The 3rd Goal is a distance education web portal that is available for use to help in the educational development of young low income children the world around. We are seeking educators that may want to help assist in the curriculum development of this project. Please contact jennie@the3rdgoal.org if you are interested in participating in this development.

The Human Rights Council at its annual full day discussion on Women’s Human Rights in Geneva has been told that progress on gender equality in education is so slow it is unlikely to be achieved before 2040. This year’s discussion, “Empowering Women through Education” heard from a number of experts who talked of some progress but in totality described a situation where millions of girls continue to experience disadvantage and discrimination that prevents an effective education.

Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other rights but despite widespread acceptance of this principle, nonetheless there was unanimity at the meeting that in practice much more needed to be done.

Opening the panel discussion, Deputy High Commissioner Kyung-wha Kang said that of the 130 million young people out of school today, 70 percent are girls. On the other hand, she told the Council, “When a girl is educated the benefits are truly life-changing.”

The Deputy pointed to research which shows that girls who are educated are likely to marry later, are better protected from a forced or early marriage, are likely to contribute to reducing the HIV/AIDS rate in their countries, will have fewer children and are less likely to suffer pregnancy-related complications or death. Girls who have been to school for a significant amount of time often become drivers for positive social change and when they are able to work, they are more likely than boys, to invest most of it in their families, she said.

Kang said it was unlikely at the current rate of progress that Millennium Development Goal 3, the elimination of the gender disparity between boys and girls access to primary education, was likely to be achieved. Because of the recent financial and economic crises, “Girls have been the first to be withdrawn from school”, Kang said, “in order to help their families cope with economic hardship.”

Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education said poverty was only one factor preventing girls from attending school. Early marriages and unwanted pregnancies were indicators of predominant beliefs that the only role of women was reproduction and existence in private home environments, he said.

The right to education should be guaranteed for all women, Muñoz said but unfortunately in many parts of the world, women are still not perceived as rights holders.

Lack of access to appropriate sanitation facilities is another significant reason fewer girls than boys attend school. The Independent Expert on the Issue of Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, said one of the factors that helped explain why more girls than boys continue to drop out of school was access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

Girls often have the task of fetching water on a daily basis which makes them either late for school or unable to attend and they are more affected by poor sanitation facilities at school. De Albuquerque told the meeting that one statistic estimated that 11 percent more girls attended school when good sanitation was available.

The Deputy High Commissioner highlighted the consequences of a lack of education for women; without schooling, women’s knowledge of nutrition, birth spacing and contraception are limited. “One telling fact is that the main cause of death for 15 to 19 year old girls worldwide is pregnancy and childbirth complications. They are part of the statistics of a staggering number of hundreds of thousands of women and girls who are lost each year during pregnancy and childbirth,” she said.

The international community is urged to redouble its efforts to strengthen equality in education. © UN Photo/John Isaac

28 June 2010 – The annual high-level segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) opened today with speakers calling for women and girls to be placed at the centre of the global struggle to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This year’s focus “allows us to strengthen the linkages between gender equality, women’s human rights and non-discrimination as a basis for progress in development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals,” said ECOSOC President Hamidon Ali, referring to the eight goals that world leaders have agreed to try to realize before their 2015 deadline.

In his opening address to the meeting, held at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Ali said that while the third goal relates directly to the empowerment of women, “all MDGs are dependant upon women having a greater say in their own development.”

He noted specifically the need for greater cooperation to end violence against women and girls, and the empowerment of rural women as a critical force in reducing poverty and hunger.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his opening remarks, told government ministers that “until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy.”

Mr. Ban noted that this year is a “landmark year for gender issues” with the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – which remains the most comprehensive global policy framework to achieve the goals of gender equality, development and peace – and the 10th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security.

In addition to senior UN officials, the audience heard today from special speakers, including Michelle Bachelet, former Chilean president.

Recalling her own election as the first female Chilean president and the increasing participation of women in the political sphere, Ms. Bachelet called on the international community “to move mountains” to end the persistent injustice the women faced.

