I decided to start this blog after a young friend of mine suggested that I share some of my thoughts with young people active in this site. I worked for 22 years at UNICEF. I spent most of my years of experience in Central America and Brazil. I would like to raise some issues that I believe are relevant for poor children and adolescents in developing nations. What do I expect out of this? Part of my reward would be comments, suggestions, criticism concerning these thoughts. Another reward would be sharpening and modifying my ideas. And a third one would be the satisfaction that these years of experience are of use to young people.

The large majority of the children and adolescents I am thinking about cannot read what I am writing for a simple reason: no access to a computer. When the information technology revolution was starting one of my wishes was that the new technology could help reduce the gap between rich and poor young people. Unfortunately information technology like most other changes did not help to reduce the gap.

One topic that always interested me was the improvement of the quality of education for the poorer children and adolescents. After all, one of the most efficient ways of economic and social improvement for poor young people and poor nations is through more and better education. However many attempts at the improvement of the quality of education in developing countries failed dramatically. The availability of financial resources was not, in most cases, the main reason. Many had relatively good funding through loans or donations. Corruption was surely a factor in many. But there were many other reasons for such failure. One was definitely the lack of consultation with the proposed beneficiaries: children and adolescents. Have you ever heard of children being asked how they want their classrooms to look? How many adolescents were asked about what they liked to study or how? Parents and teachers are not as frequently consulted either. Amazingly, some bureaucrats know all the needs of these people...One major obstacle to quality education has been the strict swectoral look at education. We need urgently to consider education as part of a nore comprehensive set of concerns. How much will a hungry child learn in the best of schools? What interest will a child show in a history class if his father was drunk causing havock in the household? Or would you go to school if you had no decent shoes? What can I expect from a teacher who cannot make the ends meet with her miserable salary?

I only want to raise some of these issues. I would be delighted to start a dialogue around the subject. I just want to tease your imagination... Let us talk.