DOHA CHAIRPERSON of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) Her Highness Shiekha Moza bint Nasser launched a new global education initiative named ‘Educate A Child’( EAC) on Wednesday aiming to provide quality education to 61 million children missing out on basic education due to poverty, conflict, natural disaster and prejudice.
To begin with, around 500,000 children are already covered by 25 EAC-funded projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
HH Sheikha Moza announced the launch of this revolutionary educational initiative on the second day of the World Innovation Summit for Education being held at the Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC).
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is also the special UN envoy for education as well as the representatives of the strategic partners of the initiative were present during the event.
EAC builds on Sheikha Moza’s mandate as a UNESCO Special Envoy on Basic and Higher Education, a United Nations Millennium Development Goal Advocate and a Steering Committee member of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Education First initiative.
The Strategic partners of the initiative are: Bharti Foundation, Global Partnership for Education, UNESCO, UNHCR and UNRWA.
While the Implementing Partners are BRAC (Bangladesh), Dhaka Ahsania Mission (Bangladesh), Educate Girls (India), Girl Child Network (Kenya), International Rescue Committee (Côte d’Ivoire), Norwegian Refugee Council (Côte d’Ivoire), Save the Children (Côte d’Ivoire), Gyan Shala (India), UNICEF-Chad, UNICEF-Sudan and UNICEF-South-Sudan.
Launching the EAC intiative, Sheikha Moza said that millions of children are being robbed of their fundamental right to quality education in various parts of the world.
She emphasised that EAC would reignite the world’s commitment to the hardest- to-reach children, the forgotten children, numbering in millions, who don’t even have schools to go to.
She said, “Right across the world, because of disaster, because of poverty, children are being denied a chance to change their destinies.
Today, we are here to give them that chance; to change the destiny of millions.” She pointed out that 61 million children were deprived of primary education which is equal to the population of Beijing, London, Paris, Cairo and Karachi put together.
Behind these numbers are countless reallife stories, stories of disadvantage, poverty, conflict, of disaster. But there are also stories of courage, of resilience, of determination which provide the silver lining to the gloomy situation.
Every single one of them deserves a chance to achieve great things. And that is what we want to accomplish with Educate A Child,” she added.
Sheikha Moza also said that the mission was to turn attention back to the disadvantaged children of today, who could become the confident and talented adults of tomorrow, given proper opportunities. She emphasised, “The challenge is daunting.
The children still not in school are the ones hardest to reach, in the most difficult circumstances.
But we cannot turn our back on them.” She said that reaching out to these children would require huge investment, commitment and inventiveness.
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