VOA慢速英语2015 乌干达的教育活动家称赞女孩儿从教育中获益

 

AS IT IS 2015-01-04 Education Activist¹ Praises Gains for Girls in Uganda 乌干达的教育活动家称赞女孩儿从教育中获益

Award-winning Ugandan education activist Beatrice Ayuru says thousands of girls have reached her dream of a good education for Ugandan children. But she says the struggle to guarantee schooling² for all is far from over.

Ms. Ayuru spoke³ to VOA before appearing at a TEDx event in Geneva, Switzerland.  TED⁴ is a nonprofit group that works to share information and ideas by organizing short, public speeches.

For her TED talk, Ms. Ayuru discussed her long and successful struggle to establish a school in a rural area of northern Uganda.     

In 2000, she opened Lira Integrated⁵ School in a poor area of the city of Lira. At the time, the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army was terrorizing the area’s population with murder, torture and child kidnappings.

The story of Ms. Ayuru’s activism begins in own childhood.  She was one of 16 children in a polygamous family. Her father valued education and supported her desire for it. But she said the poverty and cultural barriers affecting women in her society worked against her.

“I would say the environment shaped me a lot.  Even while I felt I was going through hard moments, but others girls were worse than me.  They were forced into early marriages.  They were not given opportunity to be in school.  It was a very painful life.”

She graduated from high school to become the first student from her school to gain admission to a national university.  After completing a degree from Makerere University she began teaching. 

At age 19, Ms. Ayuru had just become the mother of the second of her six children. She had no money. But her father gave her land. She says it was the need to support her children that made her work hard.

“I realized what I had was land. I am already teaching, but I am not earning salary, so I started with planting cassava. That was all I could afford, using my energy because I could not employ people to do anything.”

Later, she opened some small businesses. Money from those and the cassava crop helped her build the school in 2000. But continuing attacks from the Lord’s Resistance Army threatened the school.

“During the war, we would always run with the children from school to the town to hide them.  Then, during the day we collected them from town again to come and have lessons.”

In 2007, the LRA lost its fight for control of northern Uganda and fled the area. Beatrice Ayuru’s school has been doing well ever since. It teaches 1,500 students from nursery through high school. The cost to attend is about 90 dollars a year. Many parents cannot pay. So the school gives financial help to 100 children who lack money but show promise.

Lira Integrated School accepts both girls and boys. Ms. Ayuru says having both sexes study together is important because it helps boys to respect girls.

In 2009, the school founder⁶ took steps toward building a university.  Beatrice Ayuru says she is getting closer to reaching her dream.

Words in This Story

polygamous – adj. the state or practice of being married to more than one person at the same time

poverty – n. the state of being poor

degree - n. an official document or title that is given to someone who has successfully completed a series of classes at a college or university

1 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

2 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

5 integrated   

a.整合的，完整的

参考例句：

• A fully integrated low phase noise LC voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is presented.介绍了一种全集成的LC压控振荡器(VCO)的设计。

6 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。