Since May 2020, Aide et Action has been running an international awareness campaign entitled "Education changes our lives", which has three components: "Education heals", "Education emancipates" and "Education includes". Through this web-documentary series, Aide et Action aims to show the impact of education on all areas of life: health, gender equality or socio-professional integration. The campaign has received the support of many personalities such as the emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux, the chef Thierry Marx and the journalist and director Anastasia Mikova.
Health and hygiene education: more necessary than ever
Because education helps to prevent epidemics, teaches hygiene and enables action to be taken on health problems, the first part of the campaign entitled "Education heals highlights the links between education and health. Launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 health crisis, the campaign shows, through short videos, the first activities developed in our different fields of intervention, such as the mobile health stations in Cambodia that previously served as mobile libraries.
In addition to the activities related to the health crisis, Aide et Action is also presenting its "usual" activities in Benin, where water points and sanitary blocks have been installed in school yards for hand washing, as part of the Phase project which aims at improving hygiene and sanitation, while raising awareness among children on basic health practices. In Obdaga, Burkina Faso, the only school in the village has no functional latrines or access to drinking water. To help its 236 pupils and improve their living conditions, four latrines and a borehole were installed
Education as a key to emancipation?
There are still many obstacles preventing girls and women from fully exercising their right to education. Moreover, two-thirds of the 773 million illiterate adults in the world are women. In view of this alarming fact, Aide et Action has decided to dedicate the second part of its campaign to the impact of education on the emancipation of girls and women.
"Education Emancipates includes several short project videos that illustrate the importance of access to education for girls and women and the impact on their lives, families and communities.
The first video takes us to India, where no be a girl is still too often condemned to be deprived of an education and a future. Aide et Action accompanies young girls who are in a very vulnerable situation. These girls, who come from the most marginalized communities, are welcomed in our centres where they benefit from academic support and appropriate guidance. An Burkina Faso, where many obstacles hinder women's empowerment Aide et Action offers literacy sessions and trains the women beneficiaries of the project in income generating activities.
Defending inclusion for all and everywhere
Street children, children with disabilities, ethnic and linguistic minorities or migrants are among the most vulnerable populations and victims of inequalities in rights, excluded from education and society. Giving them the opportunity to learn, to build a different future and to fully integrate into society is one of Aide et Action's main objectives. This is why the third and final part of the campaign, "Education includes around the importance of including these populations
In developing countries, 90% of children with disabilities do not attend school because schools are not equipped, not adapted to their specific needs or lack trained teachers. In Cambodia, for example, Aide et Action is working to ensure that disability is no longer an obstacle to education. To do so, we make sure that children benefit from quality, equitable and relevant education so that they can reintegrate society through the school system.
In Vietnam, in the most remote provinces, Aide et Action accompanies communities from linguistic minorities to that their education systems become truly inclusive. We do this by training teachers in bilingual education methods and developing teaching materials adapted to the language of each community.
In India, nearly 100 million people, including 15 million children, leave their villages each year to escape extreme poverty in search of work. The children are then taken out of school because they live The children are either forced to work on the construction sites where their parents work or are left to their own devices and become victims of forced labour. To address this problem, Aide et Action has set up specialized reception centres in the parents' workplaces, where the children are taken care of by trained teachers.
