Education Above All (EAA) under wise leadership of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has done a tremendous service in spreading the light of education across the globe particularly in marginalised communities and war-hit areas.
EAA envisions bringing new life chances, real hope and opportunities to improve the lives of poor and marginalised children, youth and women especially in the developing world.
Education Above All, the brainchild of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, works to ensure equal access to education and to harness the power of quality education for positive, sustainable, and inclusive change.
Yesterday H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser participated in a high-level panel discussion entitled ‘Act Now to Protect Education from Attack’, held at Unesco headquarters in Paris, on the occasion of the International Day to Protect Education from Attack.
She called on the international community to recognise that as children returned to their schooling this past week, across the world millions of children were unable to do so due to attacks on their education.
She implored the international community not to ignore the “millions whose school buildings were destroyed or damaged, or occupied by soldiers. Millions who simply do not have access to education because of conflict”. “Why are we not responding now, with solutions to another great crisis: the crisis of attacks on education,” she asked.
According to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) – of which EAA is a founding member - there were more than 5,000 documented attacks on education between 2020-2021, with more than 9,000 students and educators abducted, arrested, injured, or killed. The International Day to Protect Education from Attack was established in 2020, and is increasingly important as students, teachers and schools continue to suffer an increased number of attacks globally.
This year, the day was held in-person for the first time in two years, at Unesco headquarters in Paris and provided a forum to discuss issues relating to attacks on education. Education Above All Foundation (EAA) and its partners also unveiled TRACE, the Track Attacks on Education (TRACE) Data Portal, a new tool which applies humanitarian technology to generate reliable, timely data on attacks on education to be freely shared.
Advocates, policy makers, journalists, as well as humanitarian and development workers and communities will be able to use the tool to better understand the challenges of safeguarding quality education during conditions of conflict.
