World Education provides education programs for Burmese refugees and migrants living along the Thailand-Burma border. There are over 2 million people from Burma who have been displaced due to conflict and human rights violations. World Education supports refugee schools in nine camps along the border through activities like teacher training, education for children with special needs, and Thai language instruction. However, funding for refugee education has decreased in recent years, leaving a budget shortfall of around $720,000 that is needed to continue providing education to the 36,000 school-aged refugee children living in the camps.

1. [ 5 ]
w w w. w o r l d e d . o r g
H
ow does the largest chocolate
manufacturer in North America
communicate with indepen-
dent cocoa growers in rural Western
Ghana? Hershey’s Vice President Andy
McCormick says, “Just text ‘em!”
Since March 2011, the Hershey Com-
pany, World Cocoa Foundation, World
Education, and Ghana Cocoa Board
have been implementing CocoaLink,
a public-private partnership that uses
mobile phone technology to provide
cocoa farmers with performance-
enhancing agricultural and marketing
information. “Because any Ghanaian
farmer with a mobile phone can sign
up for CocoaLink, we expect more than
100,000 cocoa farmers and their fami-
lies to benefit from this program over
the next three years,” McCormick says.
Cocoa exports account for roughly one-
third of Ghana’s export earnings and
generated more than US$2.5 billion
in 2010. More than 700,000 farm-
ers and their families depend on the
cocoa. Because of cocoa’s economic
importance, Ghana takes efforts to
increase production very seriously.
CocoaLink utilizes Ghana’s rapidly
developing mobile phone infrastructure
to connect cocoa farmers with useful
information about farming practices,
farm safety, child labor, health, crop
disease prevention, post-harvest
production, and crop marketing.
World Education provides crucial
community engagement, training,
and local implementation guid-
ance, working with CENCOSAD,
a local NGO partner, local com-
munity facilitators, and farmers.
World Education has worked to
improve the crop yields and liveli-
hoods of Ghanaian farmers and
their families since 2009, through
the Empowering Cocoa House-
holds with Opportunities and Edu-
cation Solutions (ECHOES) project.
ECHOES strengthens cocoa growing
communities in the western region
of Ghana by expanding educational
and vocational opportunities for
youth and adults. World Education’s
functional literacy and numeracy
interventions under ECHOES help
people apply new technologies to
increase crop yields, understand
basic business concepts, build
networks, and take advantage of op-
portunities in cocoa-growing areas.
CocoaLink is adding to these efforts.
Roughly 85% of Ghana has mobile
phone coverage, and more than 65%
of rural residents, including many
of the 700,000 cocoa farmers in
Ghana, have access to mobile phones.
CocoaLink information is available
free of charge to any cocoa farmer
with access to a mobile phone.
Says Tawiah Agyarko-Kwarteng of World
Education, “CocoaLink is truly the right
program at the right time. It is build-
ing on Ghana’s growing capabilities
in mobile technology to help farmers
grow quality cocoa, increase family
income, and expand opportunities for
their children and communities.” 
Ghana: Engaging Cocoa Growers
through Text Messaging
World Education staff members
interact with farmers.
Ghana is the world’s second largest
producer of cocoa.
Photos: World Education Staff

2. World Education, Inc.
www.worlded.org
44 Farnsworth Street
Boston, MA 02210-1211
The Change Agent is a biannual magazine for adult educators
and learners that has been published since 1994 by the New England Literacy
Resource Center at World Education. It was conceived as a tool to educate and
mobilize teachers and learners to apply advocacy skills in response to impend-
ing federal funding cutbacks for adult education. Now well established as a unique
publication within the adult education community, The Change Agent continues to
promote social action as an important part of the adult learning experience.
The latest issue of The Change Agent breaks new ground. Developed in collaboration with
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, it teaches the history of 9/11, wrestles
with important legal and moral questions related to security and liberty,
examines the “rule of law” in the context of ter-
rorism, provides a forum for the profound
voices of people seeking justice and
reconciliation, and includes extremely mov-
ing stories—many of them written by adult
learners—about 9/11 and its aftermath.
