We've all had a bit of a rough ride over the past year, but how has the pandemic affected rural education?

At Tropic, we believe education is a human right. Everyone should be offered the opportunity to learn how to read, write and count. Yet today, over 60 million children don’t have access to a primary school education.

Since September 2019, every single Tropic purchase has helped fund education for those in some of the poorest, most remote areas of the world with United World Schools (UWS). The UN reports that education enables upward socioeconomic mobility and is a key driver for escaping poverty. We’re so pleased to say that since announcing our partnership over a year and a half ago, Tropic has donated enough money to educate over 20,000 children at over 170 schools for an entire year. Thank you so much to everyone who has placed a Tropic order and is helping us in driving positive change.

A new Covid-19 variant is sweeping fast across Asia, so UWS now needs help providing a lifeline to remote communities by supporting health services, providing food, vital items and keeping education alive with remote learning while schools are closed.

UWS have re-implemented a radio programme that reached 22,000 children during the school closures previously and was instrumental in keeping children engaged in education and returning to school. UWS are also distributing radios for students with no access.

Ten per cent of daily Covid-19 cases are found in children in Nepal.* UWS is responding swiftly, working with local government and health partners to turn its schools into isolation centres, fund healthcare equipment, train teachers to support health awareness and services, provide lifecare bags for children and put remote learning into place.

Also, in Nepal, 40 per cent of girls are married before they turn 18, with this figure likely to be much higher in the rural communities where UWS work. Even more girls are now at risk of dropping out of school to being married off dangerously young.

While every order continues to fund vital education, UWS have secured UK Aid Match. This means that for every £1 donated to a UK Aid Match charity appeal by an individual living in the UK, the UK government will contribute £1 of UK aid, up to £2 million, to help these projects further their effects.

If you’d like to donate directly, you can do so here.

This means your donation will be matched and doubled by the UK government. A donation of just £1.80 would educate a child for an entire week learning from home, but with the aid matched to £3.60 by the UK government, your donation will go even further, helping two children for an entire week learning from home!

By providing critical support at this time, we can all help keep children in education in the long term, stop children being exploited for child labour and prevent girls from being forced into early marriage.

Now more than ever before, we can continue to teach the unreached, and continue our Infinite Purpose of helping to create a healthier, greener, more empowered world.

*Source: United World Schools