“Let’s stop feeding the stomach, because when you do that you are only temporarily satiating the hunger, however, if you feed the mind you are satiating the hunger for more than a hundred years”.
These words come from the social entrepreneur, Ousman Umar. Not just feeding the bellies refers to the work of encouraging education.
According to the European Union’s Humanitarian Aid Office, education is one of the sectors that receives the least support.
Now it is common to see the work of humanitarian aid between countries, however, the question that arises in the face of all is this: is the need being met in the long term?
The pandemic is revealing great truths, the first is that filling stomachs with food, bringing water or medicine to places with high levels of need, does not guarantee social and economic growth.
Countless humanitarian aid organizations simply provide a commodity but do not care to encourage people’s intellects to seek sustainable alternatives.
For example, it is not the same to give a computer to a child who does not understand how to use this tool for his or her educational formation, as it is to design technological spaces where children, young people, and even adults can attend to receive informational literacy.
Education is the most powerful resource to generate sustainable changes. It is the transforming engine of any society. When we see an advanced society, we are looking at the result of education.
The pandemic is leaving in its wake a deep economic crisis, very worrying for developing countries.
Crises generate opportunities and create the need for sustainable change.
Giving a plate of rice is not the same as teaching how to produce rice. The first is a momentary solution, the second is a sustainable solution. The first is humanitarian aid, the second is education.
References:
Humanitaria, L. (2020). La educación en situaciones de emergencia humanitaria. euronews. Retrieved 2 July 2020, from https://es.euronews.com/2019/02/21/la-educacion-en-situaciones-de-emergencia-humanitaria
