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WORLD NEWS Tuesday 10 November 2020
UN: Pandemic threatens Latin America's next generation

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) searchers said.
— Jenashly Matos may However, UNICEF is urging
only be 9, but she has big national leaders to take
dreams of one day becom- advantage of the pan-
ing a doctor and helping demic by creating more
people. The challenges she equitable and inclusive
faces growing up today in schools that can be more
a poor barrio in Venezu- resilient in future crises.
ela's capital amid a historic "We truly believe that we
pandemic are also hefty. have a once in a genera-
The novel coronavirus has tion opportunity to reimag-
shut down schools in Ven- ine education, Placco said.
ezuela and throughout Lat- Jenashly's mother, Saray
in America. To keep from Farías, 33, said she worries
falling behind, she's start- about the future of Ven-
ed attending a neighbor- ezuela, as it fails to prepare
hood tutorial for a couple its next generation. She tries
hours each morning to get to help all four of her chil-
help with assignments her dren, aged 5 to 15, with
teacher sends home. their school work, but she
"If I'm not learning, I feel like admits it's often too time
I'm nobody in life," she said, consuming — and some-
while studying the parts of Erika Cordero explains a homework assignment to her young charges in the El Atlantico neigh- times mind-bending.
speech. "That's why I come borhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Nov, 2, 2020. Her husband, a mechan-
here." Associated Press ic, is forced to find odd
The pandemic has left mil- jobs because there's no
lions of students falling be- migrants and indigenous ganizers also started neigh- that means," Ramirez said. steady work, and she runs
hind in the world's most children, the report warns. borhood study groups, like "Now, along comes the a small store in the front
unequal region, a study re- A "generational catastro- this one, to help stem the coronavirus aggravating of her home, selling things
leased Monday finds. Pan- phe" looms as students miss educational decline. the situation." like rice, onions and milk to
demic lockdowns, teacher out on learning at a critical Erika Cordero, 33, tutors The economic hit to Latin neighbors.
shortages and electricity stage in development, as about 20 students in small America and the Carib- "Yes, it has been quite com-
outages are forcing many well as vital nutrition from groups of neighborhood bean countries is expect- plicated for me to educate
Venezuelan students to school meals, while girls children in her mother's ed to reduce school bud- them when they should
advance their education are exposed to violence at home. They cover every- gets across the region by be in a school," Farías
outside the traditional brick home and risk early preg- thing from long division to 9%, a dramatic reversal to said. "Sometimes, there's
and mortar school setting. nancy. reading, said Cordero, who a steady rise in spending homework that I don't
Venezuela is facing set- "This prolonged absence sees too many children fall- before the pandemic, re- understand."q
backs along with countries from a face-to-face edu- ing behind.
such as Mexico, Jamaica, cation will have serious im- "I have kids who are in
Bolivia and Honduras. plications for the future and fourth or fifth grade who
The U.N. children's agency development of all these can't even read," Cordero
UNICEF says that the CO- children and adolescents," said. "I'm not a teacher, but
VID-19 has deprived 97% said Vincenzo Placco, a hey, God willing, let's help
of children in Latin America Panama-based education them achieve their goal
and the Caribbean of their specialist at the UNICEF anyway I can."
normal schooling over sev- Regional Office for Latin Amid an economic and
en months since the conti- America and the Carib- political crisis spanning
nent's first COVID-19 cases bean. two decades, Venezuela's
were discovered. Distance "Let's not forget that Latin schools had also started
learning is especially chal- America and the Caribbe- a downward spiral long
lenging for many families an, like other regions of the before the pandemic hit,
that don't have reliable world, were already facing said Alexis Ramirez, an
tools, like the internet, com- an educational crisis," he education advocate with
puters, TV and radio, further added. the Venezuelan nonprofit
dividing the rich and poor. Jenashly, who's determined group Excubitus.
While many schools in Af- not to have her dreams Teachers with advanced
rica, Asia and Europe are denied, crowded around degrees and years of ex-
gradually reopening, the a table with several other perience earn the equiv-
doors to classrooms remain children at a neighbor's alent to $3 a month, he
shut in half of the 36 coun- home in a hilltop barrio in said, adding that roughly
tries in Latin American and Caracas. She scribbled into half of the nation's 554,000
the Caribbean. Roughly a folder in front of her, ask- schoolteachers in the last
137 million children are ing for help from the tutor. five years have left the
missing out on education, A Venezuelan charity, Feed profession, many among
with no end in sight to the the Solidarity, was already the masses who migrated
pandemic. preparing meals for thou- away from their native
More than 3 million students sands of hungry children country seeking better op-
may never return to school, in the country's poorest portunities.
especially threatening the neighborhoods before the "We'd already been in the
future of the most vulnera- pandemic. The demand middle of a severe humani-
ble — girls, disabled youths, for meals climbed, and or- tarian emergency, with all