Fred, a 13-year-old pupil in Uganda, was born with a cleft lip and defective voice box that affected his speech development. He underwent corrective surgery while he was still a toddler, but his speech did not fully recover. Because of these speech challenges, Fred found it hard to attend school and associate with other children. He recalls how they used to laugh at him, ridiculing him with different names because he was not able to clearly express himself.
“My classmates avoided
playing with me because I wasn’t able to talk to them,” he explains. “They only
wanted me to be part of the games in which they would make fun of me and laugh,
and I disliked coming to school because of that.”
Fred reading with classmates
To reach children that carry such burdens and keep them from leaving school, Save the Children has implemented an “inclusive education” program that provides real learning opportunities for children with disabilities. The program strengthens teacher capacity to support children with different learning challenges – whether they be physical, behavioural, speech, hearing or attention retention. Teachers are provided with specific training on how to deal with cases like Fred’s, including how to incorporate positive discipline in the classroom and provide a safer learning environment.
Fred outside his school
Additionally, the program has also increased community awareness about inclusive education, which has led parents to understand the importance of sending their children to school — even those who face such challenges — and Enrollment at school as increased.
“Fred’s parents are
supportive and willing to help when issues arise,” explains Rebecca, Fred’s English
teacher. “Communication is much better now with his parents and we’re able to
work together to support his learning.”
Fred is now thriving at school
and has dreams to become a lawyer one day so that he can help children who
suffer stigmas that prevent them for reaching their full potential. “I now love going to school and I have
friends to play with,” he says. “Mybest
game is football where I am a midfielder.”
Hannah
lives in a small village in Zambia near an emerald mine with her parents,
brother and sister in a house made of concreate blocks and iron roofing
sheets. Her father is a teacher and
volunteer with Save the Children and her mother raises and sells chickens. As a fourth grader, Hannah’s jovial personality
and easy smile make her stand out. She
wants to be a nurse when she grows up.
Five
years ago, Save the Children introduced the sponsorship programs in her
community and built new underwater piping that provided clean water. Hannah vividly
recalls the old rusted borehole at the school that had contaminated water and
would run out in the hot season. That is where her family got their drinking water.
“The
borehole was so old that the water used to be very muddy. I think rats used to
die in there because the water had some rat fur,” she explains.
According
to the Head Teacher at Hannah’s school, “the water would dry out and the month
of October, during the hot season, was our worst. Children were made to stay
home during these times and lessons were disrupted,” she explains. “Children were slow to catch up on lessons;
they would repeat a grade due to poor performance or not return to school at
all.”
Today,
with the new well, children in the village are eager to learn all the time and
they now know how to practice healthy habits, including handwashing. Many
households in Hanna’s village have also benefited from the clean water source,
and personal hygiene has improved for everyone.
“Now
that Save the Children has made us a better borehole, children are being kept
in school throughout and our surroundings look beautiful because we have excess
water to even water the grass and flowers,” boasts the head teacher proudly.
Hannah helping a friend write a letter to their sponsor
“The water is so nice, clean and cold like it has been refrigerated. I know it is safe because I have not heard of any of my friends that have gotten sick from drinking it. I even carry some of it at home in my water bottle” says Hannah.
Simply providing clean, quality water to a community makes an enormous difference in the lives of children. It not only has the obvious benefits for health and hygiene, but it also allows children to learn and lead productive and happy lives. Thank you to our sponsors for making this life changing impact possible!
By: Maria Rosario Garcia, Sponsorship Communication Coordinator
At a time where most children are hooked on gadgets, 13 year-old Justin loves to spend time in his neighborhood to read along with other children. He wants to encourage more children to read so they can help build a better community even at a young age.
Justin has lived with his grandparents since he was nine
years-old after the death of his mother and his father’s absence from the
family. Yet, despite this heartbreak, he remains positive about life. During
our conversation, Justin’s eyes show a deep sense of sadness and longing for
his parents. But I was surprised at the sudden change of his emotions. His eyes
suddenly brightened up, as he said: “I use these hurtful experiences as my
motivation to study and work hard for my dreams.”
