UNESCO places emphasis on education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to address the fact that girls and women are under-represented in this field both in school and in the job market. Too many girls and women are held back by bias, social norms and expectations influencing the education they receive and the subjects they study. Gaps are greatest in engineering and ICT, where young women make up only 25% of students in this fields in two-thirds of countries with data. UNESCO’s groundbreaking report Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM was the first to highlight the barriers stifling girls‘ and women’s engagement in these fields, and provide practical solutions on how these barriers can be overcome. UNESCO supports countries to deliver gender-transformative STEM education, and raise girls’ and women’s interest and participation in these fields seen as key for our collective future.
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These days, young people are so often urged to “dream big”, yet for whatever reason—lack of opportunity, lack of the necessary skills, inadequate resources—for many the dreams sour and are left unfulfilled. But here is a story of a boy, a young man, whose talents were nurtured through the FutureLife-Now! Programme and, by grabbing the opportunity presented to him, is making his dreams come to fruition. At the age of 18, Graham Tinotenda Mushavi has become a published author. His book, Behind masculinity—The reality, was inspired by his experience in the Boys’ Mentorship Club that FutureLife-Now! started at his school.
Graham is a teenager who has just completed his A levels at Nashville High School in Gweru, in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe. His early years certainly were not easy: he and his younger sister were raised by his mother and grandmother, yet he worked hard at school and was appointed head boy at the start of 2023, using the opportunity to develop his public speaking skills, motivating his peers through talks at the school assembly. He also became involved in the school’s Boys Mentorship Club, a FutureLife-Now! initiative that seeks to address the vulnerabilities faced by boys and young men. This is achieved through a “buddy system”, whereby older learners mentor younger boys, while the elder boys in turn are mentored by some of the teachers. This inspired Graham to start his own initiative, Young Generation Ambassadors (YGA), a club aimed at eliminating drug and substance abuse among youth. The club also extended beyond the school, targeting out-of-school young people.
As the founder of YGA, Graham often found himself making speeches that addressed girl child problems. “Over the years,” he explains, “the girl child has been denied all forms of access … and nations across the globe are trying as hard as possible to eliminate problems faced by the girl child today, and it has been quite progressive.”
But what about the boy child? In the quest for gender equality, Graham came to realise that the boy child has now been neglected. Boy child issues have become hidden “behind masculinity” as society keeps setting expectations and spreading statements such as “men don’t cry”. This, according to Graham, is a reason why there are higher suicide and substance abuse rates among boys than girls. A feature on boys’ vulnerability in FutureLife-Now!’s newsletter motivated Graham to start on his book. “I wanted to give the audience the other side of the narrative, a different piece of the pie thereby promoting gender equality.”
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30 April 2024, 12:10
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