Poverty Plagues Children in Bangladesh

Nearly 50 percent of Bangladesh’s primary school students drop out before they complete fifth grade, as crushing poverty drives them into the informal employment sector.

Thousands Orphaned by Poverty in Kashmir

Seventeen-year-old Afzal is an unusual orphan. Though his father died many years ago, his mother is still alive and living with Afzal’s grandparents and younger siblings in a house not far from the orphanage where the boy has spent most of his teenage years.

Occupation Can’t Stifle Innovation

Afnan Hamad stands proudly in front of a booth at the Ramallah Cultural Palace exhibition hall, three plastic bottles filled with discoloured liquid on the table in front of her.

Q&A: The Challenges of Women’s Empowerment and Equality

Today, approximately 125 countries have laws that penalise domestic violence - a great advance from a decade ago. Yet 603 million women around the world still live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime, and up to seven in ten women are targeted for physical or sexual violence, or both.

Crisis Hits Spain’s Roma Hard

Daniel introduces himself as a “gypsy and guitarist,” Francisco José wants to become a doctor, Yomara timidly says she likes to cook, and María has no idea what she wants to study.

Students Stuck With Shoddy Textbooks in Afghanistan

New textbooks, printed as part of an ambitious multi-million dollar exercise to reform the curriculum in Afghan public schools, have been found to contain glaring mistakes, adding yet another burden on a cash- and resource-strapped sector of this war-torn country.

Venezuela’s Youth Orchestra Shines in U.S.

A group of young people walk down the streets of Chicago, broad grins on their faces. They have good reason to be happy: the ovations received by their repertoire of Latin American music when they played in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela still echo in their ears.

Qatar Launches Schooling for Children in Crisis Zones

When the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) launched its inaugural meeting on "Global Education for All" last month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that most developing nations are likely to miss the 2015 deadline to achieve universal primary education.

State Failing as Parent

Governments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are being urged to end the institutionalisation of babies as more than 15,000 children a year in the region continue to be subjected to a practice experts say often leaves them physically and mentally scarred for life.

Q&A: Education Is Where HIV Care Begins

When Shorai Chitongo founded Ray of Hope, a support group for female survivors of domestic violence in 2005, she discovered that three-quarters of the survivors in the group were HIV-positive. [caption id="attachment_114724" align="alignright" width="250"]

Tajik NGOs Feeling Heat in Winter

As the leader of a civil rights-related non-governmental organisation, Dilrabo Samadova said she was used to getting hassled by authorities about her group’s activities. But recent government actions to put the clamps on civil society groups like hers in Tajikistan took her by surprise.

Q&A: “War Helped Unify Angola”

A visitor to Angola might be surprised at the calm surrounding Angola’s accelerated rehabilitation and construction of infrastructure a decade after the end of so many years of war, and at the lack of after-effects like ethnic violence, armed gangs, or the settling of accounts.

Cold and Dusty But Safe

No other camp for Syrians match the size of Za’atari. Equal rows of tents marked with the UNHCR logo spread to the horizon, dotted with lanterns and water tanks. Only a handful of people remain in sight, mostly on their way to or from the bathrooms.

Sex Education Is Also a Right

Learning about respect in a relationship, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender equality and family planning forms part of the right to sex education that is still not enjoyed by all children and adolescents in Latin America.

Getting an Education – a Heroic Feat for Native Children in Bolivia

Even before the sun comes up, Reinaldo starts out on the two-hour journey to the school he attends in a small native village in Bolivia, hiking along steep, narrow paths that take him across ravines and rivers.

Parents Worry After Malala Attack

Young schoolgirls seemed undeterred by the attempt to kill Malala Yousafzai, but parents in northern Pakistan are becoming increasingly concerned over their children going to school.

Students Torn Between School and Work in DR Congo

Hanging from the door of a mini-bus taxi as it jerks and jinks through traffic, 16-year-old Gires Manoka calls out the van's destination to potential passengers as it crosses Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Wrangling Begins Over New Sustainable Development Blueprint

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) limp towards their target date of 2015, the United Nations is shifting its focus to another long-term action plan: a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

CENTRAL ASIA: Disabled Citizens Find Avenues to Advancement Blocked

As a child, Feruza Alimova dreamed of becoming a lawyer so she could help disabled people.

‘Malala’s Cause Is Our Cause’

Less than two weeks after being left for dead by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai is standing up on her own two feet.

Congo Capital’s Schools Still Shattered From March Explosion

Three weeks after the new school year began in Brazzaville, many students in the capital of the Republic of the Congo have yet to attend a single class. The city is still trying to recover from a huge explosion at an arms dump in March.