I’m in the last stages of an eight day gender workshop, attending rather than giving. It’s been given by a British Council consultant for all the curriculum panels (covering all the school subjects from kindergarten to secondary) plus teacher training, special needs, technical, and adult education. I started off thinking that maybe I’d covered all the material before in VSO briefings but it’s been really good in terms of considering and analysing how the curriculum material is presented. On the English panel we do give a lot of attention to how gender issues are portrayed, probably a lot more than is shown in some of the other subjects and it is a topic that really does need to be mainstreamed. A lot of girls drop out of education at an early age in Eritrea for a number of reasons - including early marriage, cultural pressure to work at home, and a lack of belief in the importance of education – and it is up to educationalists of all types, teachers, trainers, curriculum writers, to redress this balance. Students of both sexes need to be educated to believe in the right and worth of education for all. I’ve been really impressed by the involvement, contributions and work of everyone at the workshop. It will be a slow process (countries in the west still have a way to go) but I believe Eritrea will get there.

There is corn growing in the garden, well no cobs yet but the plants are coming on, the tallest is about a metre high. Cucumbers and melons aren’t doing so well but they need too much water. Looks like rain so that may help. Looking out at the clouds, I just saw two eagles swooping over, a wonderful sight.

C