The Intersection of Gender, Culture and Education: Jamaica: The Next 50 Years!

"Education must never become a casualty of war. No child should pay the price of a conflict they did not start." — Hadja Lahbib, European Commissioner. Access to quality educational opportunities is a fundamental human right. Attacks on education deprive students of their fundamental right to quality education and impede teachers’ ability to carry out their work. Attacks on schools continue at an alarming rate in situations of armed conflict. Seven years after the first observance of the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, armed conflict shows no sign of abating and continues to escalate around the world. The United Nations (UN) reports that attacks on education have also risen sharply over the past two years, with 8,566 reported attacks on educational institutions, compared with 6,000 in 2022 and 2023. Children faced “shocking” levels of violence in armed conflict in 2025, according to the UN Secretary General’s Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict....

"Acquiring literacy is an empowering process, enabling millions to enjoy access to knowledge and information which broadens horizons, increases opportunities and creates alternatives for building a better life.” – Kofi Annan. Alarmingly, at least 739 million youth and adults worldwide still lack basic literacy skills in 2024. The United Nations (UN) adds that 475 million adults who lack literacy skills are women. At the same time, 4 in 10 children are not reaching minimum proficiency in reading, and 272 million children and adolescents were out of school in 2023. There is no one size fit approach to literacy intervention. Too often educators experiment with literacy intervention strategies to the detriment of struggling readers. Struggling or emergent readers should not be experiments or caught in the middle of school politics. Those students need help now. Many students view reading as punitive. Our methods of socialization both in the home and at school have greatly contribu...

Globally, 300,000 people are currently living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Did you know that one in 5000 newborn boys in the world is affected by Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy? Living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a journey marked by both physical challenges and emotional resilience. Historically, individuals with DMD lived only into their late teens or early 20s. Today, modern standards of care extend average survival well into the late 20s and early 30s, with select patients reaching their 40s. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a rare progressive disorder. The first symptoms of DMD are normally identified in early childhood by parents. People with DMD are missing muscle-protecting protein. This is due to a fault in the gene producing dystrophin. Importantly those living with DMD have issues with muscles becoming weaker over time until they affect the whole body. It is caused by a mutation on the X-chromosome; that is why mainly males are affected. First walking becomes ...