The CGI Summit Conference Transcript

Education: The Most Effective Strategies
for the Most Vulnerable Children

September 26, 2007

FEMALE SPEAKER: —of the program. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our working group chair, Senior Fellow for the Economic policy and Director of the Center for Universal Education Counsel on Foreign Relations, the Honorable Gene Sperling. [Applause]

GENE SPERLING: Thank you so much. I am going to be brief because we have a fantastic panel. We had one bit of unfortunate news which is Beatrice Wary from Uganda who is one of the leading forces for AIDS and for education and both as a social vaccine in AIDS and for dealing with children who are affected by it will be here but a little too late for this panel. Her flight was canceled.

We are very, very lucky to have two terrific replacements. I guess she took two to replace, I am going to let our moderator go through, but I really appreciate the power of this panel. I do want to say just very quickly that when we were sitting around and thinking what would make us unhappy with an education session, it would be that at the end we had somehow ignored the special strategies for children who are doubly, triply disadvantaged in a far off, in a too far off, and ignore. [And s]o the way we decided that wasn’t going to happen was that we were going to do a special panel on it. And then when you are doing these things, you always have your kind of dream first choice. I can’t say that every single dream first choice I had for the Clinton Global Initiative came through but this is a case where it did for our moderator. Anybody who has watched Anderson Cooper as an anchor on CNN and the specials he has done even for the Oprah Winfrey show for other things knows that he brings a very special sensitivity and leaps into with great care and sensitivity some of the most difficult issues on genocide, on refugees, on Africa. And when you have seen that, all I can feel was I wish that we could him to come moderate and bring his sense to the most difficult challenges in developing countries and education.

So with that, I just want to thank him so much for agreeing to do this and our four great panelists. I’m going to turn it over to Anderson Cooper. Thank you. [Applause]

ANDERSON COOPER: Thank you very much. Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m told [Shakira] was here before which is a tough act to follow. So there will be no dancing on stage right now.

First of all, what the topic is, the promise of a free universal education means little for literally hundreds of millions of kids around the world who are too often left behind. And they are the kids that we are here to talk about today. We are talking about girls who live in remote areas far away from schools, child laborers, those with disabilities, victims of sex trafficking and kids who were orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS.

These are kids for literally for whom school is a dream. It’s impossible to reach because of a variety of reasons. School fees, the need to supplement their family’s income, discrimination, long distances to the schools, and educational facilities that simply can’t accommodate or won’t accommodate their disabilities.

So the question that we are trying the figure out today is how to reach these kids? How to reach the most vulnerable children among us? And again, we are talking about hundreds of millions of children that estimate of at least a hundred million street children around the world. So that it’s a huge number of kids here. The adjectives — what we need are innovative, creative, and ambitious solutions. And it’s really all those adjectives apply to all the people on the stage here today.

I just want to introduce briefly, Judith Heumann on the end is the D.C. Department of the Disability Services for more than 30 years. She has been an internationally recognized expert on disability and diversity issues. She is named as the World Bank’s first advisor on disability and development. Inderjit Khurana started the Ruchika School Service Social Service Organization. Inderjit created platform schools for hundreds of thousands of kids in India who work on the trains or on the railways. Right now her organization runs 12 of these platform schools, 75 slum schools, 20 nursery schools, preventive HIV projects, two schools on wheels, vocational training, as well as water and sanitation projects in slums. Her contributions are truly remarkable. Stephen Lewis was the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He is now the Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, an international AIDS organization, advocacy organization, and Gary Neil, right next to me, is CEO of Sesame Workshop. Sesame Street is now seen in a 120 countries around the world. And they are going to be moving into Nigeria based on pledges that were made last year here at the Clinton Global Initiative.

So that’s the panel. The question I guess is getting these kids who are most in need. Judith, in terms of kids with disabilities, I read a statistic that is truly just astounding: only two percent of disabled children in developing countries actually receive an education. It, that cannot be true.

JUDITH HEUMANN: Well, unfortunately it is true. And the things go between two and ten percent so, let’s say ten percent of the kids receive an education. I think there are some very big stigmas that face disabled children. And also a significant lack of understanding about who the population is. And some of the solutions that would enable disabled children to go to school really directly have to be addressed by helping people understand that disabled children can benefit from education just like any other population.

And I think that’s really one of the biggest barriers, but in many cases people look at disabled children as being God’s children and we need to protect the population but we don’t see the value of education. So we are seeing some good progress that’s going on in countries around the world and I think in part what’s necessary is the organization of disability organizations, reorganizing of parents so that parents themselves can become influences in the local communities.

ANDERSON COOPER: But don’t a lot of schools just say, look, we don’t have the money for a special facilities. Or we don’t have the training to incorporate a child with a disability whether it’s a physical disability or otherwise into the classroom.