Justin posing with his neighborhood reading audience
Fortunately, in 2016 he found support and opportunity through various Save the Children educational programs designed to improve the learning environment at school and in the wider community. He soon joined a reading camp that encouraged his passion for reading and story telling. Seeing some of his classmates struggle to read even simple words made him realize that if he could do it, others could, too. This in turn created a desire to share his knowledge and love of reading to his peers, and he soon became a reliable “Reading Buddy” at his school and in his community.
He believes reading is one of the most important
things that children can do to educate themselves, fuel their imagination, and
help their community to grow. During his free time, Justin walks around narrow
alleys in his village to invite children to read along and listen to his
stories. “I do this because I want to be an inspiration to young people and I
want to help end poverty,” he explains.” He finds joy seeing the dazzling faces
of other children who imagine that they are part of the stories.
Weekends and holidays are
not wasted for our little champion. Justin never gets tired of moving around
and giving his time and effort to make a difference in his own way. Through his
leadership, he continues to serve, encourage, and inspire children to dream and
strive to become achievers.
Justin telling his story of how Save the Children has benefited him at a Sponsorship conference
Lao Cai is a province in Vietnam with 29 ethnicities; each
speaks their own language. More than 60% of the population belongs to ethnic
minority groups. While Vietnamese is recognized as the country’s official
language, many children whose mother tongue is not Vietnamese struggle at
school due to the visible language barrier: their textbooks are in Vietnamese,
their teachers use Vietnamese as the language of instruction, and their parents
don’t use Vietnamese at home. This confusion makes teaching and learning challenging.
However, Ly, a fifth-grader in Lao Cai, has a wonderful
story to tell.
Like many other ethnic minority students, Ly is required to
be bilingual so that she can do well at school. Speaking two different
languages at school and at home left her confused when she started
kindergarten.
A typical day for Ly consists of going to school in the
morning and doing homework and helping her parents with chores in the
afternoon. However, once a week, she attends Reading Camp. “At Reading Camps,
we have many story books to read. There are lessons to be learned from those
stories.” Ly said.
Reading Camp is a component of Save the Children’s Literacy Boost
program. The program ensures that students like Ly are exposed to a friendly
and encouraging Vietnamese learning environment, as well as have access to
quality reading materials. Thanks to our generous sponsors, Save the Children
is able to provide villages with mini Book Banks where children can come and
borrow books anytime. The program also trains community volunteers to be
counselors who facilitate reading camps, providing them with comprehensive
session plans that have been adapted to local context. “Before Save the
Children came to our community, children only had textbooks at school,” shared
Ms. Hoai, a camp counselor. “But now, they have a cabinet full of books to
choose from.”
Ly and classmates putting together reading materials to take home
Reading camps are all about helping children recognize the
joy of reading — building their reading fluency and comprehension skills, and
expanding their Vietnamese vocabulary. In each reading session, the counselors
ask children questions, encouraging them to voice their mind while emphasizing
that there are no right or wrong answers. As a result, children have shown
visible progress and more confidence at school.
Unlike school where children stay at their designated spots,
the camps give them the freedom to choose how and where they should sit. “I can sit in a circle with my friends and
discuss the stories we just read together,” explains a smiling Li. “I love it!”
Ly is now paired with lower grade students so that she can help them whenever
they have difficulty with pronunciation or word meanings.
Ly and a friend reading together at Reading Camp
“When I grow up, I want to be a doctor,” says Ly. We at Save
the Children believe that all children deserve an education that will allow
them to achieve their dreams.
Woliso is a beautiful rural area in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia where many families are subsistence farmers and children typically have to walk 30 minutes or more to get to their school, especially in the smaller communities. Between 2002 and 2010, Save the Children invested US$22.5 million (in 2019 dollars) to improve the wellbeing of children and their families that resulted in several life-changing outcomes and impacts, some of them long-lasting. But does that mean it was “worth the investment”? Were our results “good enough” and how do we determine what “good enough” is?
