The power of education

By Phillip Moore

At the end of our study abroad experience, our class was challenged to create a photo essay that spoke to our own personal focus during the trip. I chose to make my photo essay about the importance of education, especially amongst the youth of this and future generations. Education is such a powerful tool and it can be the determining factor in many social movements. When populations start to make significant changes in lifestyles, the youth must be educated as to why these changes are being made and they must have the opportunity to either follow in their parents footsteps or make their own educated decisions.

To illustrate this idea, I focused my photo essay on the transition of livelihoods that has been occurring in Nepal and in many countries around the world. People are moving away from traditional farming practices and living out in the countryside and they’re moving into cities in pursuit of urban based jobs. This transition has many tradeoffs and has already begun to affect our society and planet. My take-home point in this photo essay is not to say that this transition is inherently bad. It is simply to make the point that each generation is tasked with trying to improve their world based on the condition it is given to them. And I believe that it is critically important to educate our youth so they are better prepared to handle the complex problems that are associated with these conditions, and to make the path that they carve out a responsibly planned route, given the information we’ve gathered.

A field lies fallow | With a child’s feet in the dirt | Through them we will grow

A Tharu girl shines bright at the crossroads of a fallow field. She is the youth of Nepal: a generation that values education and cultural preservation. A generation that bears the responsibility of preserving an environmentally conscious value system, while adapting to a changing climate. The fallow field is the stigma associated with farming: the widespread transition of livelihoods has left the fields empty and the streets overwhelmed with life. The girl and her generation stand at a crossroads: between the lure of opportunistic urban migration and the responsibilities she has inherited. Youth must be given the opportunity to make an educated decision at this crossroad, because it is through them that we will grow.