JUDITH HEUMANN: But in many cases there is nothing that needs to be done. I mean in the United States I didn’t get to go to school until I was nine years old. I didn’t need any accommodations except a ramp into the school. And the[re are] millions of children around the world, who had polio, had other types of disabilities where we just need a little bit of access into the school. Then there are other children who do need teachers who have better training. But in reality when we look at the dropouts in school, which is a very high percentage in many countries, one of the causes of children dropping out of school is invisible disabilities--learning disabilities, mild to moderate, intellectual disabilities, mental health disabilities--so I think it’s very important that we are looking at ways of ensuring that teachers even in the poorest areas are able to get some very basic training on what needs to be done to identify kids who are having difficult and getting supports for them.

ANDERSON COOPER: Is there some place where it’s working now, you know in the developing world that you can point to as a success story?

JUDITH HEUMANN: I think in many, many countries, in Ethiopia, there is some very good work going on. In Uganda and South Africa and Pakistan, in India. In a number of countries in Latin America. There are national laws some cases, local laws commitments that have been made financing that’s coming in from the private sector, financing that is coming in from organizations like The World Bank and others, and donor aide from countries like Norway and Finland. There are a lot of very interesting projects that are going on that have been proven to be quite successful.

I have this little book that you told me to show, and I’ll have it for you to look at, but it was done in Pakistan. It was written by children, disabled, and non-disabled between the ages of 12 and 17. And the name of the book is Just Like the Other Kids and it’s for elementary school children. This may seem very basic but it’s basically a book which labels people to begin to not be afraid of disabled people. I think in many countries the stigma around disability is very significant. And people believe that disability is the result of something bad that families did. So, it’s a [conflict issue].

ANDERSON COOPER: And Gary in terms of what Sesame Street is doing, breaking stigmas is something Inside Africa, for instance you guys are doing with Muppets.

GARY NEIL: It is Anderson. I want to put in a shameless plug by the way we do have a special celebrity on Sesame Street this season, Anderson Cooper, [laughter] as part of GNN, The Grouch News Network. [Laughter]

ANDERSON COOPER: Some of my finest work actually. [Laughter]

GARY NEIL: In South Africa, as many of you know, one in nine children are infected by HIV/AIDS and we felt that we could make a contribution through our South African adaption of Sesame Street, [Takalani] Sesame by introducing an HIV-positive Muppet character. Her name is Kami who has become a regular cast member of the show and maybe similar to how we have developed characters in this country and others with physical disabilities who become regular cast members, [who] are able to deal with stigma, Anderson, in a way where children learn that they can be friends with someone and play with them and not necessarily get sick because there is so much mythology that surrounds the virus even among the youngest of children in southern Africa.

So she has become really a role model. She has become UNICEF champion for children. President Mandala has had her out in front of thousands of children at his annual Christmas event, which he has been doing for many years. And in that way we are able use the power of media which children are naturally attracted to and television and radio in this case, to try to influence them and de-stigmatize children who have been shunted in many ways by their peers.

ANDERSON COOPER: And Stephen it’s not in Africa around the world, it’s not just the stigma of HIV/AIDS which keeps kids out of school or limits kids’ education abilities but literally AIDS is decimating the teacher population in many of these countries. In Zambia I read 40 percent of the teacher population is HIV positive and they are dying off at greater rates than they are graduating new teachers.

STEPHEN LEWIS: In fact that is something that Zambia has been coping with desperately over the last few years because the number of teachers is so profoundly depleted and when you have reduced numbers of teachers and you have very large class sizes and you are trying to maintain some substance and quality of education it’s a very tough slough but on top of that of course you are dealing — when you are dealing with HIV and AIDS kids you are dealing with children who have lost their parents very often. There are now 14, 15 million orphan children orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The numbers are rising exponentially.

And they are traumatized. For them it is so inexplicable and bewildering this sudden and abrupt loss of the parents. And they are desperately in need of nurture and support and that’s very difficult to find. We all use the fascia phase psychosocial support but there are no psychologists. There are no social workers. You are dependent on the sensitivities of the community and of the teachers and it isn’t always there. And for these kids it’s incredibly hard and it’s often hard even to get to schools because so many schools are not accessible because of the fees. Many countries haven’t abolished school fees at primary level.

ANDERSON COOPER: In terms of how you get school to the most vulnerable, Inderjit, you literally brought the schools to the most vulnerable with the train platform schools. Talk a little bit about how that works.

INDERJIT KHURANA: I noticed what is moved to [inaudible, which is] the capitol of the poorest state in India that a lot of children were out of school; about 35,000 children are still out of school. And this came to my notice when I started a formal school with two children and I had 20 children outside my gate from the neighboring slums. When I visited the station I found children in the age group eight to 14 who were their own minders and they just did everything that an adult would do without any adult role models. Their role models were the policeman and the gangsters. You know I made a silent commitment that if it is returned to childhood that the child needs then I would take a childhood back to the child. He is a child, as we know that officially 'til 14 he is still a child. And I wanted to return a happy childhood to the child [an] unalterated, joyful childhood. Happiness and laughter and fun and education were included in the program. It was not my primary focus but it was the children I must tell you that children who we save from the poorest sections of society are not interested in education nor or the parents. That’s not true.

