I thought a few paragraphs from a paper I found amongst my old documents this week may be interesting to readers. The statistics presented are from almost thirty years ago, but they appear totally relevant today.
The reproduced paragraphs are in italics.
BACKGROUND:
Belize is a nation of 215,000 people, consisting of several ethnic groups of which the African Belizean is the second largest.
MISSION STATEMENT:
The UBAD Educational Foundation (UEF) was founded on March 10, 1996 as a non-profit organization by a group of concerned young and adult Belizeans to provide an educational opportunity for the impoverished African-Belizean youth. Acknowledging the supremacy of God, the UEF is nevertheless non-denominational in its religious affiliation, holding to the truth that all men are created equal and are entitled to equal opportunities.
On these principles, the Foundation has identified the need to address the inequalities of educational opportunities that confront poor young Belizeans. The plight of the African-Belizean is particularly serious given the fact that he/she is becoming increasingly more poorly educated. Thus the single greatest concern of the Foundation is to upgrade the educational opportunities for the young African-Belizean, the principal participants in the gang wars.
JUSTIFICATION:
Belize’s current social and economic situation for poor black Belizeans.
The increasing marginalization of the Black population is reflected in the prison population. A 1995 survey has revealed that of 1,044 inmates, there are 866 Creoles and 43 Garifunas, a total of 909 African-Belizeans, or 70.29% of the prison population. This is frightening, considering that the African-Belizean group is only 36.4% of the nation’s population.
A survey of the above population shows that almost all of the inmates did not complete their primary education, while a major portion did not go beyond Standard III.