Written by Josh Reiner S. (Youth Volunteer Program participant)
Education is one of the pillars of the development of humanity and it will continue to be just that no matter what. Therefore, as it is very vital, we must prioritize the education sector so that schools around the world can have the best of qualities that are accessible to everyone equally. Sadly, that is not the case right now as children around the world do not have access to proper quality education as high level education mostly can be met only at metropolitan cities.
As metropolitan cities are often the epicenter of countries, people pay less attention to the rural and countryside areas. Therefore, the level of development including education is very slow paced. Because of that, the level of education in the rural and countryside areas are being left behind and neglected. If a sudden natural disaster such as floods and earthquakes happen to strike those areas, then the fragile schools will just collapse to the ground, leaving the children without education for months. With the slow rebuilding pace in those areas, schools are deemed less important.
Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic has further blocked off access to education for those children. Of course, if we compare the financial strength of an average family in metropolitan cities with those who live in villages and countryside areas, we can clearly see that the families in the rural and countryside areas will have a hard time affording laptops and gadgets that online learning requires. That fact alone greatly distanced the amount of education that children in rural and countryside areas received during that 3 year period where tight covid protocols prevent face to face offline learning. It is certainly saddening to see all those children deprived of education because of the limitations that are brought upon by the pandemic.
All of those factors are what makes children in rural and countryside areas have little to none access to education and school buildings with the proper facilities to support them in venturing their studies. So, how do we change that? We can always do the most simple act of kindness by donating not only money, but also books and stationeries to charity. We can also support non-profit organizations that aim to rebuild and develop schools in rural areas such as Happy Hearts Indonesia. By doing this, we are one step closer to achieving equal access to proper education for everyone, rebuilding one school at a time.