Meanwhile, Frances Stewart, Professor of Development Economics and Director of the Centre for Research and Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity at Oxford University, warned that the progress made to date was being threatened by intersecting crises of food security, financial markets, human rights and security, and climate change.

She cautioned that the least progress was being made in the security domain, where despite a decline in wars and violent conflict over the past 15 years, general violence of which women were the prime victims remained unacceptably high.

In addition to the annual ministerial review, the high-level segment of the ECOSOC substantive session will include the Development Cooperation Forum, which aims to strengthen global partnerships for development.

The end result of this week’s discussions will be a “short and action-oriented” ministerial declaration that can be “understood by the man-in-the-street,” Mr. Ali said.

The declaration will serve as a component to this September’s high-level summit convened by Mr. Ban to try to urge world leaders to accelerate progress towards the MDGs ahead of 2015.

U.N. WomenWatch

Empowerment of Women and Girls tops agenda at UN Economic and Social Council

Today was rather typical of living in Woodbridge, Virginia. I got up, got dressed, called the PRTC to arrange bus schedules for later in the day. It takes about a two hour window to get a connection and deviation on the Omnilink bus. Activities were fairly mundane; dropping off of paperwork at the Ferlazzo Building or paying something on a small bill.

But twice today, I got to meet and chat with women that were home schooling their children. Once at the Ferlazzo Building and then later, in the evening, at a local church called The Vineyard. My favorite topic to relate was of course Moodle, at this juncture.

Moodle is an online educational portal. Based on a pedagogy which is the art, science, or career of teaching; especially; education. This web application based on four educational principals: Constructivism - which assembles or creates new knowledge as people or applications interact together. Constructionist learning takes place when instructing or creating elements surrounding an experience. Social Constructivism experienced as a collaborative effort. Demonstrating the combined social group is assembling things for one another, their shared experience, and meanings. The motives of people in discussion are Connected, and Separate behavior; Connected in that a greater subjective empathetic approach is taken in listening, asking questions, and understanding someone else’s point of view and Separate in remaining insensitive to others ideas defending the facts and logic to find loop-holes in participant’s arguments. On the other hand, Constructed behavior demonstrates an appropriate use of either the Connected or Separate approaches in a given situation. Consequentially the idea surfaces that both teacher and student are continually learning from their experiences.

Obviously Moodle cannot impose this method of activity, but supports the concept of pedagogy. Forthcoming improvements to the overall technical infrastructure of Moodle architecture will support improvements in the pedagogical model.

Moodle is a blessing to be able to discuss and even more to share the news in. I am going to leave behind a copy of my Resume for anyone to review that may have a look at this site. Its always good to be able to demonstrate what Moodle has done for me and what I can do to with Moodle. In a recent upgrade to Moodle 1.9.8 build, it was apparent that I would have to remove programs that I had uploaded as 3rd party applications. These applications were not quite complete so the loss was minimal in scope. The build was not able to correctly take until the applications were removed. I am glad that I was able to spot this problem and even happier to be able to resolve the issue myself.

I am in the process of shifting from 16 years of employment in Healthcare. I have been making a change in my life; which includes a Master of Science Communications Technology - Network Communications degree (Pending). I have already achieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Radford University - Graphic Arts (12/1984). From January 2008 forward volunteering with non-profit and for-profit organizations has helped me learn and produce; providing invaluable information and experiences, as well as, producing positive results. Moodle has been a teaching tool, not only for others to make use of, but allowing myself to learn right along with its development. I have been volunteering my time and industries assisting Individuals, NPO / NGO’s, and FPO's achieve some of their goals technologically; not all but some. I hope to continue to assist people technologically, using Remote Access techniques to work; as the experience has been enriching socially, emotionally, and developmentally rewarding. I am an education advocate.

I come from a small town, in Virginia, called Front Royal. It is nestled in a part of Virginia where the Shenandoah River ebbs and flows through out a winding trail of land and forests that have been cleared out and several townships have been established along its majestic waters.

