To Love Children Educational Foundation International Inc.
“Expanding children’s horizons globally through education locally”
Newsletter
Volume 2 Issue 5 May 1, 2003
Special points of interest:
Global Movement for Children http://:www.gmfc.org
Convention on the Rights of the Child www.crc.org
Free the Children www.freethechildren.org
Voluntary India Organization www.gramvikas.org/education.htm
Global Youth Action Network www.youthlink.org
Global Development Network http://www.gdnet.org/
Campaign for Education www.campaignforeducation.org
In order to combat the culture of neglect of education
for girls that pervades our poorest countries the youngest generation of girls deserves a
very different opportunity for education.
Girls need to be empowered at all levels with the sustainable vocational skills as well as literacy and health skills to protect and enhance their quality of life.
To Love Children’s Educational
Foundation International
Global Campaign for Education for Girls
The future where all girls will obtain an education in the global south will be achieved when citizens of the world understand that all global problems stem from a lack of resources deprived from a lack of education and opportunity for the world’s girl child. If we are to live by international standards as depicted in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (www.crc.org) we need to start appreciating our cultural diversity and respect and tolerance for each other. Such learning can only be achieved with embracing a systematic and sustainable education for the girl child in the global south as well as the children trapped in poverty living in our inner cities in the so called developed world.
To Love Children Educational
Foundation International will launch a call and a campaign to support the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child in particular its call for the Children of the World
to a primary education. We also embrace and support the continuation of education that
reaches into all educational institutions, including graduate, medical and law schools.
The campaign will be conducted through a global network of education associations, NGOs,
public, private sectors as well as regional, national and local volunteer forces of
citizens and educators.
NEWS
For
more information please contact us at tolovechildren@aol.com.
To Love
Children’s International Calendar
July 25-August 22, 2003
Educational Outreach to India and Sri
Lanka
Come
join us in opening libraries for girls in rural India, visit with children, teachers,
village elders and speak with leaders of NGO’s to help implement programs to help
children in poverty. To Love Children will be in India and Sri Lanka working with three
organizations; Shantidhara Social Service Society, Empower the Children and AGWIN. We will
be working on site to build and offer expertise in establishing educational resource
centers. On this occasion we will be building four libraries, four in India and one in Sri
Lanka. We invite volunteers and financial support. Our goal is to create sustainable
educational development to meet the long term educational needs of girls and children that
are the most neglected and suffer from the worst poverty. There are many ways to volunteer
and provide the support we need in order to make a difference in the lives of over a
thousand children in these countries.
Contact
davidkwaldman@msn.com
Educational
Development News
“Changing
education perspectives at the grassroots”
We
are positioning our NGO to start our advocacy program to promote girl education in the
global south. Watch this space for more information.
NEW:
To
Love Children will be announcing in conjuntion with Rebecca House International a
publisher of children’s books sometime in the late spring our publishing program
which will allow at a modest cost ( money will be used for the running of our educational
programs and which will also be tax deductable, check with your accountant and the IRS)
for everyone to have access to high quality published books in Black and White or color..
We want to enable NGO’s Businesses, teachers-schools, children advocates, and
individuals to publish your newsletters in one volume, children’s books, or any
manuscript that promotes, encourages, enhances or supports children in any format or to
make available in book form your corporate, individual or collective records from any
institution to start building personal and business libraries. Watch for guideline
information on our website.
We
will do the editing and all the production work to ensure your book will be of the highest
quality at a fraction of the cost of self publishing or subsiderary publishers and if
accepted within our guideline we will assign a ISBN and take on the small cost ourselves.
We are looking for quality manuscripts that meet our mission statement and goal of helping
children in the global south with sustainable education. Institutions committed to helping
us reach that goal can have their work published and the small affordable cost will help
us continue our work while providing you with a quality book based on our partners 18
years in the publishing business. Marketing and advertising available at additional and
reasonable costs by pooling together and sharing resources to advertise. Own your own
copyright and get published while supporting education of girls in the global south.
Grammen
Bank Presentation
Observations from our Executive Director Monica
Oliva
In a recent
visit from Bangladesh to Santa Clara University in California, I had the pleasure of
attending a presentation honoring Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director of the Grameen Bank. Immediately, upon reaching the podium, Prof. Yunus
commanded the attention of hundreds of interested parties curious to learn how the goal of
eradicating homelessness and poverty would be achieved.
With a track record of lending over $1 billion to over two million borrowers, the
obvious dedication and commitment are a testament of how a focused policy and adapting
basic economic principles have broken the cycle of poverty for countless families in
41,000 villages throughout Bangladesh.
As a professor of economics
at Chittagong University and a former Fulbright scholar who received his Ph.D. from
Vanderbilt University, Prof. Yunus was teaching basic economic theory. On a field trip to a nearby village, he
interviewed a woman who was selling bamboo stools, borrowing at a huge interest rate for
the cost of materials. If she could borrow at
a lower rate, she might be able to provide herself with an economic cushion. This experience inspired him to re-think basic
banking principles and establish what is now known as the Grameen Bank. This new banking practice removed the need for
collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability,
participation and creativity. The basic
principle being: the less you have, the more favorable you are to borrow. In Bangladesh today, the Grameen Bank has 1,084
branches, with 12,500 staff, collecting an average of $1.5 million in weekly installments,
with over 98% of the loans paid back, a recovery rate higher than any other banking
system.