Because the children came, 11 on the first day and within two months 114 on the railway station and you know we had a class full of fun so much so that the railway station authorities could not function anymore. They were all out to watch us and finally the superintendent had to ask me if I would leave the station, which fortunately for me it really didn’t become a big trip because I know no barriers. And reaching out to children I said there will be no barriers. I’ll skirt the barriers anyhow.

And we skirted them and we now have 17 platform schools.

ANDERSON COOPER: [And] in terms of, I’m sure it’s been a process trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t work, in terms of reaching these children, what did not work and what does work most [effectively]?

INDERJIT KHURANA: What has worked has been following the needs of the children. Very often the children have dictated to me what they wanted. They have suggested ideas and methodologies because, for instance, there was this child in the first week in school who said, "what are you trying to teach me?" So I said I’m trying to teach you how to read and write. He said, "but I already know how to write, and I can write in three languages." And he wrote down three words, and those words are in Oriya, Hindi, and English. And they were the name of picture holding, a phone holding. And he said, "I can teach myself to write from this, so you don’t have to really teach me." So we adopted that idea and we have flashcards and picture cards to teach them writing or teach them reading. Which is so important they know mathematics, they could do some multiplication and division and what have you. All of the tricks of the trade, just mentally but they couldn’t write them down so we taught them to do that.

So, we just followed the child’s needs. They wanted to read story books. We helped them to read story books. Learn poems. And in fact this little boy grew up to be a teenager who would sit at the readers' table at the railway station and readers [inaudible] how is his books. And he would read all the books on general knowledge and when I went to the station he would question me. I was his favorite target [laughter] and he would say, "Whoever made you the principal? [laughter] You don’t know anything!" [Laughter]

So he was learning so much more than me.

ANDERSON COOPER: I want to ask on the panel what do you think — there is a program in Brazil. There is a summer program in Mexico that actually funds or gives a stipend to two families to send their children to school. It’s often done on a monthly basis. There is a credit card in some of these programs that the mothers can check as long as the kids have perfect attendance or near-perfect attendance. Is that a solution?

INDERJIT KHURANA: I think that’s a very good solution. But unfortunately, you need that kind of financing. It’s a lot of financing but it’s a very good —

ANDERSON COOPER: In Brazil, I think its six dollars a month per family, roughly the cost.

STEPHEN LEWIS: That in fact is a lot of money when people are living on less than a dollar a day and it makes great sense if the government or the state can provide that kind of support to vulnerable families and orphan children.

ANDERSON COOPER: What’s happening in Mexico there is a lot of government support but in other places there hasn’t been.

JUDITH HEUMANN: What’s important is that the government has a policy which says all children are included, because sometimes you send these programs where disabled kids might not go to school but families may not send them. So, in countries like Uganda where they had a policy like that disabled kids are explicitly included.

GARY NEIL: Yeah. I should mention Mexico has done a wonderful job and I think Dr. Julio Frank is here who use to be the minister of health and now at the Gates Foundation. He not only did a lot in getting this program out there but built in content which was indigenous to the native groups in southern Mexico out of San Crisobal de Las Casas that included some of our materials to deal with health issues including some this bizarre issue of obesity and under nourishment at the same time.

So, we have been able to use media in the classrooms to try to inspire the kids to stay.

STEPHEN LEWIS: But let’s, if I may, let’s make it clear that for many of these governments the dollars, the resources simply aren’t available. It’s a tremendous burden and there has to be support from the international community. There just must.

After all, for many of the primary schools in Africa and governments in Africa they didn’t have school fees before. These school fees came courtesy of the international financial institutions courtesy of The World Bank and the IMF during the days of structural adjustment. There is an argument there for it to be made that the organizations which effectively imposed the condition called user fees on school children down the road that they should help to compensate governments as they attempt to remove the fees. And by the way, there are no secondary schools that are free. And the gender inequalities become massive at secondary school and in sub-Saharan Africa of all the kids in secondary school, 14 percent are girls. So that gender inequality lies at the heart of what we have to —

ANDERSON COOPER: And talk a little bit about the importance of educating young girls. I mean the impact that a girl’s education can have reverberates not only throughout the entire family but a community.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Yes and everybody agrees that it is the strongest fortress against poverty and it allows for the embrace of health and the presence in the community and the knowledge of how to bring up children and all of the things that are denied so many young girls because —

ANDERSON COOPER: How do you overcome that? How you do overcome what is, in some cases, a cultural prohibition or a religious prohibition? How do you make those strides?

STEPHEN LEWIS: Well, you fight like the devil for the principle of gender equality. And when the United Nations has before it a proposition as it does to create the first-ever international women’s agency then all the other agencies and all the governments of the world should get behind it because you will finally have a daily voice for women and girls the way you have UNICEF now for children generally. And that’s been missing in the international community. We'[ve] never had a force for [applause] women on a continuing basis. It’s one of the most dismal dimensions of multilateralism.

