Search results for 'education'
Mahabat is a natural teacher. Her warm character is balanced by a gentle authority that ensures her young pupils are quick to follow her direction in class. I met her last week in Dostuk, Kyrgyzstan, while visiting the kindergarten where she works and which DFID helps to fund through the Equity project. The dilapidated building [...]
In the UK, Pakistan is regularly in the news, and most of it is bad. So you may find it hard to believe that anyone would work here by choice. But I do - and I really enjoy it! Pakistan is a fascinating country with great people, stunning landscapes, and real potential for a brighter [...]
I recently travelled to Herat, a beautiful city in the west of the country, with my economist colleague Kevin. Kevin has kindly agreed to write a guest blog about our trip: As someone returning to Afghanistan, I have found progress in the space of three years – the last time I worked here – extremely [...]
With a day job dedicated to preaching the virtues of education - and how it should improve, I recently felt obliged to get my hands 'dirty' once more and enrolled on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to see what all the fuss was about. If Khadijaah Niazi, an 11 year old girl from Lahore could [...]
In 2010, two British survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM) and I started a charity called Daughters of Eve in order to mainstream the issue and change how it is addressed. FGM has been a criminal offence in the UK since 1985, but it took another 20 years for it to be illegal to take girls [...]
After 18 months my time in Ghana is up. In the frantic rush to pack up, leave and say goodbye I thought I would write down some final thoughts. Warmth – of the humid tropical sun, of stifling evenings – yes, but of people as well. The richly infectious sound of Ghanaian laughter, humour in [...]
Abubakari Sulemana Hafiz has a lot to be proud of. He is one of 11 undergraduates who are part of Ghana's first cohort of veterinary science students at the University of Ghana. This achievement is even more impressive as until he was 14 years old, he had not been to school. Abubakari comes from Kumbungu district in Ghana's [...]
A guest blog by Susanna Moorehead, DFID West and Southern Africa Director, about her recent visit to a center for girls living in the street in Kinshasa. During my recent visit to DRC, I witnessed life in the huge, vibrant but troubled capital city, Kinshasa. In the tree-lined streets of Gombe, the diplomatic quarter on the banks of the Congo River, [...]
Tanzanian President Dr. Jakaya Kikwete looked bemused as we greeted him with a classroom-like chorus; “Welcome to the education lab, Mr President!” The education 'laboratory' was one of six that government leaders visited in a conference facility on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam. Down the corridor, other labs were thrashing out topics including water, agriculture, energy, [...]
Around International Women’s Day recently, the PRT here had a number of female-focussed visits, including Baroness Warsi and the NATO Secretary General’s wife. Earlier in the same week, Justine Greening, the DFID Secretary of State gave a speech on the importance of tackling violence against women and girls in Afghanistan. Sat at my desk in the Helmand PRT [...]
