SENEGAL / ANTHONY LAKE

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake attends a global conference on girls' education and gender equality and tours schools around Dakar. UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:55
• Production Date: 19 May 2010
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: EDUCATION; EDUCATIONAL POLICY; EDUCATIONAL PLANNING; TEACHING PERSONNEL; POPULATION
• Geographic Subject: SENEGAL
• MAMS Id: U100519d

Description

STORY: SENEGAL / ANTHONY LAKE
TRT: 2.55
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / SENGALESE / NATS

DATELINE: 7-18 MAY 2010, DAKAR, SENEGAL

Shotlist

1. Med shot, musician
2. Zoom out, UNGEI sign to meeting
3. Med shot, woman delegate
4. Wide shot, delegates
5. Med shot, Tony Lake speaking
6. Wide shot, Tony Lake speaking
7. Med shot, girl writing
8. Close shot, girl writing
9. Med shot, girl in shack
10. Med shot, girl turning to camera
11. Med shot, little girl at blackboard
12. Med shot, teacher
13. Close shot, kids reciting
14. Med shot, little girl at fruit stall
15. Tilt up, little girl leading brother
16. Med shot, teacher
17. Close shot, girl reciting
18. SOUNDBITE ( Senegalese) Penda Diop, Teacher, school in HLM neighborhood:
“Girls drop out of school to work in particular domestic work or to do small
trade because they are from disadvantaged families, they have survival
challenges, so they drop out to do small trade, to sell small things in order to
survive.”
19. Wide shot, pan classroom
20. SOUNDBITE (Senegalese) Anta Diom 11-year- old student, school (unknown in HLM neighborhood):
“I have a friend whose name is Aissatou, her parents died when she was 12
years old, and she couldn’t go to school. Now she works, she does all the
domestic work at the house.”
21. Wide shot tilt up kids to Anthony Lake
22. Wide shot, classroom
23. Wide shot, Anthony Lake talking to boys
24. Med shot, Anthony Lake talking to boy
25. Med shot, Anthony Lake walking through alley
26. Med shot, boy copying Quran
27. Close shot, boy copying Quran
28. Tilt down steps to daara
29. Med shot, Anthony Lake talking to teacher
30. Pan left, teacher to class
31. Close shot, girl in class
32. Pan right, schoolgirls to mural
33. Close shot, mural
34. SOUNDBITE(English) Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF:
“Everything that UNICEF does in terms of child survival, health care,
everything can be lost if you are not investing in the next generation, which
means investing in the education of the children and especially the education of
the girls, because if you don’t do that, then in a generation, in 2 generations,
UNICEF will still be trying to save kids when they should be living in societies
that are healthy enough so that’s not necessary and that depends almost more
than anything else I can think of girls education, not to mention the occasional
boy as I was.”
35. Pan right, class
36. Close shot, schoolgirl
37. Wide shot, teacher teaching class

Storyline

Traditional Kora music greeted delegates from around the world to the United Nations Girl’s Education Initiative (UNEGI) conference in Dakar, Senegal this week. The initiative aims to ensure that by 2015, all children have access to free quality education.

Recently appointed UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake opened the conference alongside Senegal’s prime minister and minister of education.

The gathering comes at a time when the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which drives the work of UNGEI, is fast approaching. Sub- Saharan Africa, along with south and west Asia now account for more than two thirds of out-of-school children globally, more than half are girls.

In downtown Dakar at a school in the HLM neighborhood, girls’ enrollment is on a par with or even higher than boys, but they then suffer steeper dropout rates as they grow older.

The reasons are usually economic, girls from poor families often dropout to work and earn money for their families.

SOUNDBITE (Senegalese) Penda Diop, Teacher, school in HLM neighborhood:
“Girls drop out of school to work in particular domestic work or to do small trade because they are from disadvantaged families, they have survival challenges, so they drop out to do small trade, to sell small things in order to survive.”

But the girls in Penda’s class are determined to finish their schooling and even go on to university. Eleven -year-old Anta wants to be a pediatrician. But she is aware of the odds stacked against her as classmates drop out one by one.

SOUNDBITE (Senegalese) Penda Diop, Teacher, school in HLM neighborhood:
“I have a friend whose name is Aissatou, her parents died when she was 12 years old, and she couldn’t go to school. Now she works, she does all the domestic work at the house.”

Lake toured schools around Dakar and spoke to administrators and teachers about the issue. He also visited classrooms and spoke to the girls, encouraging them to stay in school and to work hard. He spoke to boys from poor neighborhoods and religious, daara schools who are being integrated into the formal school system.

He visited a slum neighborhood where schools offer Islamic teaching to young children known as talibes, filling a gap where formal schooling is not available.

However, UNICEF says the system is open to abuse. In some daaras, teachers called ‘marabouts’ send children onto the streets to beg, a common sight on the streets of Dakar.

There are some 50,000 such talibe in Senegal.

Studies have shown that education and specifically girls’ education helps break the vicious cycle of poverty, earning potential increases enabling them to break the bonds of inter-generational poverty. For every additional year of education beyond primary school, a woman’s potential income increases by 15 percent and her susceptibility to abuse, poverty and disease decreases.

SOUNDBITE(English) Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director
“Everything that UNICEF does in terms of child survival, health care, everything can be lost if you are not investing in the next generation, which means investing in the education of the children and especially the education of the girls, because if you don’t do that, then in a generation, in 2 generations, UNICEF will still be trying to save kids when they should be living in societies that are healthy enough so that’s not necessary and that depends almost more than anything else I can think of girls education, not to mention the occasional boy as I was.”

As delegates meet this week, the focus of the UNGEI conference aims to speed up action on girl’s education, to mobilize communities and politicians to ensure that all children attend school and receive a proper education.