Front Royal has a large double bridge expansion that allows traffic to travel to and from on one side of its access to other parts of the county or other towns. This access road is called Route 340; which becomes North Royal Avenue as one begins to wind your way into the long stretch of town ultimately becoming Route 340 again.

There are few things that natives of Front Royal have as a claim to fame. The name of the town was originally Hell Town, but during the Civil War a small group of local uneducated farmers were recruited by the local militia. The soldiers tried to teach this rag-tag group to march. Finally frustrated by the lack of discipline and inept manner in which these farmers were unable to follow directions and accept discipline in formation they were ordered to, "Front the Royal Oak" a large Great Oak that stood in the center of town and now where the local Court House exists. The late Bing Crosby at one point dedicated a park off of Commerce Avenue. There is also Stokes General Store, or as a local might call it, Stokes by the bridge.

Stokes one name to personal fame, in Front Royal, is that Willard Scott once announced that Stokes had, "built a better mousetrap". Re-inventing something is quite clique but creating something original is slow progress by the human race. Examples of better mousetraps can be seen in the circus or cirque du sole, then there is the amazing Blue Ocean Strategy which promotes the re-inventing of a business.

So how does education become re-invented? What is it that will make learning something so NEW or Fresh that will inspire the youth of our times to dedicate themselves to bettering themselves. I can only speak for myself that Moodle as a distance education portal has been re-inventing education as I use to know it.

The3rdGoal wants to thank Vadgam Social & Welfare Trust for wanting to make use of this site for some of its educational programming. I am here to help and assist Nitin, (one of the Trustees of Vadgam Social & Welfare Trust; Vadgam, India) in site development when he is ready. The3rdGoal also wants to encourage the use of UNESCO-OER open source free educational information and will help and assist in developing course testing from any of this material.

Wishing also to introduce a site that will become quite a useful tool. Creating information related to business development and tools that can be accessed and added to by its participants. The site has a distinct mission of Grant Writing, Business Development, Non Profits, For Profits, and Non Governmental Organizations that want to explore further into learning more about Women, Education, Business, and a range of other related articles or downloads. For more information please visit: The3rdGoal: Equality, Empowering Women and Social Net-Linking

Recent upgrades found that there were a few discrepancies in the site programming. Site was destroyed and is being rebuilt as of now. Please be patient with this process and our progress.

Hi Vicky, nice to see you here! It was great speaking to you today. The site you see here is as I mentioned not complete; register and see the inside for what I have done.

This is a Moodle. Its an educational web portal and over the last 2 years +/- I have been learning how to operate and increase Moodle's teaching potential. Moodle is about 7+ years old and was developed as a PhD project by a Martin Dougiamas. of Perth, Australia. Its still under development and we all are awaiting Moodle 2.0's arrival. However, the potential for this educational web portal is quite amazing. It can even do Mathematical equations, but I have not quite spent time in learning that aspect of its functioning.

There is also the ability for this site to do Video Web Conferencing - but I want a particular group in India that I mentioned to complete their work on a Moodle integration that they are presently working on. It would mean using Video at a low server bandwidth instead of the costly Virtual Dedicated Server hosting that is currently being utilized by most people around the world.

Please do let me know what you think of this site and I do have a few others that unfortunately are not complete either; but were and great stepping stones and learning tools for me. I have included a PDF download of some of what Moodle is capable of doing that I pasted together when I put up my first site.

http://getsmartmoodle.org
http://getsmartmoodlel3c.org
http://the3rdgoal.org
http://the3rdgoal.com
http://smartmoodle.org

Please do have a look around and again most of the work you see on these sites has been done by me, including the programming. There have been a few people that have volunteered Internationally, to aid early on in my programming development of sites such as Getsmartmoodle (which really needs to be rethought, destroyed, and rebuilt; but the3rdgoal is my work ...

Call again when you can or you can download Skype and chat with me for free - my skype ID is jennie.lou.lawrence and this is a link to download a free version of skype: http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/business - hope your willing to download this application to your computer .. again its free and skype to skype communication is free also ...

Warmest wishes, Jennie