THE ROOSTER
Remember that “our present” will be our “future past”, so let’s plant the seeds of hope together and educate for a happy future !
THE ROOSTER ASSOCIATION
Association involved in Latin America to aid the underprivileged communities by supporting the accesss to education of children and raising their awareness of the importance of protecting our planet.
In each Latin American country, we visit several schools in underprivileged communities, organize a soccer tournament combined with a school supply donation event and plant trees with the children.
Gather
Educate
Raise awareness
THE ISSUES AT STAKE
Educational issues
The percentage of secondary school enrollment in Latin America is among the lowest in the world. Many kids drop out of school after primary school, or even earlier.
Before the Covid crisis, 77% of youth were enrolled in secondary school (The World Bank, 2018). The numbers are even lower in rural areas, which are also the poorest regions. This shows large inequalities in access to education, where the poor are largely disadvantaged. In addition, state social spending dropped dramatically during the 1970s, weakening the school system and increasing inequalities between rich and poor populations.
Although education is technically free, families must purchase school supplies, books, and uniforms, which represents a significant expense for poor families, and countries rarely enforce compulsory schooling (DVV International, 2002).
In fact, in 2022, 32.1% of the population in Latin America is living in poverty, 13.1% of whom are in extreme poverty, a figure that has increased due to the COVID 19 health crisis, which has plunged more than 20 million people into poverty (CEPAL, 2021). It is also estimated that as a result of the pandemic and the closure of schools, more than 3 million children in the region may permanently drop out of school (UNICEF).
Education is supposed to enhance social mobility and redistribution of opportunities. These inequalities lead to the exact opposite, and there is an urgent need to help families bear the cost of schooling their children.
Environmental issues
South America hosts the Amazon rainforest, the planet’s green lung, which is now threatened with destruction.
Each year, nearly six million hectares of forest are destroyed, and we have crossed the 25% of deforestation of the Amazon forest, representing 1.7 million km ², or 3 times the area of France. The Amazon hosts 10% of the world’s biodiversity, which is one species out of 10 known on Earth.
Rising temperatures also cause health issues in Central America where Zika fever and dengue fever are spreading ever more widely.
Outside the Amazon, Bolivia’s lagoons are disappearing. In the Peruvian Andes, glaciers are melting: in the last 40 years, they lost 42.64% of their area compared to 1970 data. El Niño, an increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomenon, caused floods in 2017 and in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the people affected numbered in the thousands.
Actions for the protection of the environment exist, as in Costa Rica, which has restored the tropical forest on 20% of its territory, for emissions reductions that should total 145 million tCO2e by 2025. It is the first action of this scale on the continent.
Nevertheless, the policies of other countries often disregard the protection of the environment and without rapid change, the entire ecosystem of the continent as well as the lives of the people will deteriorate considerably.