This is no ordinary
evaluation, of no ordinary development program. Save the Children’s Child
Sponsorship program pools donations from sponsors to benefit whole
communities. We invest in activities intended to produce measurable
results for children, their families, communities, and the systems and policies
that sustain change over time – benefiting both sponsored and non-sponsored children.
And we innovate and test new approaches too. That way, the
program seeks to achieve lasting social change by addressing the
underlying issues including equality, protection, inclusion, and social norms.
Worldwide, Save
the Children’s Child Sponsorship Programs
work with the most marginalized communities in 21 countries, for 10-15 years. This type of Child
Sponsorship programming has been operating for more than 100 years, developed
and created by Save the Children’s founder, Eglantyne Jebb. But does this type of long-term programming
work? How much difference does a Save the Children’s Child Sponsorship Program
really make in people’s lives? And how well are the impacts sustained over
time?
We wanted to find out the answers to these big, important questions! To understand the impacts of almost 10-years of programming in Woliso, we commissioned a “retrospective impact evaluation” – i.e. the type of evaluation that looks back into the past and assesses the value of long-term effects, good and bad, that remain from programming that happened a long time ago. In this poor rural part of Africa, from 2002 to 2010, Save the Children had invested in a package of programming: basic education; early childhood care & development; child and family health & nutrition; and adolescent development.
The evaluation team, led by Jane
Davidson and Thomaz Chianca from Real Evaluation (realevaluation.com),
began their journey back in time in 2019 with help from the Ethiopia Save the
Children staff and a local evaluation firm led by Zelalem Adugna Geletu. It was a messy
business: not only is Child Sponsorship programmingcomplex and
multifaceted, with activities aiming to reach children of all ages, families
and communities, but Save the Children’s work in that area had finished up
nearly a decade ago. The evaluators faced thin and patchy monitoring data, no
secondary outcome data of any use, and they found themselves working in
hard-to-reach communities and in very challenging economic and political
environments.
But the hurdles were not too big! The
evaluators used a range of innovative new evaluative methods and a protocol
very different from the usual which, coupled with a large dosage of grit,
determination and expertise, led to the production of this fantastic
end-product: the final
evaluation report, available online here. The visuals are
inspirational, catchy, and the accessible writing style makes the reader feel
great about themselves for understanding the key messages from such a complex
undertaking: there’s no head-scratching!
One of the field researchers interviews a community member at the local school.
The report is packed with findings, so
this is just a teaser:
1. Returns to investment in Education:
This evaluation estimated that having access to the schools built by Save the
Children helped ensure, on average, an additional 4.5 years of schooling
for the children and adolescents who attended those schools. The estimated
additional lifetime earnings for those children/adolescents amounted to US$137.5
million. In other words, for every dollar invested by Save the Children in
education there is a potential return of about US$12 in lifetime financial
benefits to the (now) young women and men who attended the schools built by
Save the Children.
2. Returns to Investment in Water and Sanitation: Save the Children invested about US$4.7
million in building and maintaining water schemes and sanitation
facilities. With no primary or secondary data available on the outcomes of this
investment, the evaluators turned to a WHO study that calculated a return of
US$2.7 to every dollar invested in water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa,
from: (i) health care savings, (ii) reduced productivity losses, (iii) time
saved fetching water, and (iv) premature deaths averted. To avoid
overestimation, they discounted a 41% loss for water schemes that were no
longer working. They estimated a return of US$7.5 million equivalent in
benefits. This equated to an expected value of US$1.59 in benefits for
every dollar that Save the Children invested.
3. Ripple effects:
A number of positive changes were inspired by SC’s work without having been
originally planned or expected as an intentional effect, for example:
– The
development of a culture of community mobilization – examples included saving
money collectively to resolve pressing issues in the communities and getting
better organized to put pressure on government to help address important needs.
