The Most Dangerous Ways To School

Twice a year the forbidding journey to the boarding school is necessary. Father Stanzin, looks to the sky and attempts to predict how the weather will develop. Only when he is sure that no storm is brewing, he starts to prepare the children for the trip over the river. It is a route that is so notorious, that it even has a name: Chadar- the path over the cloak of ice.

For centuries now, the Dorn Savanna has been the lifeline for the Massai people. Until today, they refuse to get involved in the constant upheavals in Tanzania and instead continue to cultivate their traditions. And that in a country that where barely more 50 of the population is over 15 years old and over one hundred different languages are spoken.

In Oymyakon, the cold controls everything. The town is located in eastern part of Sakha Republic (Yakutia) which belongs to Russia and is known as the world's Pole of Cold. Nevertheless every morning the children march to school, the youngest just 6 years old, making their way by temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius.

It is early in the morning as Ronald gets himself ready. He eats his Uro bread and drinks a Mate tea. Both things, like almost everything else here are made form the totora reeds. The Uros are a people that are very rooting in their tradition. They have even managed to preserve the Pukina, their mother language dating back to the colonial time.

Gulu - a small Chinese village with only a few dozen farms- spread out over one of the most impressive plateaus of the Hengduan Mountains in the Province of Sichuan. Here live the Yi, a people closely related to the Tibetans. To reach the village, which is located 1400 meters above sea level, an additional hike through the mountains is necessary.

Every morning, the three sisters climb into their logboat in order to row to school. They live on the east coast of Nicaragua, one of the world's poorest countries, and the youngest of them has just turned five; the oldest is nine. They row across the Rio Escondido. Not only is it one of the largest rivers in the country, it is simultaneously one of the most dangerous routes to school.