Education Interrupted is an exclusive Guilford College webinar series that aims to shed light on the impact conflicts across the globe are having on students’ access to education.
“We know about the level of catastrophe in these conflict zones, the sheer number of people impacted but for me the personal stories are what’s most impactful. "Education Interrupted” is able to humanize those statistics and numbers.”
Conflicts across the globe are robbing more than 224 million children and young adults of an education, according to a recent United Nations report. A webinar series produced by Guilford College hopes to shed light and seek answers to the impact those conflicts are having on learning.
Noor Ghazi, the University Sponsorship Program Director for Every Campus A Refuge at Guilford, interviewed students and education experts for “Education Interrupted,” which was recently produced on campus. She says she hopes the series will put faces to the disruption that conflicts across the world are inflicting on children and young adults.
“We know about the level of catastrophe in these conflict zones, the sheer number of people impacted but for me the personal stories are what’s most impactful,” said Noor. “”Education Interrupted” is able to humanize those statistics and numbers.”
“Education Interrupted” offers diverse perspectives and views of the ongoing crisis – from United Nations and relief officials to the students themselves.
Noor kicks off the series by interviewing Jason Terry ’05, the Director of Strategic Programs for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, exploring the challenges and opportunities surrounding education for Palestinian refugees.
In the second conversation, Noor talks with Andrew Maguire, the Deputy Director of Global Programs for UNICEF USA about displaced children and students worldwide whose educations have been disrupted by conclict.
Noor hopes the stories told through “Education Interrupted” will help viewers see the world in a different light. “Sometimes we tend to live in our own bubble, ignoring the crises and conflicts that are happening around the world and we think this is none of our concern, that none of this is going to impact us directly,” said Noor. “I hope the series broadens our perspective as human beings. There are so many issues that are happening in our world today.
“(Education Interrupted) can help us take those small steps and actions to start shedding light and to have these conversations about how we can become part of the solution to mitigate those suffering around us.”
“Education Interrupted” is an extension to Guilford's Conceptualizing Peace program, which took place last spring and has grown to include other events and conversations involving the role institutions of higher education can take in supporting peace across the globe.