– Changes
in attitudes towards education, sanitation and hygiene – examples included
families valuing sending their children to school, especially the girls, and
open defecation being considered a shameful practice.
– Creation
of a national school health and nutrition (SHN) policy and plan of action for
Ethiopia. This national-level change was inspired by Sponsorship’s successful
community-level SHN efforts in Woliso. Sponsorship was invited to sit at the
table with the Ethiopian government to help develop this national policy and
plan.
With this robust retrospective evaluation in hand, we can now confidently state that this US$22 million program in Woliso was worth the investment. The program demonstrated multiple, long-lasting, positive changes for children and their communities. That is not to say that Save the Children can claim all credit for the positive impacts. And in fact, if we could affirm that the results were100% due to our work, it would be a failure of the intended Sponsorship model, which is to engage in joint efforts and to be a major catalyst and enabler of change rather than the sole creator. In the same vein, the conclusions in this report do not belong to our evaluators or Save the Children staff alone, but were arrived at through careful consideration of insights from the communities we serve and partners we work with.
We are very proud of our Child
Sponsorship work and think you will be too once you read our report! Enjoy the read and
please consider sponsoring
a child
today!
Mail boxes are not common in Mexico, but my husband and I installed one outside our home in Yucatán for our 8-year-old son, Esdras Alberto. His biggest wish was to receive letters just like they do on his favorite television show, Blue’s Clues. Almost at the end of every episode, the show host and his animated cartoon dog, Blue, sing a song about receiving mail and head to their mailbox to read one of the many letters their friends have sent them.
Esdras Alberto hasAsperger syndrome, a
developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in learning and social
interaction.
Because of this, my son did not have many friends, so my husband and I would
place letters inside our mailbox when Esdras Alberto was not looking and tell
him that
a
friend from
another part of the country had sent them.
Much to our surprise that friend became real the day
he received the first letter from his sponsor Alma Beatriz, a teacher from
Mexico City. Esdras Alberto came home very excited and told us how Save the
Children staff had come to his school and had given him a letter written
especially for him. It even came inside an envelope, just like he had seen in
Blue’s Clues!
Every day after school Esdras Alberto talks about
his letter and reads it out loud for us. By now, everyone in our house knows it
by heart. He also reads it every night before going to sleep and keeps it in a
special place near his bed. Some days, he places the letter inside our mailbox
and pretends he just got it. Esdras Alberto says he feels very happy because he
finally has a real friend.
Reading his letter or books has become a big part of
Esdras Alberto’s life. Because of his Asperger’s, my son can easily get
over-stimulated by his environment, especially by the loud noises of
a second grade classroom. So when the world around him gets to be too much, he finds a
safe place
in the library of his school, which Save the Children recently renovated and
equipped with new supplies.
Actions like these have changed my son’s life.
Knowing he has a friend and a safe place to be in, has given him new confidence
and we have watched him improve in so many areas.
Esdras Alberto working on a lesson in his classroom
We are very thankful for the work Save the Children
does in our community and for the impact they have had in my son’s and my
family’s life. Esdras Alberto is looking forward to receiving the next letter
from his sponsor. He says he is excited to open our mailbox and find a letter
from his real friend.
Roukaya is an
11-year-old girl living in a small village in the region of Maradi, in Niger,
where she attends 5th grade at her village school. She is the eldest
of her family and has a sister and three younger brothers. When her mother goes
to the field or to a ceremony, Roukaya stays at home to take care of her
younger brothers.
Like many children
in her community, Roukaya did not understand the importance of attending school
on a consistent basis; she did not pay much attention to learning or take time
to study.
However, in 2016
Save the Children came to Roukaya’s community and attitudes toward education
quickly changed. Through the sponsorship program, Roukaya gained a sponsor who
wrote to her and encouraged her to study hard and to be attentive in class. A great friendship was born from their
exchanges, and Roukaya now considers her sponsor a member of her family. “My sponsor encourages me to make efforts in my studies,” she
explains.