INDERJIT KHURANA: We have found two strategies which work very well with girls because I concentrate a lot on girls. At least some kind of education. And I allow [the] siblings to come to school. So the child learn[s] there and the housekeeper comes to school with the little sibling and we get, we look at the sibling and get the child to study and children have found strategies. They stretch their legs and put the babies there and write by the side or read over the bab[y's] head while the baby is sleeping. And if the child is playing then we have toys in the school which the child plays with.

JUDITH HEUMANN: I think getting back to the issue of disabled children for a minute and how many disabled kids don’t have visible disabilities. There is a longitudinal study that was [done] in the United States in the 1990s which showed that disabled teenage girls by the age of 18 were twice as likely to be single mothers as non-disabled kids. That’s an international figure I’m sure that we would see over and over again. And these young women, many of whom have mild to moderate and intellectual disabilities and mental health disabilities, are at great risk of sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, etc.

These are children also who even in “developed countries” have very [high] drop out rates. So we really haven’t looked at the comprehensive needs of these population of individuals and just like the information that research on girls, [you] see that when girls go to school, you see a reduction in pregnancy rates, etc., etc. It’s the same thing that would happen in this area.

GARY NEIL: Girl’s education also takes role-modeling. And it’s very important because so many cultures, not all of the ones that Stephen you have been working [with], but many cultures like Egypt are hugely impacted by media, by television. It’s the leading exporter of television/movie contents throughout the Arab world. We have a young girl role model on our show in Egypt, [inaudible] and Ms. Mubakar has embraced her as a role model for young girls and has used her as, to catapult, really, an entire girl’s empowerment program where 60 percent of the female population is illiterate and it’s been a very powerful engine.

You have got to start in our view at the new generation to begin to you know have a little bit more of a slate that’s clean to begin to build new role models for young girls so they are looking at themselves with a future and a horizon that is positive which their mothers and maybe even older sisters have not had.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Do you know, if I may, Anderson, there is also a strong movement in some of the African countries, I think of Zambia as an example, to make the school the center of the community. So it’s not just an educational vehicle but it provides health services. It provides social welfare payments. It becomes the center for food if kids can get one meal a day. It actually is the central piece of the community structure and it makes education a much more formidable impact.

INDERJIT KHURANA: Actually the social service in Ruchika social service we would do exactly that. We have the community meetings in the school room that we have created along with the community. The community has helped us to build the room as well as bathrooms and portable water devices.

ANDERSON COOPER: So Inderjit what do you say to a family who says, well look, I can’t send my child to your school because he or she needs to work?

INDERJIT KHURANA: You know we have flexible timings. So we have a lot of rag pickers who were out from the slums. And who leave around four in the morning and return [by] about seven. And they have whatever left over dinner, is usually watered rice, so they have some of that watered rice and then they come to school.

ANDERSON COOPER: At night?

INDERJIT KHURANA: At night they come to school but they are late because the school starts at seven but we allow them to come at nine. For children who were boarding trains we get their copies and books ready. They can do the work in the school itself or they can carry a worksheet in the train. And very often from [inaudible] to Calcutta you will find children working on these worksheets in the train itself. And some of them come back to show us how well they have done but some of them of course lose their papers. But they do come. And the wonderful part of the children who are on the trains is that if they don’t come for about 15 days there is a reeling machine amongst the children on the trains who tell us where the child would be. Is he in Calcutta or is he hurt and in the hospital or is he in Bombay? So we get news of the child and we try to trace him through child line which is another line that we have an emergency service for children whereby we contact child line in 76 other cities and we are able to get news about the child back to us through this child line service.

So you know there are, one has to look at, if you really want to educate the children, you have to look [at] newer and newer strategies. Some work, some don’t but more often they work than not.

ANDERSON COOPER: I just want to ask this question to each of you before we take a break and allow people to talk at the tables. Judith, what are you hoping comes out of this today? I mean what do you want people to take away from this room right now?

JUDITH HEUMANN: That [any] people are doing work in the education, look at whether or not disabled children are being included, and if they are being included meaningfully, and if not, to go look at the countries that they are working and identify the local parent groups and disability groups to learn how they can do that.

ANDERSON COOPER: Inderjit, how about for you?

INDERJIT KHURANA: I would like to have people think about children rather than have-nots in our society and where do we have the largest number of have-nots. You know 35 million children don’t go to school, don’t ever see a school. Besides health, disease, and other problems which are so common amongst the children, these are some of the problems that the world must look at. I think this global conference must look at the [world] per [se]. I’m not asking for very much. We have 332 slums in Ruchika and 740 stations. Can we look for help for those children, all those who live around the stations, travel on the trains, and live in the slums? That’s it. I’m [local], I’m not going to other streets, I’m not spreading all over India because I want to set an example of an undiluted program.

ANDERSON COOPER: How much does your organization spend each year?

INDERJIT KHURANA: This year we have reached one Euro, I don’t know how many —

ANDERSON COOPER: $200,000.

INDERJIT KHURANA: $200,000.

ANDERSON COOPER: And you reach how many children?

