Eee Nwant
Myanmar
In rural communities in Myanmar, a 12 year old girl is considered to be old enough to work or get married to help the family - but before the pandemic, Eee Nwant's parents were proud of her academic progress, and they wanted her to continue her education. Neither of them had ever been to school, and they used to work in Thailand to support their children whilst Eee Nwant stayed with extended family.
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But the pandemic changed everything for Eee Nwant. Her school closed, and her parents lost their work opportunities in Thailand. They found a plot of land to grow the rice they needed for the year to come, and they asked Eee Nwant to work assisting them with farming.
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She was devastated, but she didn’t want to let her parents down so she said ‘yes’ to working on the family’s land. Sadly, Eee Nwant’s family are not alone. Child labour tends to rise in proportion to poverty; according to a study from The World Bank, a 1 percentage point rise in poverty globally leads to at least a 0.7 percentage point increase in child labour.
Whilst schools have not yet re-opened in Myanmar, United World Schools' teachers are facilitating flexible distance education by running smaller school groups once a week. This allows them to teach new skills weekly, and give children educational projects to complete within the week before they return.
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Eee Nwant misses going to school every day, but she’s happy to be attending once a week and continuing her education. The UN warns that 24 million children may never go back to school after lockdown ends, and the world's poorest children are most at risk of dropping out of school.
Through interventions like this, United World Schools is giving children like Eee Nwant a road back to education, back to childhood and back to a brighter future.
Story and content courtesy of United World Schools, an organization dedicated to helping children in remote and impoverished countries obtain an education.