RMG - Education is the key to escape from poverty: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
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17 October 2016

(ANS - Rome) - Today, 17 October, we celebrate World Day for the Eradication of Poverty. On much of the media the tone is depressing, though sadly true: "In the world there are 836 million people who live in extreme poverty ... there are a billion people who do not eat every day, millions of people who lack access to health care or education. Children are exploited ... and yet,” says Ana Muñoz, "we do not want to forget the message that education is one of the keys to escape from poverty, as the Salesians have been demonstrating for over 140 years."

The latest UNESCO statistics show that education transforms the development of peoples and that poverty can be overcome with education. "If all children had equal access to education, per capita income would increase by 23% over the next 40 years." Other very current problems can also be fought with education: "If all girls were to complete primary education, child marriage and child mortality could be reduced to one-sixth of the current level, and maternal mortality to two-thirds."

Education has the ability to reduce extreme poverty and to promote wide-ranging development goals. This is the good news. "Education is a way to get rich!"

Tchapua, for example, is the name of someone who lived through the terrible war in Angola. When he was two he was sent from his village in Luanda so that he would be safe. His father and his brothers were killed in the conflict. One day, returning from school, Tchapua found his mother dead. He continued to study. Today, he is the father of a family and director of the Infant School at the Don Bosco Centre. "I have always remembered the words of my mother: study, my son, and one day you will have your reward."

An optimistic message: "Study and one day you will have your reward." There is no doubt that education can give wealth, but here it is a question not only of material wealth. It is the wealth that makes a true human being. It is the wealth of being happy, recognized, loved, well-liked, because the poor today, as G. Gutierrez wrote, "are not accepted as a people in our society. They are invisible and have no rights, their dignity is not recognized."

InfoANS

ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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