Back-to-Learning Initiative provides opportunity to children in South Sudan

(CPV) – The Back-to-Learning (BTL) Initiative provides an opportunity to children and adolescents who have never stepped foot in a classroom and those who have been forced to drop out of school because of poverty, gender discrimination or conflict. “Before the current conflict, South Sudan was already one of the most difficult places in the world to be a child,” said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF’s Representative in South Sudan. “Fewer than half its children attended school and just one in 10 completed primary school.” A national campaign to increase school attendance and participation was launched today in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area. In response, earlier this year UNICEF launched Back-to-Learning. Already 160,000 children have benefitted from the initiative, which targets 400,000 out-of-school children across the country. Children in Pibor and surrounding areas will now also benefit from BTL. Funding The United States has been one of the largest donors to UNICEF’s Education-in-Emergencies program, which includes support for the Pibor school projects. UNICEF has received a USD23.5 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to implement projects aimed at delivering education services to conflict-affected children and adolescents. “USAID has been supporting education in South Sudan since the liberation struggle,” said U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan Molly Phee. “Educating the next generation is the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous future for any country. But for decades, the children of South Sudan have had to forfeit the opportunity to learn to read and write because of warfare.” “When the…