Education

Lack of Education and literacy in Developing Nations
Around the world, billions of people live with contaminated water, inadequate food and a lack of education preventing them from providing even the most basic needs for themselves or their families. A lack of knowledge about basic health care leads to tens of thousands of deaths each day in the developing world.

In most West African countries, the education system is facing monumental challenges. Gross enrolment rates in both primary and secondary levels are low due to the poor quality of schooling. Girls are at a particular disadvantage: across all grades, repetition and drop-out rates are systematically higher. For the poorest, basic health care, literacy courses and small business training might be a first step towards enabling primary needs to be met.

Education supports development
The transformation that takes place when an individual, adult or youth, learns to read and write cannot be measured. Literacy provides a sense of pride, skill, and an ability to function more effectively as a parent, farmer or business person, or as a leader in one’s community. Education promotes income growth. Those trained and educated can then go on to train others.

Statistics (source: UNESCO)

• The highest numbers of unschooled children are located in Africa and South Asia.
• Eight out of ten adults (15 years and over) are literate, which means that there are 800 million illiterate people worldwide.

Transformational health care through Education Programmes

Bringing Hope and Healing
For change to be sustainable, it must be grounded in community thinking. As an extension of our medical health care work, Mercy Ships conducts development activities that encourage good hygiene and improve quality of life across whole communities.

Community Health Education
Mercy Ships is committed to breaking the cycle of disease through prevention and training. Community health education teams train students in basic health and hygiene, first aid and HIV/AIDS prevention. These students then go on to teach others in their own communities.

Skills Training
For the poor or disabled in developing nations, the opportunity to learn a trade or skill often comes second to survival. Many adults who cannot read and write are often unemployed and unable to provide for even their families’ most basic needs. Mercy Ships invests in individuals through adult literacy courses, on-the-job training, classroom teaching and capacity building, empowering them to improve their future. (e.g. Bee-Keeping, Rabbit breeding

Women’s Projects
In many developing countries, women in villages spend their lives fetching water and working in the fields, and have little or no education.  Mercy Ships empowers women in rural areas to embrace the possibility of transformation and to recognise their undeniably important role in society, mobilising them to find solutions to improve the quality of life for their families and communities through trade and commerce as well as emotional and spiritual development.