According to UNICEF, 75 million children are out of school in the world today due to emergencies. This year during the 2017 floods in India, 12.33 million children have been affected and 15,455 schools have been damaged, disrupting the education of nearly a million children. Girls are particularly vulnerable since they are already burdened by poverty, poor access to quality education and gender bias.

Globally, girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys in countries affected by conflict.

This lack of access to education for girls is doubly unfortunate since education plays a particularly critical role in emergencies. It makes people less vulnerable to natural disasters. Education can provide girls with the necessary skills to cope with what had happened and to contribute to their communities’ recovery. Research examining mortality during disasters has shown that countries with higher levels of education, especially among women and girls, experience lower mortality during and following disasters.

Organizations like CARE India have facilitated and adopted some path breaking initiatives to empower the girl child by providing technical support, integrative strategies and interactive modules.

Read the full article by Chawn Ganguly at Core Sector Communique