NEWSLETTEREgypt |
||||||
Inspiring Stories Together for Family Development Network, the Joining Hands partner network in Egypt, has continued to move forward. Member organizations have been involved in many activities designed to raise awareness of Egyptian children, parents, school teachers, and administrators about the new Child Law Amendment 76 which guarantees the right of Egyptian children with disability to public education. TFD participated with representatives from concerned non-governmental organizations who helped formulate the implementation plan for the amendment. |
||||||
Links: Together for Family Development (TFD) |
||||||
An Amazing Visitor In October Nick Vujicic, Director of Life without Limbs, an organization which motivates and inspires people living without limbs, visited Alexandria and Cairo during his 2008 world tour. Mrs. Nada Thabet, chairperson of the TFD Board of Directors, was instrumental in arranging Nick’s visit.
TFD reported on the rousing reception Nick received in Alexandria: “There was a big press conference attended by the governor of Alexandria, the Swiss ambassador and his wife, and about 60 from the press and media and 5 TV channels. It was a good event and the governor was amazed by what he saw and heard from Nick and people were amazed by Nick’s message of hope, love, and respect for everyone, by his faith in God, and his conviction that nothing is impossible as long as you are with God.”
Thanks to extensive media coverage, Nick’s ability to live a fruitful life despite the limitations of his physical body made a huge impact on Egyptians from all walks of life. He made an important contribution to overcoming negative stereotypes of people with disability in Egyptian culture.
2008 UN Day Celebrations
The 2008 Celebration of UN Day for Persons with Disability was held at Sacre Coeur School in Heliopolis. There were games organized by a kid’s fun team, visits by McDonald’s characters and characters from other organizations, face painting, lots of photo taking & lunch from MacDonald's. Participants included 264 children from 15 associations, 17 mothers, and 89 teachers and NGO staff.
|
||||||
|
||||||
An Introduction to “Education for All” by Margaret Magill, Des Moines Presbytery JHCT Our Des Moines Joining Hands group will be sponsoring an event where stories will be read about the wonder and joy of learning to read, and people will be asked to sign an advocacy petition urging our government to support Education for All. The global Education For All movement began at a world conference on education in 1990 with goals of access to universal primary education and equal access for both boys and girls by the year 2015.
The UNESCO global monitoring report for 2008 is not encouraging. 80,000,000 children are not in school and the vast majority of them are girls. 70% of these children are living in South East Asia and subsaharan Africa. Free public education for these children? Not a fact at this time.
Common barriers to education for all are:
It takes the commitment of many nations to finance and work together to ensure basic education for all. President Obama has pledged to establish a global fund for education in his budget request. Action week is April 20 -25 when 10 million people will take part in the “BIG READ”.
The circumstances under which children are born, their gender, the wealth of their parents, their language and the color of their skin should not define their educational opportunities.
|
||||||
Stay tuned!
|
||||||
Participants at the Celebrations of the 2008 UN Day for Persons with Disability 