INDERJIT KHURANA: And we reach 5,000 children. We have just covered the entire gamut of services which we can offer to children. We have help line for girls. We have child line for boys and girls up to 14; help line for children, girls about 14. We have a HIV/AIDS awareness program for adolescents who [live] on the station because we have such open exposure and plenty of exposure to sex. So we have a program for them. We also [have] a program for health. We are reaching out with two mobile vans to all the schools that we run, twice a week. We have a toy laboratory which takes toys to the children once a week to every school so that the children can enjoy handling and playing with toys which they only look at in shop windows.

ANDERSON COOPER: Stephen, how about for you? What should people take away?

STEPHEN LEWIS: I’m overwhelmed by what Inderjit is accomplishing with relatively small amounts of money. I just want, I just hope that we all collectively understand that there are millions upon millions of children now in the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa but beyond, who have lost their parents as a result of a virus. The numbers are increasing in places exponentially. They are deeply emotionally wounded and scarred. They are bewildered by what’s happened to them. They are frequently living with their grandmothers who have buried their own adult children and begin to parent again when they are 50 and 60 and 70 years of age. They are living [in] child-headed households when the grandmother dies. And they are desperate for school. They['re] yearning for a school. It’s so intense it’s positively palpable. And they are deprived of that school because they cannot afford the fees or the uniforms or the textbooks or the parent teacher association fees or the examination fees. The whole [panoply] of things which stand in the way.

And it can all be overcome with some real sense of resources. They are there. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the UK, came to the United Nations on July 31st, and correct me David if I’m wrong, but I think he said $9 billion a year would do it to put every kid in school, disabilities, disadvantage, right across the board. And you will forgive as — $10 billion. And you will forgive me as a Canadian a faintly venomous comment but since my own country is involved I can make it, we are now spending between ten and 15 billion dollars a month to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and we cannot seem to summon that amount of money [applause] in one year to put all of the children into school and that seems to me to be the loss of a moral anchor internationally.

GARY NEIL: Design a strategy to break the political stalemate on getting resources to children. And my own suggestion is, because I’m a believer in pillow talk, Anderson, that —

ANDERSON COOPER: Don’t look at me when you say that though [laughter].

GARY NEIL: As you were on the Grouch News Network, —

STEPHEN LEWIS: First you call him a grouch and then you are slandering his name. [Laughter]

GARY NEIL: We need to harass the power of first ladies around the world who are chatting with their husbands. And the power that the conversations that I’ve had with first ladies around the world, including the one in the United States of America, if we can figure out a way to [harness some] of their energy and their commitment in words to children, we can indeed make a difference. We need to work together to figure out how to break this political stalemate.

ANDERSON COOPER: And you see it as a political stalemate?

GARY NEIL: I do. I think you know the fact that this morning I think we heard that one percent of all international aid programs are going to education. The facts, you know, are really about that resources are not going to help children in the world. Even though, virtually everyone in the world has the same basic needs about bringing up their children so that they can experience a better life than the one they had themselves. We all believe that it is a basic human value from culture to culture. But it doesn’t somehow equate into a political reality once you get it into government. We have to figure out a way, those of us who are engaged here and the reason why you are in this room, I think is that we got to come together and figure out some strategies to make that happen and make this real.

STEPHEN LEWIS: I would beg you not to rely on first ladies. I’m sorry to add a dissenting voice but my experience is that because first ladies are dependent on the election of their husbands and their husbands change in tenure that you don’t always get the kind of leadership you anticipate. What you really have to depend on are the women activists and the women leaders in the communities on the ground, who will do the tremendous job around education that has to be done but let me tell you, I’m sorry to be unorthodox and perhaps fatally irascible. But the first lady vehicle let me tell you the first ladies vehicle has failed so often in Africa. It is not the way to answer these issues.

GARY NEIL: It’s a global issue and I guess we have had a different experience, Stephen, so it has worked and I would urge you to not do, it’s not one or the other. I think it’s both.

ANDERSON COOPER: Great. We are going to take a short break for, is it 30 minutes?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes, that’s right. Now we are going to turn it over to the tables once again to discuss our question, which is: what are a few things that can be done to address this challenge, by whom and how? So thank you so much to our inspiring panelists. This has really been wonderful. And we will be back after our discussion.

[BREAK]

ANDERSON COOPER: Thank you. So we have a number of questions which have come out of your discussions at the tables that I just want to put to our panelists and probably have about 17 minutes for this. I want to try to get as many as possible. First question, how do we help when a child doesn’t have a family to incentivize, AIDS orphans, et cetera? Stephen?

STEPHEN LEWIS: Sorry?

ANDERSON COOPER: How do we help when a child doesn’t have a family to incentivize, a family to encourage them to go to school? If they’re on their own, how do you get them to go to school?

STEPHEN LEWIS: Well, that’s the point of building into at the community level the kind of supports for child-headed households, or for grandmothers and children. You need some kind of social welfare scheme. You need some kind of cash payment scheme which sustains the life of the family and gives the kids those direct supports. I mean it can be provided. The communities can be providing the support. But they struggle so desperately with the poverty.

ANDERSON COOPER: Another question. If you had one request of donors in the room today, what would it be? What one investment could make the greatest impact? I’m going to ask that to each of you because I’m sure you want to weigh in. Judith?

