KENYA: Flower Industry Still Not Back in Full Bloom

Kenya’s flower exporters are cautiously optimistic that the prospects for their industry will improve during 2011 after disaster struck in the form of volcanic ash and adverse winter weather conditions in 2010. But prices will be lower as the global economic recession still weighs heavily on their primary market, the European Union.

PERU: Rural Girls Face Barriers to Education

"My classmates from Utupampa had to walk an hour to get to school," said Yasmín Sena, a young woman from a village in Peru's highlands. "That community is way up in the mountains; no cars can go there."

ECUADOR: Child Malnutrition Down, Education Up

Major progress has been made in Ecuador over the last few years in reducing child malnutrition and expanding educational coverage.

PHILIPPINES: Island Kids Get Connected

In a remote island community where fishing is the main source of living, one would expect children to be surfing the waves and not surfing the net.

INDIA: Stemming Experiments in Stem Cells

Hundreds of patients are now streaming into stem cell therapy clinics all over India, despite the controversy surrounding stem cell research and even though, doctors say, no one has yet been cured by this technology.

EDUCATION-CUBA: The Sharp Edge of Change

Tougher entrance exams for higher education, to be applied in the next academic year in Cuba, are worrying families who see getting into university as a major achievement for their children.

ZIMBABWE: Activists Seek WSF Solidarity Against Privatisation

Zimbabwean activists will raise the issue of privatisation at the World Social Forum, taking place Feb 6-11 in Dakar, Senegal, and seek solidarity from other activists to resist a renewed government attempt at selling Zimbabwe’s state- owned enterprises.

NICARAGUA: Gender Revolution in Schools Not Reflected at Work

Karla Mendoza, a 26-year-old Nicaraguan, has worked hard to have a professional career. But despite two technical degrees, courses in computer science and public relations, a nearly complete university degree, and eight years of work experience, she is not there yet.

MALAWI: Women’s Voices to the Fore in New Development Policy

As Malawi works on its second development blueprint, the Malawi Development and Growth Strategy (MDGS II), the country’s women are hoping health and education will be prioritised and given proper attention in implementation.

PERU: Rural Education Reflects Ethnic, Socioeconomic Inequalities

In rural villages in the Amazon district of Datem de Marañón in northern Peru, teachers often have 70 students in their one-room schoolhouses and travel two or three days to get to their jobs, said Emir Masegkai, describing the challenges of providing education in remote areas of this South American country.

CHINA: Children Cry Out for Protection

A growing number of reports in China’s state media have thrust the issue of child abuse into the national spotlight. Many young parents and teachers today have shifting attitudes about corporal punishment, but incidents of abuse are being reported across the country. Affected children are virtually unprotected under the law.

PHILIPPINES: ‘Wanted, Full-Time Mothers’

It’s definitely not your typical job advertisement. "Wanted: Mothers; must be mature, strong and stable, self-confident, humorous and know how to cook; must have a positive and cheerful attitude towards life; must be willing to work as a full-time mother for the long term."

MIDEAST: Oasis of Peace Blossoms, To An Extent

"Once upon a time," the educator tells Jewish and Arab five-year-old children, "a plant laid dormant, holding its life on the darkness around it, beholding the night. Butterflies, flowers and leaves, their caress, were laid to rest. Dewdrop beads, tears in an ocean of hopelessness, enchanted the plant that grew and grew into a strong tree, into an oasis of peace in a land of conflict", into a community of two peoples, Jews and Palestinians.

SWAZILAND: Free Primary Education – If You Can Afford It

The new school year opened with hope - and hunger - in Swaziland this week: an estimated 140,000 orphans and vulnerable children are among the small, eager faces in the mountain kingdom's classrooms. Poverty and the AIDS pandemic threaten to make an early mark on the next generation.

INDIA: 100-Dollar Laptops Bring In Distant Kids

Responding to the lack of computer training in Mukteshwar’s schools, Veena Sethi, a retired Delhi University professor, set up two used personal computers in the basement of her home with the aim of bringing the basics of computing to school children.

Suicides Rise Across India

"India has become the suicide capital of the world," says Daya Sandhu, a counselling psychology professor at the University of Louisville in the U.S.

The Peace Dividend in South Sudan

This is the story of Francis Odong, a southern Sudanese man from Eastern Equitoria state.

AFPAK: Bombed Schools Feed Illiteracy, And Militancy

"I have now hired a house in the adjacent Dera Ismail Khan district where my three daughters are studying in a school," says Jamil Shah Wazir of the militancy-riddled South Waziristan. Getting girls to school is a real struggle here.

DEVELOPMENT: Running Out of Engineers

As Brazil looks ahead to hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, the country is struggling to line up the technical workers necessary for these projects, officials say.

Student Drop Out Rate on the Increase Despite Free Education

2010 will go down in history as the year when the first batch of pupils to benefit from the government’s introduction of free primary education sat for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE).

BRAZIL: ‘Green’ Schools Flourish in Porto Alegre

Living sustainably can be learned. That is the idea championed by two schools in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, where students are learning to become environmental citizens of the new millennium.