by Jill Davidson
"Survival education" radically transforms people who have been historically denied the advantages of schooling. It is a form of intellectual and psychological armor developed by social entrepreneurs to empower learners with immediately relevant skills.
Through survival education, students redirect their own lives and help their families, neighbors and societies exercise new and better options. As a tool for claiming human rights, survival education is especially relevant to communities that face political repression, economic devastation or other tragedies.
This issue of Changemakers.net Journal will present three examples of social entrepreneurs' survival education programs that infuse learning with safety, powerful personal connections and relevant skill-building. These innovators pay close attention to participants' emotional and physical safety, focus on building strong relationships based on shared culture within learning communities, and emphasize immediately relevant skill-building as a path to higher-order learning and literacy.
