Zambie

Histoires vécues

Young Zambians use cameras to capture why some children are not in school

© Edith Kalonga

Annette Banda girl doesn't know her age, parents died. She feels nobody can take her to school.

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*All photographs and captions pictured here were created by teens in Zambia, see credit for names and ages

LUSAKA, Zambia-Last April, during the Global Campaign for Education's Week of Action 2004, teen girls and boys were armed with cameras to shoot photographs of their peers who are not attending school. The images the teens captured, along with the captions they crafted, offered a brutally honest look at the harsh realities facing their peers who are not in school.

The photographs were exhibited last April at a UNICEF-supported photo exhibition, organized by the Forum for African Women Educationalists in Lusaka, Zambia at one of the city's main shopping malls during the Global Campaign for Education's Week of Action in 2004.

© Mercy Kabwe

Missing out child. Violet has never seen the inside of a classroom.

Zambia is one of the countries in UNICEF's campaign to intensify efforts in 25 countries to maximize the number of girls in school by 2005. Globally girls account for the largest number of children out of school and face some of the biggest challenges in receiving education.  Zambia is also preparing for UNICEF's child-to-child survey and will be bringing in results at start of the new school year in September.

© James Chindindi

Both not in school. Miyanda and Simon Miyanda do not know their ages. Their parents are dead.

The Child-to-Child Survey aims at putting names and faces to the 121 million children out of school. It will help girls and boys to become more than statistics and come alive as someone's sibling, cousin, friend or community member. Children in school will identify the reasons other children might be out of school and suggest what can be done to help them get the education that is their right.

© Nicholas Kunda

Drug abuse. Boy sniffing genkem (glue substance).

This campaign provided opportunities for thousands of children to lobby for their right to an education. From 19 to 25 April 2004, children worldwide took part in the 'World's Biggest Ever Lobby', speaking out on their right to education in national parliaments, state assemblies, village councils and in their communities.