JUDITH E. HEUMANN: Make sure that you’re looking at including all children and don’t use excuses not to.

ANDERSON COOPER: Inderjit? If you had one request of donors in the room today, what would it be? What one investment could make the biggest impact?

INDERJIT KHURANA: Increasing the number of schools. If I had a donor here, I have so many children to reach out to.

ANDERSON COOPER: If you had more money you could expand your program?

INDERJIT KHURANA: Yes.

ANDERSON COOPER: No doubt about it.

INDERJIT KHURANA: Yes.

ANDERSON COOPER: Would you expand just in the city or would you expand across India?

INDERJIT KHURANA: I said that I don’t want to dilute my program unless I’m very sure that the model is accepted in other states.

ANDERSON COOPER: You say you reach 5,000 kids. How many could you reach potentially?

INDERJIT KHURANA: I could reach 35 more.

ANDERSON COOPER: 35?

INDERJIT KHURANA: 35,000.

ANDERSON COOPER: 35,000 more. Stephen? How about for you?

STEPHEN LEWIS: I like the idea of the building of schools and I think that there are so many models now that can be followed. Free the Children does it. Oprah does it. A great many of the Habitat people do it. And there are so many places where the communities can be engaged in the building of schools and the training of teachers which will relieve the tremendous congestion. May I suggest something else which is perhaps what will be regarded as again, a little unorthodox. The building of latrines and sanitary facilities across the developing world is a desperate priority, particularly for young girls. They enter their menstrual cycle. They’re too self-conscious about going to the school. They miss the days. They stay away. They don’t-, it seems a small thing but it would change the entire environment for so many young girls who can’t imagine-. If there’s an investor who wants to take on a particular vehicle, my foundation once built a latrine for an organization called Reach Out [Mbuya] in the heart of Uganda. And it transformed the entire educational environment. And I remember when I went to cut the ribbon. In fact, it was even better than that. There was a plaque. It’s actually the Stephen Lewis Latrine. And it has given me great pleasure because many of my political adversaries would feel it’s the appropriate finale, too, to my life. [Laughter]

ANDERSON COOPER: Gary, how about for you? What one investment?

INDERJIT KHURANA: Can I respond to the latrine issue? We are already making latrines in all the schools that we have. And this is called a child-friendly latrine. In India the children go out, the adult population, too, goes out into the fields. So the walls which separate one from the other is about two feet high. So the children can talk to each other while they defecate. And it’s a friendly atmosphere. [Laughter] Just like in the village. And on the walls of the latrines we have pictures and poems and things which will make the children happy. So that we hope that they go use those latrines very often.

ANDERSON COOPER: The Larry Craig Restroom. Oh, it was an easy joke. Come on.

MALE SPEAKER: Ow. Ow. Ouch.

[Interposing] [Laughter]

JUDITH E. HEUMAN: The issue of ensuring that schools that are being built, including with latrines are wheelchair accessible is also a very big issue. The World Bank’s got a note out on how to do it. It’s like one to two percent above the cost. I think the latrine issue which we all take for granted is a huge issue in many countries.

ANDERSON COOPER: Gary?

GARY NEIL: I think I’ve got it. It’s latrines for First Ladies. That’s it. [Laughter]

STEPHEN LEWIS: Well, I’d be prepared to support you in that. [Laughter]

GARY NEIL: I knew I’d get him somehow. Actually, I think a couple things. One is evaluative research. There’s so many good programs and every foundation in the world always wants to know what’s the most effective thing. And no one wants to give money to bring the researchers in so that we can evaluate in our case our projects to ensure that our lessons around girls’ education in Egypt are in fact having the impact that we hope they will. The others are outreach. Because in working in the media as we do with education there are many children and families obviously that don’t have access to television or even electricity in many countries. So being able to work in the bush, we have a co-venture with Save the Children in Bangladesh where we’re able to actually go out on rickshaws and have community viewings of our show, [Sisimpur], in Bangladesh. To be able to show some of the lessons about hygiene and literacy and tolerance and respect that we were able to build into the curriculum. So outreach, as well as evaluative research.

ANDERSON COOPER: Another question, Judith, do we need different vocational curriculum for disabled children in rural communities?

JUDITH E. HEUMANN: We can’t make all disabled children look the same, so I would say that we need programs that are individualized. Not just looking at disabled children, but looking at diverse learning needs of children. Because many children learn differently and we need to make sure the programs are appropriately designed. For some children, like blind children, we may need to have some programs that are designed to help ensure that their needs are being met, [a]nd for children who have more significant intellectual disabilities. But from a cross perspective, I think it’s very important that we’re looking at what gets called inclusive education where we’re really focusing on bringing children into the regular education system and ensuring that we’re doing moderate training for teachers.

ANDERSON COOPER: Stephen, I’m going to ask you this question. This is, why are we only looking at women leaders? Can't, [d]on’t male leaders also matter? Also, Gary.