To download this issue, visit
www.nelrc.org/changeagent/.CA_33.pdf.
World Education NEWSLETTER
Engage. Educate. Inspire.
World Education Newsletter is a publication of World Education, Inc. To learn more, please
contact Christine Del Castillo at christine_del_castillo@worlded.org, or at 617.482.9485.
To sign up to receive the newsletter online, visit www.worlded.org.
Photo credit: Jon Crispin
Fall 2011

3. Join Us In Celebrating
World Education’s 60th
Anniversary!
The logo you see to the right
commemorates World Education’s 60th
anniversary. We want to thank you for
helping us to reach this milestone.
World Education has grown to more than
500 people who work in 36 countries helping
men, women, and children achieve literacy
and forge livelihoods so that they are better able to feed
their families and provide them with shelter and safety.
I have had the pleasure of leading
World Education for 29 years and I
am grateful to have had you with us.
Together, I hope that we will ensure
another successful 60 years.
Many thanks,
Joel Lamstein
President, World Education, Inc.
World Education
NEWSLETTER
Engage. Educate. Inspire.
Do you know about our
automated monthly giving
option? Visit us online at
www.worlded.org
and click on “Donate Now.”
Did you know that
 World Education has
more than 500
employees in 36
countries, with a
focus on Africa, Asia,
and the United States.
 We were founded in
1951 by Welthy
Honsinger Fisher, an
American intellectual,
activist, and feminist
born in 1879.
 We are headquartered in
Boston, Massachusetts.
 Our many partners
include but are not
limited to the United
States Agency
for International
Development (USAID),
the U.S. Department
of Labor, and
Deptartment of State,
the Bill Melinda
Gates Foundation,
and individual
donors like you.
Fall 2011
www.worlded.org
2 Zimbabwe: From
Hardship to Hope
3 Sierra Leone: Catch-
ing up with Admasay
4 Thailand: Schools for
Refugees Risk Closure
5 Ghana: Text Messages
for Cocoa Farmers
6 United States:
Teaching 9/11 History
IN
THIS
ISSUE:
Photo: Robin Hammond

4. A
ll across Zimbabwe, a genera-
tion of children is being raised
by their grandparents. This is
the distinguishing mark of a country
where many children have lost one or
both parents to AIDS. Twelve-year-old
Zanele’s father died when she was
just a little girl. With her mother away
in the city for months at a time selling
whatever she could to earn income,
Zanele’s grandfather struggled to sup-
port a household of fourteen indi-
viduals. In tears, he recounted a time
when he was unable to provide for his
grandchildren, who include five primary
school-aged granddaughters, for whom
basic school supplies were luxuries.
“I came to school without books or
stationery,” says Zanele. “It was dif-
ficult to learn. Sometimes we only
had one textbook to share with the
whole class.” On occasion, Zanele’s
teachers and schoolmates shared
pencils and paper with her, but
on days when they had nothing to
spare, learning was a challenge.
Millions of children like Zanele are
further disadvantaged by a chroni-
cally under-funded school system.
Schools often lack basic supplies
such as textbooks, chalk, notebooks,
and furniture. Teachers are underpaid,
which encourages absenteeism and
strikes. Furthermore, schools have
enforced ‘levies,’ or mandatory fees for
children to attend school. The levies
are the school system’s effort to cover
costs that the government does not.
Although the Zimbabwean Legisla-
tion Act specifically says that no
child is to be turned away from
school for non-payment of fees,
the reality is that most families
lack the money to pay, and their
children are often turned away.
To address this important issue,
World Education’s Bantwana Initiative,
through the Children First program,
has partnered with Umzingwane
AIDS Network (UAN), a local nonprofit
organization working in rural southern
Zimbabwe. UAN pro-
vided education grants
to 34 schools in the
Umzingwane District.
