Financing Educational Projects in Third World Countries – Part V

Reconstructing the Boundaries of Third World Education Financing
Much has been said to set up what will now follow, but it is important to understand the scope of the problem in order to understand what makes a viable solution. Perhaps the best place to begin in the reconstruction financing educational projects in the third world is to begin at the objectives behind the projects themselves. Could it be that the project is just too large in scope to really make a difference that is measurable? The answer is profoundly yes. If a young man in Cleveland, Ohio decides to raise money to help the homeless of Cleveland and so he organizes a campaign to end homelessness and raises twenty-five dollars, his heroic acts could be met with an alarming reality, over 25,000 people were homeless in Cleveland, Ohio in 2006 and so his efforts will only provide temporary help for a few and not the long-term solution he had envisioned. It is the same for education, so often we seek to provide a systemic solution to the problem, but establishing a means of solving the problem utilizing educational projects has many more merits in the short and long term. Like the young man from Cleveland, the educational problem in the third world is extremely wide in scope and so to break it down would be the first step in establishing a real strategy to provide resources for solvency. Instead of Cleveland, perhaps just Akron or maybe even one neighborhood, South Street and Maple could be the focus of his attention. In South Africa, the focus would be on an education program in a certain sector and a certain skill that would affect that sector. For instance, if organic or worm farming is taught in a rural area or simple health and medicine, this would make an impact beyond the learner and affect the unlearned. Consider this scenario, if in one rural area, worm farming were taught and the students were able to raise worms on a rather large scale, another area could then take these worms and implant them in the grounds of their organic farms creating produce that could then be sold or given away to the surrounding people. Now consider what might happen if a group of students from rural America learned how to worm farm and grow organic vegetables, and then traveled to Africa to teach the natives there as a part of a partnership in ee-learning with a local educational facility? Now what if those American students were funded by an environmental grant and so those monies are now affecting not only the local school yard but the world’s back yard and side streets as these few students are helping to make a dent in world hunger. Same monies, same financing, different purpose and a different scope; is it possible? The answer is an emphatic yes!

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