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Education

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VISAAMEX

Education · Children out of school

Do you know?

Progress towards quality education was already slower than required before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has had devastating impacts on education, causing learning losses in four out of five of the 104 countries studied by the United Nations.

84M: children and young people will stay out of school by 2030 without further action
300M: students will lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills needed for success in life
4 in 5: of the 104 countries studied suffered COVID-19 learning losses

Education changes lives

Every child has the right to learn

The right to education is a fundamental right. Access to education should not be restricted to children's background, religion, gender or ethnicity. Muntada Aid is working with communities in Uganda, Mali, Niger and Bangladesh to provide quality education and free school meals to vulnerable children.

Without the opportunity to learn, children can't develop to their full potential. They're more likely to be trapped in cycles of poverty, poor health and forced labour — often in dangerous environments.

Our response

What is Muntada Aid doing?

Muntada Aid's education programme currently operates in four countries, providing underprivileged children the opportunities to learn. Our fundamental aim is to keep children at school by providing them with modern and free education and nutritious food.

Our response

Our education projects

Four countries, one aim — keeping children in school with modern, free education and nutritious food.

Uganda

Primary education and school meals programme.

Niger

School meals for children on the outskirts of Niamey.

Mali

Vocational training, educational scholarships and school meals.

Bangladesh

Children's education sponsorship programme.

Uganda

Modern primary education in Uganda

Muntada Aid, in partnership with Buraq Educational Trust, are providing modern primary education to 300 children in the outskirts of Uganda.

The school has three nursery classes where we educate children from 3 to 6 years. At the primary school section we are teaching over 190 children.

All children are taught English, Maths, Sciences, History, Social Sciences along with other subjects recommended by the government's national curriculum. The other fundamental part of the education programme are sports and nutritious food. We encourage children to participate in sports activities and have a full-fledged programme available for football and track and field.

Uganda

School meals

As children start early and spend most of the day at school, we provide two and three school meals to children daily throughout the term time. We have a fully functional kitchen onsite, and in the mornings, we provide freshly cooked porridge. The lunch and dinners are a combination of beans and plantain.

We are currently in the process of refurbishing the school building, furniture, bathrooms and also modernising the kitchen and washing areas.

Uganda

Our Virtual Class Room

Step inside our partner-school classrooms in Uganda — recordings from our virtual class room.

Mali

Children's food crisis in Mali

According to the latest report from the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) close to five million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in Mali, including health, nutrition, education, and protection services — as well as access to safe water. The number shows an increase of at least 1.5 million children in need since 2020.

This developing situation is due to protracted armed conflict, internal displacement, and restricted humanitarian access risks pushing nearly one million children under the age of 5 in Mali into acute malnutrition — with at least 200,000 at risk of dying of hunger if life-saving aid fails to reach them.

Mali's ongoing political situation is complex, and a developing humanitarian crisis that is unfortunately going under the radar of global aid agencies and needs the attention it deserves.

The plight of children and families in Mali is part of a wider regional emergency in the central Sahel, which also includes Burkina Faso and Niger. Despite these ongoing crises, humanitarian workers and supplies need to safely reach the most vulnerable children and families where urgently needed. Any disruptions or delays in aid delivery will have a negative impact on the survival of children and their families.

Mali

Current education situation in Mali

Although education in Mali has been improving over the last decade, more than two million children aged between 5 to 17 still do not go to school, and over half of Mali's young people aged 15 to 24 are not literate.

Household poverty, child labour, child marriage, insecurity and a lack of schools close to children's homes are all factors driving the high drop out and out-of-school rate in Mali. Among children that do attend school, the absence of qualified teachers, textbooks and low-quality school environment all adversely affect learning outcomes: the vast majority of students in fifth grade in Mali are not able to master basic mathematics and reading skills.

What are we doing about it?

Vocational and technical education in Mali

There are so many reasons behind the growing unemployment in Niger and Mali, including changing economic and technological landscape. The majority of unemployed people seek opportunities in the informal sector, and according to a report by the African Union, almost 80% of the workforce in the whole of Africa works outside the formal sector, but due to a lack of technical training, most people end up in more unpredictable and low earning jobs.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) improves the skills of the workforce and drives young people towards jobs and careers that offer more economic stability. It allows young people to learn more skills and acquire a broader knowledge base.

Muntada Aid set up a vocational college in Mali, providing children with courses that will allow them to build more rewarding businesses and careers.

How you can support

Just £50 of your Sadaqah and Zakat will continue to provide more technical staff and upgrade the centre's training infrastructure.

Mali

Tour of our vocational college in Mali

In October, our team travelled to hand over a vocational college to a rural community in Mali. In this video, Imran Asif from Muntada Aid gives you a tour of the college and explains why such programmes can potentially transform the communities. The project was funded by the H&KCC, a London-based cycling club that works on such projects with Muntada Aid in various parts of the world.

Mali

Our programmes in Mali

Alongside the vocational college, three further programmes keep children in Mali learning and fed.

Secondary school
With local partners we provide modern secondary education to boys and girls in Komantou, some 250km from Bamako — a modern school building, solar-powered energy for water and daily electricity, clean drinking water, a football field and a separate computer building.
Vocational training scholarships
We provide scholarships to some of the most vulnerable girls, easing their financial burden while they pursue their education. The programme primarily helps girls from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, some of whom live at girls-only institutes run by local charities.
Food for vulnerable children
We provide freshly cooked meals to almost 100 children living in a safe space in Bamako managed by local charities — building food security while they attend education and vocational programmes.

Niger

Malnutrition in Niger

Malnutrition is a major threat to children's health and development in Niger. According to 2018 data, 15 per cent of children are acutely malnourished in Niger (unchanged since 2006).

As Niger's population continues to grow, the burden of malnutrition will persist unless significant efforts are put into preventing malnutrition that addresses all the multisectoral causes. The number of stunted children is expected to increase by 44 per cent by 2025 owing to population growth.

The country has the world's eleventh highest rate of mortality among children under the age of 5, a population that barely has access to proper sanitation, low school attendance and harmful practices like early marriage.

With close to half of Nigeriens living in poverty, the prospects of many children are dim. About 48 per cent of children live under the monetary poverty line, and 75 per cent of young children under the age of 5 are deprived of three or more essential social services.

Assessments have shown that most students (93 per cent) in primary grades 2 and 5 need help to read or do mathematics properly. Adult literacy is very low — 14 per cent for women and 42 per cent for men. Girls are less likely to go to school than boys, and children from the poorest homes are 1.6 times more likely to never attend school than children from the wealthiest households.

21.5M: population — 80% rural and 58% under the age of 18
15%: of children are acutely malnourished
93%: of primary grade 2 and 5 students need help to read or do maths

Niger

What is Muntada Aid doing?

We are supporting a school meals programme for underprivileged children on the outskirts of Niamey, Niger. There are over 250 children at this school, most of whom come from impoverished families. These children often come to school without any breakfast and no guarantee of food for the day.

We are also building a modern kitchen, dining area, and washroom facilities, besides providing daily nutritious meals at the school premises. Our food programme provides cooked meals on the premises — school dinners consist of rice, lentils, vegetables and meat (chicken and goat meat are served twice a week).

Education changes lives