Ending violence in Pakistan starts in the playground

Muslim women in Egypt are expected to marry young and to stay close to home, and if they do not, they can be subjected to abuse or heavy criticism by men in the household. Save the Children’s Choices program offers educational workshop sessions for boys and girls, ages 10 to 14, which help them explore gender identity. Through discussions, the program hopes to change gender norms.

The Canadian federal government has identified bullying as a national problem. Roots of Empathy, based in Toronto, encourages empathy in elementary kids by having them interact with babies.

Focused on the idea of honor and honor killings, activist Khalida Brohi started a program that provides rural women in Pakistan career skills and an income in order to fight the pervasive cultural attitudes about women's education. Brohi has been working for this cause for over a decade now and has done a number of different initiatives along the way. In this episode she shares some of her insights from her work, such as working with the women themselves to change social attitudes rather than the men, or broaching the topic for both men and women using the language of Islam.

Enrolling parents in simple, scalable ways can improve early child learning outcomes. Building on a model used in the US state of California, firms in the UK are developing an SMS-based curriculum geared toward parents of children entering kindergarten. The method involves sending parents text messages that explain short, easy tasks that both instruct and motivate children, encouraging positive cognitive and behavioral development.

An initiative in House schools that gives students access to the arts in the classroom has positively affected students' ability to concentrate, write, and even show compassion to one another. The initiative, known as the Houston Arts Access Initiative, encourages schools to provide exposure to dance, music, and visual arts to encourage creative and kind interaction.

Criança Feliz (Happy Child), is a parent-coaching program that was launched in Brazil in 2017 to help parents and children build healthier relationships. The program works by sending skilled social workers to the most financially disadvantaged regions of Brazil to help parents learn the importance of play, emotional interaction and well-being, and how to stimulate intellectual development through interactive activities. The program has already reached 300,000 families.

Mindfulness and programs, such as Math Guru, designed to address student's anxiety are being implemented in several areas as a way of combatting anxiety and helping students talk through their fears so that it doesn't impede their performance or develop into a more severe issue. Particularly, in places where anxiety and mental illness is high, these areas are looking into the benefits of student mindfulness training.

The rate of students dropping out of college or failing to complete their degree in the allotted time has soared in the United States, and experts are discovering that one of the causes is simply that students feel isolated, discouraged, and overwhelmed. A study by Ideas42 across a number of universities revealed that fairly simple behavioral "nudging" - or the process of providing tiny but regular interventions and encouragement through systems like text messages - can have a drastic impact on a student's likelihood of success.

An all-girls football team is challenging gender stereotypes and empowering their teenage players in the process. An international NGO named Magic Bus teamed up with a Mumbai-based women's collective named Parcham to find girls and parents willing to participate. After a slow start, the group now has a healthy number of players who are also both Muslim and Hindu. The process of becoming confident taking up public space and the fight to claim their spot back from the boys have given the girls more confidence, and parents are now highly supportive of their daughters.

Disciplining schoolchildren has led many students down the “school-to-prison-pipeline” because teachers have focused on controlling students rather than instilling problem solving skills. Ross Greene has developed Collaborative Proactive Solutions (CPS), which is a method that trains staff at schools to develop relationships with disruptive kids and help them problem solve. With the CPS method in practice in 2012, Central School has reported fewer students sent to the principal’s office and no suspensions.