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VIEWPOINT: Liberia has to work with international private school companies to protect children’s future
Our communities are still suffering from the effects of the long civil war and the devastating Ebola outbreak. Less than 60% of school-aged children in Liberia are in school, placing Liberia in the lowest percentile of net enrollment rates in the world. Those who do attend school may not fare much better: among adult women who reached fifth grade in Liberia, less than 20% can read a single sentence.
- Categories
- Education
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Finding the Right Last-Mile Distribution Model
Experiments in bringing market-driven solutions to base-of-the-pyramid customers are often done in isolation, with little sharing of what works and what doesn’t. To address this knowledge gap, MIT D-Lab created the Practical Impact Alliance, which brings together leaders from diverse organizations working in inclusive business. The group has just released a 43-page guide called Best Practices for BoP Door-to-Door Distribution.
- Categories
- Education
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New Paradigm for Leadership – Everyone Leads
In today's complex, interconnected world, operating under the dominant leadership paradigm in society – one in which few lead and everyone else follows – is proving ineffective. In this article, the most popular post on NB in May, Ashoka identifies ways in which leading social entrepreneurs are seeing things differently, enabling them to envision new possibilities. It's in the running for the Most Influential Post of 2016.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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Where Science, Schools, and Social Entrepreneurship Meet
In a small workshop, hidden away on Pune’s NDA road, a demonstration is under way. A supervisor draws diagrams on a white-board, watched closely by a group of four or five employees. Shelves line the walls, displaying a variety of science models on bases made of black acrylic fibre; more acrylic sheets are stacked to one side; a DC motor vies for space with a conductivity tester, a beam balance and a large yellow plastic ball (intended to explain how the human retina functions). All told, this workshop produces 81 such models, covering around 540 concepts of science for students from the third to the tenth grade.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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As Uganda’s education system struggles, for-profit schools become flashpoint
In Prossy Nsereko’s cramped office, the writing is literally on the wall. One side is covered with peppy, hand-written slogans: "Winners never quit." "We are what we believe we are." On the other is a list of school fees.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Indian social enterprises have huge potential: British Council report
A majority (53%) of social enterprises in India are focussed on skill development, followed by 30% on education, according to a study on Indian social enterprises relased by the British Council on Thursday.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
- Region
- South Asia
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Social Business Roundup: My Ivory Tower or Yours? Will Cash-strapped Pensions Turn Back to ‘Sin Stocks’?
In the weekly roundup, the CEO of the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in London says universities shouldn’t teach social entrepreneurship because they aren’t accessible to all; namely, poor people who are often best positioned to help solve social problems in their own neighborhoods. But there's a flaw in his logic. And on Monday, CalPERS, the U.S.'s largest public pension fund, will meet to decide whether to end its 16-year-old policy of divesting from tobacco stocks. Is the tide starting to turn against ESG investments among public pension funds?
- Categories
- Education, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing
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How an Indian Comic Book Is Teaching Girls About Their Periods
When Aditi Gupta got her first period, aged 12, everyone told her to keep it a secret. Even her closest family members in her native India couldn’t know. She was forbidden from worshipping at her temple while she was menstruating, and instead of sanitary products used rags that caused her to have rashes.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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