Save the Children
also provided the teachers at Roukaya’s school with additional training that gave
them new tools and strategies to use in the classroom. These new approaches, such as applying
positive encouragement and discipline as part of their teaching, resulted in
students staying interested in their studies and continuing in school.
Roukaya showing off her artwork
In addition, Save
the Children field agents reached out to the wider village community and
educated parents on the merits of their children staying in school and continuing
their studies.
Today, nothing can
stand between Roukaya and her studies. She is one of the best students in her
class and dreams of becoming a teacher in order to contribute in the education
of her brothers and sisters, and her community.
Roukaya’s teacher Issoufou
can attest to her hard work and diligence.
“Even this morning, she received a ten out of ten in grammar practice,”
he explains proudly. A rewarding
achievement the whole village can be proud of.
By: Nimma Adhikari, Sponsorship Communication Coordinator
My first visit to Kapilvastu,
Nepal, was back in 2013 when I had accompanied my then supervisor to meet
sponsored children in schools supported by Save the Children’s Sponsorship Program.
Of those schools, some had very small classrooms for a large volume of students,
while others did not have enough students. Some were undergoing construction building
new classrooms, early learning centers and age-appropriate water taps. This was
the fourth year of Save the Children programs in Kapilvastu.
Fast forward to 2019, and I meet 14-year-old
Goma, a grade eight student in one of the schools we work at in Kapilvastu. She
remembers how she and her friends studied in cramped classrooms when she was in
her primary school. They did not have enough classrooms to house all the
students comfortably, and on top of that, most teachers walked around with
sticks in their hands reminding them to behave. Learning was not much fun for
Goma and her siblings. It was a task that she did to please her parents —
especially her father who had a brief career as a teacher but had settled as a
farmer.
“Many years ago, a bunch of
people had come to take our photos. Soon after, I received a letter from
someone who I was told was my friend from Italy. Her name is Paola,” shares
Goma who first started participating in Save the Children’s sponsorship program
in 2014. “My school is much better now and so are my teachers,” she continues,
“especially Lila ma’am and Sushil sir. They teach us Nepali and math.”
Goma playing her favorite game, football, with a school friend
Trained by Save the Children, the
teachers in Goma’s school gain the trust of students by being polite, attentive,
and responsive to their questions and individual needs in class. Discarding all
forms of corporal punishment are some important lessons given to teachers
during teacher trainings. “Lila ma’am asks us several questions before starting
her lessons. Once she starts the lesson, we realize the questions are related
to the current chapter. This helps us remember and understand important points
made in the chapter,” explains Goma. In addition to that, Lila and other
teachers in Goma’s school make sure they connect with their students by sharing
interesting general knowledge they have learned.
Goma sitting outside her school
Goma adds that Save the Children programs, as well as her sponsor Paola’s kind advice to study well and take care of her health, motivated her to become a doctor in the future. “Knowing about her concern for me, it feels like she is my sister even though I have never met her.”
This was probably one of my last visits to Kapilvastu, as Save the Children will hand over the programs for continuation to the community and local government agencies by early 2020. Save the Children has now moved to other impoverished areas in the Mahottari and Sarlahi districts where lack of quality education and basic health facilities, as well as child marriage are just a few of the greater challenges for children.
By: Nan Kay Thi Win, Community Development Facilitator
Edited By: Su Yadanar Kyaw, Senior Coordinator, Sponsorship Operations
Ei Chaw is eight years old and was born with a physical disability that affects her mobility and makes daily tasks challenging. The oldest of three siblings, she lives with her family in a small village in Myanmar. Because her parents both work long hours in a rubber plantation near their home, Ei Chaw and her siblings are cared for by their grandmother.
Her parents did not understand how to deal with her disability, and she was treated poorly at home. Instead of teaching her to take care of herself, they did everything for her, making her very dependent on others. At school, her teachers did not recognize the needs of children with physical disabilities, and Ei Chaw was often left out of group activities.