STEPHEN LEWIS: Sure. Sure they do. But the driving force, at least in many of the countries in which I’ve had the privilege to work are undoubtedly the women of the country. And they do most of the work. They do most of the caring. They provide most of the leadership at the grassroots in particular. It’s a tremendously sophisticated and intelligent and generous leadership and can be reinforced. And because gender and equality lies at the root of so many of these problems to have women providing the leadership, I think, makes a substantial difference.

ANDERSON COOPER: Another question for anyone. How can we empower young people to themselves become catalysts for change?

JUDITH E. HEUMANN: There are many programs now that are being developed in countries all around the world focusing on the empowerment of disabled youth. And one of the issues that we’re interested in also is ensuring that as youth programs are being developed that disabled kids are a part of those programs. And that’s the whole theme around the issue of education for disabled children. Looking at opportunities to bring them into the mainstream. I think the voices of disabled youth are incredibly powerful. And that book that I gave you I think is a real example of how 12 to 17 year olds put this really great book together which is going to benefit younger children.

ANDERSON COOPER: That’s something Sesame Street also certainly does for-.

GARY NEIL: Sure. And I think in many ways modern communication and the web and all of the work that’s being done around that is equalizing the playing field around the world. Because everyone now is a producer and everyone’s a distributor. And in those countries where the internet and cell phone technology are taking off, even in Afghanistan as you heard President Karzai this morning. Being able to use those as educational devices. We really have to think out of the box. The one laptop per child that Nick Negropon[te] is pushing. These are all platforms I think that have the potential of bringing educational tools into not just the classroom but throughout communities throughout the developing world. And we need to really support them.

JUDITH E. HEUMANN: And the area of technology which I agree is a critically important area, there’s a tremendous amount of work that’s been done in Europe and North America on accessible technology. Integrated accessible technology. But frequently the designers of the technology, when they’re taking that technology overseas, are dropping the accessible components of the technology. So it’s very important that we look at maintaining the accessibility in the technology as it goes overseas.

STEPHEN LEWIS: I just wanted to make the point [with] which Judith would entirely concur in. We finally have after decades of struggle an International Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons. It’s been ratified by four countries so far. It has to be ratified by 20 and it becomes an instrument of binding international law. And though these international conventions are sometimes dishonored, it is also true as the convention on the rights of the child shows, that you can achieve a great deal by having a kind of legal framework within which to work and to push the issues. And the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons gives to children and adult persons the right to education, the right to health. And it gives you an extra vehicle with which to pummel governments into submission. So getting them to ratify is really important for those who are looking for commitments.

ANDERSON COOPER: A question, Stephen, to you. Access to school is important, but what about children trying to survive and earn today?

STEPHEN LEWIS: Trying to—?

ANDERSON COOPER: Trying to survive and earn money today? I mean how do you-?

STEPHEN LEWIS: It’s terribly difficult and I think Inderjit [has] made the point that you’ve got to find a way of sufficient flexibility in your educational system. You have to have new ways of looking at the system so that you can combine the rights of kids to earn and the opportunity to go to school, particularly in the most impoverished parts of the world. Because that is always a difficulty. I remember when I was running around the world for UNICEF talking about the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the child labor clause was the clause that bothered most governments. They said we want kids to be able to work even under the age of 12, because they’re earning an income for their families. And I was trying to argue that child labor was undesirable and that if they were going to work at all there had to be some access to schools. And many governments finally worked out a compromise, but it’s tough. I admit to you it’s tough.

ANDERSON COOPER: Inderjit, I think I know the answer to this, but what stands in the way of the expansion and replication of your schools? What stands in the way of expanding your program? Just money?

INDERJIT KHURANA: Money. [Laughter] That’s a big factor. But I just wanted to talk on children who cannot come to school. Some of the children who cannot come to school and are late starters in education, they’re starting school for the first time at the age of 14 or 15. We teach them what we call, we have a program for them which we call Functional Literacy. And in Functional Literacy they do basic mathematics, which is keeping accounts, and profit and loss. That’s very basic and they’re very aware. They’re great financial managers. Of course they splurge money as soon as they get it, but nevertheless they are good financial managers. And when we teach them they respond very well. And also teaching them just enough reading to be able to read a newspaper, the headlines of a newspaper. That’s important. And we’ve succeeded in doing that in two weeks. The child who speaks earlier can start reading a newspaper enough to make sense of what is written there in two weeks time.

So we have these Functional Literacy programs and then if they’re willing we put them into vocational training. What has succeeded very well with boys is as tourism develops in India, we’[v]e training them for hotels. So they are bellboys and room boys and the whole series, depending on their education. And cooks as well. I have a boy who just did fifth grade and is now working in Goa, is getting ten thousand a month and all expenses paid. He lives in free accommodation. He’s better than any very educated child.

ANDERSON COOPER: Another question; Judith, for you. What are some lessons learned in the U.S. that address the educational needs of children with disability that can be adapted to the global south?

