Dilemma of Education: Dilemma of Education

A 10-year old girl, in ragged clothing, walks inside a thatched cottage with her one-year old brother strapped to her back. Two other young children are on the ground crushing groundnuts.
Dilemma of Education, Codong Village, Uganda

Agnes Alimo, 10, left, returned home from school with her one-year old brother (Regan Kidaga) because he would not stop crying. Her sister Vicky Auma, 7, center, and a neighborhood boy, Ogen, 6 (who didn't know his last name) stayed home from school to crush groundnuts. The hidden cost of schooling is overwhelming in the post-conflict Acholi sub-region (northern Uganda). Children constitute an invaluable source of stopgap labour for households re-establishing livelihood strategies in the aftermath of twenty years of war.