Ei Chaw with her mother and younger sister Hnin
Fortunately, in 2018, Sponsorship programs came to the village and conducted teacher trainings and community awareness on “Inclusive Education,” a program to enable all children to learn together and receive support for their individual needs. The program objectives are to increase and improve access to education for the most vulnerable children, particularly children with disabilities and children from ethnic minorities in early grades.
“Before our training, children with disabilities were accepted in the regular classroom but were not provided with proper accommodations,” explains Ei Chaw’s homeroom teacher Daw Aye. “Our school did not have the facilities to accommodate this group of children, for example appropriately sized passageways and safety handrails, and we didn’t really know how to address the different needs of disabled children.”
The training provided teachers with various strategies and tools to strengthen their capacity to include all children in their lessons. “I learned that there is lot of value in promoting peer learning because children are such a super resource,” shares Daw Aye. “I am now confident enough to handle the challenges posed by children with disabilities in the classroom. I realise the power of positive feedback, how it can help children feel included, and motivated to learn.”
Inclusive education ensures that all children participate in a range of activities – academically and socially. Children work together, share their ideas and learn to accept one another. They learn that the right to a quality inclusive education is for ALL children, not just those who are easiest to reach and teach.
Ei Chaw with her mother and ready for school
Ei Chaw used to be quiet and shy, but now school is one of her favorite daily activities. Her favorite subject at school is English, and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. Ei Chaw tells excitedly how she participated in a sport competition at school. “I signed up in picking up potatoes competition. My teacher encouraged me to do that. The competition included running, it was really difficult for me, but my friends cheered me during the competition. I was so happy.”
Afou is a smart, yet shy 15-year-old girl who lives with her parents and siblings in a rural Mali village. Her favorite subjects at school are biology, physics, chemistry and English. She enjoys spending time with her friends and she is determined to complete her studies to become a doctor.
Yet adolescent girls like Afou encounter many obstacles as they approach young adulthood. Historically, cultural customs have prevented adequate education in the areas of female hygiene, sexuality and reproductive health during these crucial years. Such basic knowledge is often not passed from mothers to daughters because such subjects are considered taboo. The consequences of this lack of communication are unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Afou in her school yard
In addition, many young girls face the hardship of early or forced marriage — a dire situation that robs them of their childhood. In fact, teenage girls under the age of 16 are often forced by their parents to get married, which means they must leave school and any hopes of achieving a meaningful education are thwarted.
At age 13, Afou’s father wanted her to marry a man that she did not know. She disliked the idea of leaving school and not being able to play with her friends. Afou’s dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed and her future looked bleak.
However, in 2016, Save the Children implemented an Adolescent Development program in Afou’s village to combat these problems, raise awareness and enable adolescents to develop and grow to their full potential. The program provided courses in sexual and reproductive health while at the same time informs the community on the effects of early child marriage.
In addition, the program’s Peer Educators guide teens on how best to manage relationships with peers and parents through various activities and presentations. By 2018, the program reached 13,283 adolescents including 6,875 girls. As a result, the rates of teen pregnancy went down substantially. “Now the program is on track, and the awareness has paid off,” explains a peer educator.
Afou and her Peer Educators
Afou’s outlook brightened, too. She invited her parents to participate with her in various sketches and awareness skits held in the public square of the village and at school. This training gave her confidence to continue the discussions at home, and she soon persuaded her father to give up on the idea of an early marriage.
“No girl from our family will leave school. The mistakes we did in the past, will no longer be repeated; I am proud of the strong girl she has become today,” proclaims Afou’s Uncle Issa.
Afou and her Uncle Issa
Afou now collaborates with peer educators to help and advise other adolescents in her village. She is also preparing for her high school entrance exam. “The Adolescent Development [Program] has positively impacted my life and changed my parents mind. I love this program that helped me to reach grade 9. May God bless the work of Save the Children.”