JUDITH E. HEUMANN: I think the importance of teacher training is something that can be adapted. I think the ability to be able to take lessons that have learned about how to work with teachers and principals about helping them learn how to stay in school. And the statute. I think the statute is too prescriptive for many countries but the fact that there is a law, and I think this goes on the heels of what Steve was saying about the UN convention. I think countries must have pieces of legislation that ensure if they have laws on education of children, the disabled children are a part. If they have laws on employment, the disabled children and adults are included. And those are some of the lessons that we’ve learned in the States. That the inclusion of disabled people whether in integrated legislation or separate legislation, finally does begin to remove some of the stigma. We have to remember that in Europe and in Canada and the United States and Japan, it’s relatively recent that disabled children have the right to go to school. In the U.S. it wasn’t until 1975 that there was a law that said children could go to school with disabilities. At that point there were one million children out of school altogether. And in the beginning when kids started to go to school there was great disbelief that children could learn. Now whatever you feel about No Child Left Behind, one of the issues with No Child Left Behind is it’s raised the bar. Disabled children are finally having to be a part of accountability systems. And that really is also beginning to show that kids who people thought could not learn, that they realized that it was teachers not learning how to teach kids appropriately. And then the results are going up.

ANDERSON COOPER: I want to thank all the panelists today. We still have a little bit more business. I think just some summaries of some of the ideas that have come out of the tables. I think we’re going to have someone else come on the stage for that.

MICHELE JOLIN: Hi, my name is Michele Jolin and I’ve been working on the Global Education Track for the Clinton Global Initiative. And I wanted to just summarize some of the key themes that came out of your discussion. We’re going to have them on slides here as well. One key theme is that we need to putting pressure on governments to commit resources to change laws to scale up successful initiatives like some of the ones we talked about and some of the ones we’re going to be talking about in the next couple of days. We also need to abolish all school-related fees to reduce obstacles to participation. People recommended, we talked about the importance of universal preschool. And reducing the cultural stigma of disability, creating the expectation that all children need to go to school. We also need to focus on schools as hubs of our community.

Another key idea that was talked about was needing to figure out how to better use communication technology to reach disadvantaged populations. And figuring out how schools can establish some sort of mandatory percentage of children with disabilities to be included. Others talked about the need to support the ratification of the International Convention on People with Disabilities. Four nations have ratified it so far, but we need 20 for it to be binding. And then of course we’re back to the key issue of money and the importance of that in replicating some of the strategies. And I can’t resist this, because one of our very generous CGI members has agreed to commit $200,000, Mr. Punkajaw [misspelled?], to Inderjit’s program. Just on the spot. [Applause] Is he somewhere? He’s right here. Back there. So thank you so much for doing that. I can’t tell you how much that’s going to mean to Inderjit and her work. So, thank you to all of our panelists. We’re now going to turn to the portion of our program where we present the commitments. Thank you.

ANDERSON COOPER: I want to invite to the stage Maya Ajmera, President of The Global Fund for Children. She has pledged $10 million over five years to support at least 100 grassroots organizations in the developing world providing quality early childhood programs for vulnerable children eight and under. Here’s a little bit about the organization, The Global Fund for Children. Over the next year, the Global Fund for Children is going to invest $500,000 in children’s’ books, photography, documentary films, to raise awareness of the importance of early childhood education. The printed materials are going to be translated in the languages of developing nations to foster a sense of global citizenship and demonstrate the innovative worldwide community solutions to come throughout the project. And support’s going to be provided to organizations in at least 20 different countries around the world focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America, touching the lives of between 250,000 and 500,000 children overall. So thank you very much. [Applause]

I want to invite Martin Burt to the stage, the Director General of the Foundacion Paraguaya. He’s committed $25 million to replicate their successful model of agro-entrepreneurial education in 50 new countries. Just a little bit about Foundacion Paraguia, their schools double as agricultural businesses where students learn entrepreneurial skills and business acumen alongside the traditional high school curriculum. And then after five years the schools will become completely self-sufficient, thereby creating a sustainable education system guaranteeing meaningful education for decades. This commitment is going to touch the lives of over 600,000 disadvantaged youth giving them the skills to be come successful entrepreneurs and literally lift themselves and their family out of poverty. So, thank you.

Just one more. I want to invite Nishith Acharya, the Executive Director of the Deshpande Foundation, has pledged $110 million over 11 years to create a long-term sustainable school lunch program in India supported by a community of dedicated individuals and organizations to feed the next generation of Indians. This collaboration is going to increase the number of public school children serviced by the Midday Meal Program with nutritious school lunches every day from 800,000 to one million. And in the long term, this foundation and it’s partner, the Akshaya Patra Foundation, is going to work to ensure that children are provided a school lunch every day from the start of kindergarten all the way through completion of grade ten. [Applause]

Thank you very much.

FEMALE SPEAKER: That concludes this panel. Thank you so much for this wonderful panel. And I just wanted to remind people that this afternoon we’ll have a plenary session on children being educated in areas of conflict and refugees, which I think is going to be particularly interesting. And then tomorrow morning we’ll go back to our panels here and the working sessions on access and quality. So thank you so much and thank you for all your wonderful participation. We really appreciate it.

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