Month: October 2011

The Character of Freedom

THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO:   Stella De moun … Ségou, Mali – 24 July 2009 This morning, I was jogging through the dry millet fields of the Niger River region of Ségou in Mali when a young man riding a slightly rusty blue bicycle loaded with a freezer caught up with me and started a chat. He

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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

There is a reason why every civilization throughout time has valued education—because it truly can alter our collective condition and make our lives easier, simpler, and most crucially, happier! From Egyptians learning to write on papyrus tablets to late nineteenth century scientists striving to discover medicines like penicillin, there has always been an urge in

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Confusing Ignorance With Illiteracy

I think one of the most common assumptions that should no longer be accepted is that ignorance and illiteracy are actually the same thing, or that ignorance is just a result of the inability to read or write, for the concept of “not knowing” oneself is mystical and does not really mean anything. For example,

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Success is the reward of lifelong learning

In the past, most people believed that the illiterate were those who barely knew a word. Is it still true in the 21st century? Personally, I think the concept of illiterate has been changed. In today’s society, education is open to almost everyone. However, read and write are not the problem of being illiterate, it is

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Education: The Way Forward In India

The quest for education by the Scheduled Castes/ Dalits /Untouchables has followed a similar pattern to the Indian Freedom Struggle: Unsatisfactory compromises by the government providing an impetus for greater demands for education. Complete freedom, however, is still pending. The Scheduled Castes, the lowest strata of the Hindu caste system, were the uneducated, exploited segment

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