The grants are a formal
agreement between
UAN and its partner
schools. In exchange
for providing schools
with textbooks and
stationery, the schools
waived fees for the most
vulnerable students. In
Zanele’s school, 330
of 440 students were
identified as vulnerable.
This number represents a larger trend
in the area of vulnerable children with
compromised access to education.
Children First and UAN have taken on
the challenge to reach these chil-
dren. As a result, 8,535 orphans and
vulnerable children who were other-
wise unable to pay for levies, books,
and stationery are attending school.
“Now it is easier to learn and do
well,” Zanele cheerfully reports. “We
share one textbook for two students.
Even the teachers have chalk to
write with, unlike the time when they
had none and could not put any-
thing on the board for us to copy.”
Zanele looks forward to going to school
every day and is one of the top stu-
dents in her class. Thanks to Children
First and UAN, instead of spending
each day worrying about whether she
will have the tools she needs to learn,
she can focus on her classes and
making her grandfather proud. 
Zimbabwe: From Hardship to Hope—
School Supplies for Zimbabwe’s Vulnerable Children
[ 2 ]
w w w. w o r l d e d . o r g
Zanele and her grandfather.
Photo: World Education Staff
Today in
Zimbabwe,
8,535 orphans
and vulnerable
children who
were unable to
pay for levies,
books, and
stationery are
attending school.

5. I
n 2005, World Education in-
terviewed 14-year-old Ambas-
sadors’ Girls’ Scholarship Pro-
gram (AGSP) scholar Adamsay from
Sierra Leone. At the time, she was
an orphan who lived with her grand-
mother. Adamsay was forced to stay
home and help her grandmother
with house work because there was
no money to send her to school.
Luckily, a small NGO in her community
knew her story and recommended
that she become an AGSP scholar.
The AGSP program provided scholar-
ships, mentoring, and parent and
community awareness programs to
promote and support girls’ educa-
tion, and HIV awareness activities to
prevent and mitigate the spread of HIV,
as well as kits of basic school sup-
plies such as uniforms and textbooks.
With this support, Adamsay returned
to school. As a result, her self-esteem
and hope for the future grew.
Five years after Adamsay began receiv-
ing AGSP support, World Education
returned to visit her and find out how
she was doing. With her grandmoth-
er’s encouragement and her own
determination, Adamsay had com-
pleted junior secondary school, and
had less than two years left of senior
secondary school. Unfortunately,
since her secondary school was in
another town, Adamsay had to move
away from her grandmother to live with
a farmer who agreed to care for her.
Today, Adamsay is making great strides
toward finishing high school—a tre-
mendous feat in Sierra Leone, where
only 17 percent of girls are enrolled in
secondary school. But with no parents
to support her, she must take two
weeks out of school each semester
to work on a local farm in order to
pay for her school fees. In addition
to the work she must make up from
missing school, she is often late with
her fees, for which she is punished.
Adamsay is also shunned by students
for being poor, and has only one friend.
This friend copies notes for her when
she has to take time out of class to
work, and sometimes brings a home-
cooked meal to her when she is
hungry. At the farmer’s house, Adam-
say helps with chores and shares a
small bedroom with six other people.
Although generous, the farmer also
struggles to make ends meet, and
when there is not enough food for his
own family, Adamsay goes without.
Although Adamsay had dreams of
becoming a lawyer, she realized the
education needed for a legal career
was more than she could afford. She
is now planning to be an accountant
and looks forward to the day when
she can provide a comfortable life
for herself and her grandmother.
USAID-funding and thus the work of
World Education, and our in-country
partners for the Ambassadors’ Girls’
Scholarship Program has ended,
though we hope it will continue in
some capacity. AGSP enabled many
students to stay in and succeed at
school. However, we have learned
from scholars like Adamsay that their
challenges are significant and much
more is needed to ensure a brighter
future for these girls. You can learn
more about AGSP by watching a
slideshow at www.agsp.worlded.org,
and can help our partners in West
Africa to continue to educate girls by
making a gift at www.worlded.org. 
