Welcome to Class

In Mozambique, children walk long distances to school on unsafe roads ... often in the dark. They get up early in the morning because classes start as soon as 6 a.m. There aren't enough teachers. And the schools don't have adequate facilities—they don't have fresh water or toilets, which puts children at greater risk for disease. There aren't any desks or chairs, so children have to sit on dirt floors in small, crowded one-room huts without electricity.

This is typical of a primary school in the Zavala district of Mozambique, where about three-quarters of the population lives in poverty, and 70 percent of the women aren't able to read or write.