The similarity in mission of
the Grameen Bank (GB) and To Love Children (TLC) impressed upon me the need to follow
suite in the example of goal setting and focused practice.
Both organizations’ mission is to break the cycle of poverty, the GB employing
microcredit with 95% of the borrowers being women and TLC via educational sustainability
focused on the girl child. One of the primary
aspects of TLC’s GIRL Program (Girl International Resource Learning Educational
Program) is to provide economic self-sufficiency skills, including micro-business courses. No doubt TLC’s participants could greatly
benefit in future microloans.
In his presentation, Prof.
Yunus stated, “Poverty is not created by the poor.
It is created by institutions, society, government, and the environment in which we
live; thus what created poverty cannot eradicate poverty.
A new ‘institution’ must be created.”
The key to this new ‘institution’ will be the social
entrepreneur—all of whom are striving for the same goal—being socially
responsible to a civil society, leaving a legacy of a better Earth. Breaking the cycle of poverty has many elements
that can be overcome through partnering and collaboration of individuals, communities,
governments, NGOs, and the private sector.
While Prof.
Yunus initially focused primarily on the Grameen Bank, there are now more than two-dozen
organizations within the Grameen family of enterprises.
One such enterprise is GrameenTelecom, sometimes referred to as the Telephone
Ladies. There are over 23,000 women who were
given a microloan for the purchase of a mobile telephone to provide telecommunication
service in rural Bangladesh. In a country
were the average annual income is $400, these ladies are earning up to $500 per month. Their corporate vision is to provide
telecommunication services to the 100 million rural inhabitants in the 68,000 villages in
Bangladesh, thus becoming the largest wireless pay phone company in the world.
In February 1997, at the
Micro credit Summit more than 2,900 people from 137 countries gathered in Washington D.C.
to launch a campaign to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the
women of those families, with credit for self employment and other financial and business
services by the year 2005. In the position
paper prepared by UNESCO as part of the Summit, it emphasized microfinance “matched
by appropriate mechanisms to provide the basic social services, especially education and
health care… To ensure that poverty is
not passed down from generation to generation, special attention must be given to the
education and welfare of the children of the poor. In many cases, micro credit activities
involve the help of children. For example "milch cow" and "petty
trading" activities will use the services of children for delivering the milk or for
sidewalk peddling. While it may be necessary for children to help their parents, it is of
utmost importance that parents learn to organize their micro credit activities so that
children are able to benefit from a good education.”
It
is the belief and commitment of TLC to become a world-known example in providing
educational sustainability such as the Grameen Bank is in its micro lending practices. TLC would like to join forces as part of this
group of social entrepreneurs and model the success of the Grameen Bank.
For further information on the Grameen Bank, please refer to http://www.grameen-info.org. Information on the Microcredit Summit of 1997 can be found at http://www.unesco.org/most/povmicr2.htm.
In particular:
To support schools as well as community groups and civic leaders that need to not only research issues concerning girl children and education, but also to provide the critical thinking tools necessary in order to understand the complexity of this issue.
To freely share resources, information, expertise and experience on issues relating to girl child education including the issues of boy children, health, environment and security. This will enable children and educators to start a grassroots campaign by teaching children how to follow through with their research to create practical solutions to the real world.
Message from the Founder
David Kenneth Waldman
“To the many deserving children without a voice”
On Reflection: Creating a NGO for sustainable education
I have the blessed opportunity to fulfill my dreams, goals and desire to help children through my NGO and publishing company. Each provides a service and or product for children and expands the horizons of the many children and adults that I come in contact with. That is the goal and I take this very seriously this responsibility to help children. The time has come in my life to take every professional and caring steps in order to lay the foundation that will help children for years to come.
To Love Children will be one year old on July 25th and I have started that reflective process around all birthdays what have I accomplished in the first year of our NGO life. We have started our programs and have begun the process of NGO and board development that all lasting institutions employ. That is great comfort and I mark that as a success and accomplishment. All those are good and productive items but I count success by seeing how many children we gave an opportunity to be educated and to express their voice.
As I prepare to leave to India on the day of our first anniversary of becoming a NGO I look forward to reaching out to hundreds of children as we open the first four libraries for the poorest of the poors children of India. That will be the best celebration of our founding as I could ever wish for. Thank you all for participating whether in the past present or future in our quest and mission to educate girls in order for more of them to have the same opportunities I have had growing up in America.
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
David Kenneth Waldman
Founder/CEO/President
Please send us websites, stories, manusripts and articles about international education and related issues for children in the global south to: davidkennethwaldman@tolovechildren.org
1550 California
Street 6l/#330
San Francisco CA. 94109
415-752-1453 Voice/Fax
davidkennethwaldman@Tolovechildren.org
www.tolovechildren.org