7. January 2016
Last year, Multiconsult decided to replace traditional Christmas gifts with a substantial donation to a charitable organisation. Both last year and this year, Multiconsult gave NOK 250,000 to Save the Children Norway.
– Our Christmas present this year will help to ensure that children in Malawi receive a quality education. At the same time, we are supporting the long-term development of the society where the children live. Giving education is giving opportunities – the opportunity of a future, of looking after yourself and your family and of changing the lives of generations of children, says Guri Lindmark, the CSR and Environment Manager at Multiconsult.
Multiconsult is already contributing towards Malawi’s development through the project to rehabilitate and upgrade the Kamuzu Barrage dam.
A quality education
All children are entitled to a quality education, and helping to ensure that they receive that is one of Save the Children Norway’s most important priorities.
In some countries, teacher training is a key element of this. In other countries the main focus is on improving textbooks and ensuring that students have the materials they need for attending school – notebooks, uniforms, writing materials and packed lunches. In some places Save the Children is building or repairing schools. Everywhere it works to ensure that schools are violence-free zones. This requires soldiers on all sides of a conflict to leave schools in peace, teachers to refrain from using corporal punishment and children to learn about essential topics such as land mines, good hygiene and HIV and AIDS.
Save the Children’s priorities are:
1. Improving the quality of schools – with an emphasis on improving the teaching of reading and creating a good and safe learning environment:
Teachers should use teaching methods that encourage children to be more actively involved in the learning process. Children should complete their education, and learn useful skills.
2. Increasing access to schools:
We are working to increase access to schools for marginalised children, with a particular emphasis on children in countries where there is war or conflict. They may be marginalised because they are girls, suffer from a disability, belong to an ethnic minority or live in poor and underdeveloped areas.
3. Qualified and inspiring teachers:
At Save the Children we are convinced that children must have a safe and good environment in order to learn well. Good teachers who respect their students are vital. Around the world there are far too few teachers, and even fewer with proper training.
4. Ending corporal punishment at schools.
5. Teaching children to think independently – to ask critical questions, express their own opinions and be inquisitive:
We want pupils to participate actively in their lessons, and not simply repeat what their teacher tells them.
6. Education as part of the emergency response:
Save the Children has a particular mandate from the UN to ensure that children continue to receive an education during conflicts and other crises.
7. Making sure that children receive the tools they need to build their future.