In the News
Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund Dedicated to Connect To Learn Will Educate Hundreds
Generous husband-wife team of agricultural researchers establishes new fund to educate girls through Connect To Learn scholarships
Renowned agronomist Pedro Sanchez and ecologist Cheryl Palm have set up a new scholarship fund for young girls throughout poor, rural parts of Africa who are hoping to attend secondary school. The husband and wife team have designated $370,000 to create the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. This Fund will link directly with Connect To Learn, directly supporting our work to get young girls into high schools in the developing world, and improve those schools with computers and internet connectivity.
In 2002, Sanchez was the recipient of the World Food Prize, the foremost international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world; it is largely considered to be the Nobel Prize of agronomy. Sanchez was recognized for his pioneering work to restore fertility to some of the world’s poorest and most degraded soils. A $250,000 cash award accompanied the prize, which they set aside and invested which is now being used for the new scholarship fund.
"I believe that linking the Sanchez-Palm Girls Scholarship Fund with the Connect To Learn initiative is the best platform we have today for reaching girls in remote areas with secondary education using 21st century technologies," said Sanchez. "Cheryl and I are proud to play a part in advancing girls education, because we know an educated girl can have a profound impact on the development of a community."
Universal secondary education, especially for girls, has major implications for the development of a community as well as in slowing down population growth. In the poorest parts of the world where girls are still not in secondary school, they are married at a young age and have six to eight children on average. Those who stay in school end up marrying much later—perhaps in their early to mid-20s—enter the workforce, and have two to three children. Education is an essential element for social change and sustainable development that is more likely to reduce poverty. Without girls reaching such level of education, there would be little hope that the world population would stabilize at 9 billion people by mid-century.
Despite the indisputable value of education and the progress made thus far, many children still do not complete primary education, and even fewer continue on to secondary school. Currently 84 percent of children worldwide attend primary school; however the participation rate drops to 60 percent for secondary school. Female attendance rates are especially low, with only 17 percent of girls enrolled in secondary school in sub-Saharan Africa.
"Connect To Learn seeks to provide scholarships to deserving individuals that would not be able to attend secondary school and to link those schools, teachers and students in remote areas of Africa to a global community of teachers, information and teaching resources through internet connectivity," said Cheryl Palm.
Through a partnership with Ericsson, secondary schools throughout villages in Africa are increasingly becoming more connected, providing an unimagined opportunity for these communities.
Pedro Sanchez is the director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, and a senior research scholar and director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He also directs AfSIS, the African Soils Information Service that is developing the digital soils map of the world. Sanchez is professor emeritus of Soil Science and Forestry at North Carolina State University and served as director general of ICRAF - the World Agroforestry Center from 1991-2001 in Nairobi. He is the 2002 World Food Prize laureate and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow.
Cheryl Palm is a senior research scientist in the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program of the Earth Institute, where she is also the science director of the Millennium Villages Project. A tropical ecologist focusing on managing land use change to provide food security and environmental sustainability, Palm has worked in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and chaired the International Nitrogen Initiative, a global forum for multidisciplinary research about this essential element that forms the proteins we eat , but also poses some health and environmental hazards.
The full costs of a 4-year secondary school education near the African villages where we work are ridiculously low: US$2,400 per girl, often including full room and board in safe dormitories, or US$600 per year. Tax deductible contributions to the Sanchez–Palm Girls Scholarship Fund are welcome, to be able to reach more girls every year.
