I have just returned from the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) event in Doha where together with Desmond Bermingham, Save the Children’s Education Director we collected the WISE award on behalf of the whole of Save the Children for our ground breaking work on Rewrite the Future.
We were selected as one of six laureates for the WISE award 2010 out of a group of over 400 contestants from more than 80 countries.
This award is a clear recognition of the leadership role that Save the Children played in securing the UN resolution on ensuring that the every child has a right to education even in emergency and post conflict situations.
I also had the opportunity to join a panel discussion on Aljazeera’s TV Inside Story to discuss how basic level of education could be maintained in conflict zones.
But, of course, winning the award does not mean in any sense that the job is done. There are still around 69 million children out of school and more than half live in countries affected by conflict and fragile states (CAFS). Read the story of Sarah, a girl from Southern Sudan.
Save the Children is committed to play its part through our education work. We have set ourselves a challenging target of providing access for 3 million children directly through our programmes in CAFS. Through our common efforts we have already reached more than half that number.
We are building on our successes with Rewrite the Future by strengthening the focus of our work on the quality of education that is provided and we will broaden our thematic focus to include programmes to support early childhood care and development and projects that support youth. It is our goal to ensure that every child everywhere has access to quality education.
