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QNA
New York
CHAIRPERSON of Education Above All (EAA) Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser announced on Saturday that Education Above All's Educate A Child (EAC) programme succeeded in its objective of helping 10 million of the most marginalised out of school children to receive quality, primary education.
The announcement came during an EAA event co-organised with UNICEF at the New York Public Library. The event gathered world leaders and high-level figures such as the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo, Permanent Representative of Qatar to the UN Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif al Thani and Executive Director of UNICEF Henrietta Fore.
HH Sheikha Moza said in a speech that she was delighted at helping 10 million get education."Experts told me that educating six million children would be impossible. But, I refused to believe it. One advisor told me to set a goal that was more realistic. I thought I heard him say, optimistic, so I set a target of 10 million!"
HH Sheikha Moza thanked all the partners of EAA who helped provide education to 10 million children. HH Sheikha Moza said that back in 2012, when a total of 60 million young children were out of school, she wondered whether it was possible to provide quality education to 10 percent of those children."Most of them came from the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in the world. Many had been displaced due to conflict; others were refugees, some were fleeing poverty or natural disasters. And none of them were in school."
HH Sheikha Moza stressed that the next five years will see EAC work to expand its existing programmes and implement new ones."We will take what we have learned and apply it to the new challenges we face. Going forward, our efforts will require more than money and good intentions."
HH Sheikha Moza noted:"Educating these children will require a real commitment from governments, from the private sector and from the international community. It will take all of our courage, strength and resilience."
HH Sheikha Moza noted that the EAC has participated in 82 partnerships across 50 countries since the beginning of the project. They leveraged together a $1.8 billion investment. A third of that sum was from the government of Qatar, stressing that the effort was a truly global one.
"We reached out to the private sector for unique expertise and much-needed resources. We worked with ministries, public agencies, development banks and community groups. We worked with NGOs, big and small. And we worked with great multi-national organisations like UNICEF," HH Sheikha Moza said.
HH Sheikha Moza then moved to discuss the transformative power of education which she saw in places like Bangladesh, Palestine, Turkey, Sudan, Brazil and Kenya."I have watched as schools were built from scratch, and abandoned buildings turned into classrooms. I have seen children mastering computer skills on refurbished laptops, and I have listened to lessons taught under the shade of a tree and homework done by candlelight," HH Sheikha Moza said.
"Now there are those who say, yes, education is important, but first we must pave these roads, or train these doctors or build these houses. I know there are competing priorities. But, I say give me 10 reasons why educating the worlds out of school children can wait, and I'll give you 10 million reasons why it can't," HH Sheikha Moza said.
The chairperson of EAA highlighted some of the key challenges facing education such as the lack of classrooms, teachers or textbooks as well as some unique challenges.
"How do you make the journey to school safe for girls and boys, who need to cross flooded rivers, or walk through wild forests? Where do you put a classroom in a refugee camp? How do you gain the trust of neighbourhood leaders who are suspicious of outsiders? And how do you entice boys and girls to come back to a school that had been bombed?"
HH Sheikha Moza acknowledged that everyone involved with the programme"needed to learn all of these things, and so much more" in order to educate the 10 million children. HH Sheikha Moza added that more work needs to be done to reach the other children who are out of school.
HH Sheikha Moza concluded her speech by saying:"Tonight, we take time to celebrate our achievements. And tomorrow, we act on our commitments."
After the speech, HH Sheikha Moza participated in a panel discussion and said that education was the only investment with zero risk.
In his keynote address, Guterres spoke of the power of education, saying:"When we educate a child we give her more than books, papers, pencils or a calculator. We give her the tools, skills and imagination she needs to shape the world around her and to make her community, and her society, better, more prosperous and more peaceful."
