop management mechanisms such as planting pits (‘zai’) for agriculture, to name just three sectors.
But despite huge strides, there is limited broader understanding and recognition on the continent of what innovation is and how to promote it, both in business and in society. This spells a need to mainstream innovation training within African universities — if not more widely through the entire education system.
Mainstreaming innovation
My work in the secretariat of an African network of innovation and development scholars (AfricaLics), for a project involving six universities across East Africa, has highlighted the need for such training. The project, “Enhancing research capacity on innovation and development in Africa”, conducted with funding from the Swedish aid agency SIDA, aims to increase the use of innovation research through better training.
(continued)
Read at :
Read at : Farming Matters Magazine
Farming Matters : Call for articles – Education for change
Deadline: June 1st, 2013
Family farmers face climate change, limited water availability, rising fuel costs and unknown market opportunities, while their lands are coming under increasing pressure. They require access to information, and the knowledge that can help them deal with the complexity of the context in which they live. Most rural areas nowadays have access to some form of education.
Nonetheless, the agricultural education system often has many shortcomings. Many get frustrated because the education available does not provide them with the answers they are looking for. Education rarely prepares youth for a future in agriculture and often encourages them to migrate to urban centres. Girls and women often don’t have the same educational opportunities.
Many experiences are showing that agricultural education can do much more: it can be a powerful tool in strengthening the social value attached to farming. It can make people aware that there are low-cost and sustainable alternatives to “modern agriculture” which, for many small scale farmers, can be a route into debt and misery.
(continued)
Read at :
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97662/Keeping-pastoralist-children-in-school-in-Ethiopia
Keeping pastoralist children in school in Ethiopia
Thousands of children in the pastoral regions of Ethiopia are dropping out of school despite government and donor efforts to bring schools closer to them. Recurrent natural disasters such as drought and flooding, as well as inter-ethnic clashes, are major factors in school dropouts.
In February, at least 17,000 primary school children in Ethiopia were reported to have dropped out since the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, mainly due to drought-related migration.
In the northeastern Afar Region, some 15 schools have closed down due to a lack of water during the current dry season, affecting some 1,899 children, 29 percent of whom are girls, according to an 11 March update by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Ongoing conflict between the Oromo and Somali communities is also affecting education. “In conflict-affected areas of Oromia’s East Hararghe zone, some 10,600 children (40 percent girls) from 35 primary schools in Kumbi, Gursum, Meyumuluke and Chenasken [districts have remained] without schooling for over three months,” the update said.
(continued)
Invitation | Education for Sustainability | International Greening Education Event 2013 | Germany
A three day International Greening Education Event will be held from 6th to 8th of November, 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany. This event will bring together academia, policy makers, representatives of international development agencies, senior members of academic institutions, administrators and teachers, sustainable development practitioners, environmental management professionals and other stakeholders from around the world.
The event provides an exclusive forum to: Examine how global issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and other major challenges are affecting education sector; deliberate on how to embed sustainability in curricula, courses and teaching material; debate on the ways to make educational institutions as one of the key leaders in finding long lasting solutions to evolving environmental, social and economic challenges; share best practices for greening education; and get insights on how education is being reshaped to meet the requirements of the 21st century.
Further to knowledge sharing, the upcoming event also provides an excellent networking opportunity with academia, sustainable development practitioners, members of government agencies and development organisations and other stakeholders in Europe and beyond. An optional excursion/ get-together will take place on Saturday the 9th of November 2013.
You are cordially invited to attend this international event and/ or nominate the member(s) of your institution.
For further information, please see the event details.
http://www.etechgermany.com/igee2013.pdf <http://www.etechgermany.com/igee2013.pdf>
Sincerely,
Organizing Committee
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International Greening Education Event
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ETECH Education for Sustainability
Initiative
Duerkheimer Str. 24
76187 Karlsruhe
Germany
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Web: http://www.etechgermany.com <http://www.etechgermany.com/>
DESERTIFICATION 
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