Visit www.worlded.org to help girls stay in school.
A gift of $50 will buy uniforms, books, school supplies, and school fees for a whole year.
In Sierra Leone, only
17% of girls are enrolled
in secondary school.
“I jumped and shouted with joy when the head
teacher called my name.” (Adamsay, upon hearing
she was selected as an AGSP scholar in 2005)
“My grandmother said to
me, ‘I know the constraints
that you face due to the
death of your parents.
Study hard so you can
have a better future than
I have had, than your
parents had.’”
(Adamsay, 2011)
Sierra Leone: Catching Up With
Adamsay, AGSP Scholarship Recipient
[ 3 ]
w w w. w o r l d e d . o r g
Photo: World Education Staff

6. S
arah Bruinooge from World Edu-
cation Thailand talks to us from
the field about the Burmese refu-
gee and migrant population in Thailand.
Where is the World Education
Thailand-Burma program located?
We work with ten ethnic minor-
ity groups in seven provinces of
Thailand near the Burma border.
What is the focus of World
Education’s effort in this region?
World Education Thailand works with
refugees and migrants from Burma
who live near the Thailand-Burma bor-
der. More than 2 million people from
Burma have been forced to leave their
homes because of political instability
and threats of human rights viola-
tions. These refugees and migrants
live in refugee camps and migrant
communities along both sides of the
border. They have lost their homes
and livelihoods and many cannot ac-
cess basic services such as health
care, education, and legal advice.
How are you doing that?
The activities we implement and sup-
port include community engagement,
training teachers and school directors,
education for children with
special needs, Thai language
training for migrant students
entering Thai schools, and
post-secondary education
support. We work closely
with several established com-
munity-based organizations
along the border through sub-
grant support and training in
organizational management.
Why are there refugee
camps in Thailand for
Burmese? Can the
Burmese leave their country easily?
For decades, members of minority
communities have been fleeing the
military regime in Burma and seek-
ing refuge on the Thai border. Ethnic
Karen, Shan, Mon, and other commu-
nities have been spilling into Thai-
land since the 1980’s when Burma’s
military regime launched a series of
brutal campaigns against them. There
are nine Burmese refugee camps
based on the Thai-Burmese border.
The majority of refugees living in these
camps are Karen who have fled ongo-
ing fighting in eastern Karen State.
So there are schools in the camps?
Many refugees spend years at these
camps, so yes, there are schools there.
How are they funded?
Refugee schools depend on outside
donor funds to operate because
refugee parents and communities
cannot afford to pay for their chil-
dren’s schooling. Education systems
are refugee-managed with support
from international donors, who have
decreased their funding commitments
over the past couple years. As a result,
there are huge budget shortfalls for
education in the refugee camps.
How much money are you talking
about, and what, exactly, will
it pay for?
The total funding gap is approximately
$720,000. Since there are 36,000
school-aged children living in the
camps, the amount needed per child
works out to about US$20. This will
pay for teaching materials, school
supplies, teacher stipends, and school
equipment. It also pays for textbooks,
school lunches, and transport. In
short, $20 could send a child to school
for a year. The funding goes directly to
World Education’s partner organization,
the Karen Refugee Committee Educa-
tion Entity, which administers educa-
tion services in seven of the camps.
Help World Education go green by
joining our newsletter online at
www.worlded.org. Please know that we
never sell or rent our lists.
Thank you! 
Thailand: Border Schools on the Edge of Closure
[ 4 ]
w w w. w o r l d e d . o r g
Burmese migrant boys at a
World Education-supported school
near the Thai-Burma border.
Photos by Tim Syrota
English is among the important subjects
that students learn at the migrant schools.