“My father promised to send me to school one day,” eleven-year-old Anteneh says. Coming from a large family with five other siblings, Anteneh took care of the family’s goats. In Ethiopia, livestock are an important part of small farmers’ livelihood. Goats provide milk and meat, creating a good source of income. Herding goats is traditionally a child’s responsibility. As a grazing animal with wanderlust, goats must frequently move from place to place to find bushes with fresh leaves. Watching over them as they roam the village is a full-time job for children like Anteneh. To support their large family, Anteneh’s mother and father, Aster and Kosie, grow coffee and enset (an Ethiopian staple crop) in addition to keeping a small herd of goats.
This past year, COVID-19 ravaged communities and countries around the world. To date in Ethiopia, COVID-19 has caused more of an economic and educational crisis than a public health crisis. At Luminos, we are monitoring the situation closely and hope Ethiopia continues to keep COVID-19 cases at bay.
For Anteneh, daily life didn’t change significantly during the pandemic. He says, “Most of the time, I was helping my parents.” Anteneh took care of the goats, completed household chores, and played with friends near his home. Despite his age, Anteneh never had the chance at an education — even before the pandemic closed schools. Parents in rural Ethiopia often make a difficult decision: have their children earn an income to support the family now, or send them to school to invest in their future. In a 2013 FAO study of 3,038 Ethiopian children between the ages of 4 and 15 in rural Ethiopia, 53% of boys aged 8-11 herded cattle. For boys of the same age group, the primary reason for not attending school was because their families needed them for farming, like Anteneh.
Parents in rural Ethiopia often make a difficult decision: have their children earn an income to support the family now, or send them to school to invest in their future.
Anteneh’s father never forgot his education promise. With Anteneh’s older brothers in school, in late 2020, Anteneh started his own learning journey at age eleven in the Luminos catch-up program called Second Chance.
When children miss the first years of primary school in places like Ethiopia, there is no practical way for them to catch up and get back on track. They remain illiterate, out of school, and unable to achieve their full potential.
Second Chance is essential to help out-of-school children like Anteneh. This education program covers the first three grades of schooling in just 10 months, catching up overaged out-of-school children to their peers and instilling the life-long skill of learning how to learn. Over 90% of Second Chance graduates advance to mainstream schools with children their own age. Today, in a Second Chance classroom with 24 other overage children between 9 and 14 years old, Anteneh learns the critical building blocks for education: reading, writing, and math. Building on what he learned counting his goats, Anteneh says, “Math is my favorite subject because I like numbers.”
“Math is my favorite subject because I like numbers.”
Anteneh, Second Chance student in Ethiopia
Anteneh’s teacher, Lominas, believes that, “Education is the only way out of poverty, especially in rural areas where there is a scarcity of resources.” She leads her students in group activities throughout the day, and most enjoys crafting interactive math lessons.
For Anteneh, some of his favorite learning activities in the Second Chance program are singing and movement based — he says he is extra motivated to learn by doing something he enjoys. Lominas is quick to support students throughout the lessons. Anteneh says, “I like her because she always encourages us, even when we make mistakes!”
Luminos strives to build joyful learning environments like this in all our Second Chance classrooms: building up students’ sense of self as they engage more deeply with their teacher and peers.
There are over 2.3 million children like Anteneh out of school in Ethiopia, bright and eager to learn. Second Chance exists to help these children catch-up and unlock the light of learning in their lives. Leaving behind the roaming pastime of goat herding for the boisterous classroom, Anteneh reflects that what he likes most about school is having fun with his classmates, in and out of the classroom. “I wouldn’t have that opportunity at home,” he says. Through Luminos’ Second Chance program, Anteneh’s father was able to keep his promise to send Anteneh to school. Now Anteneh is learning alongside his peers and, one day, can pursue his dream of becoming an engineer.
Photo Credit: Mekbib Tadesse
