One World. One Goal: Education For Everyone!
Susan notes: Dateline November 2009: another guest blog post by the absolutely amazing Sara Refai, new AWR partner in crime…
In September of 2000, world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters in
New York to discuss what the UN’s role should be in the new millennium.
The result of this meeting was the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
From this declaration, the General Assembly derived eight goals aimed
at raising the quality of life of people around the globe.
The following are the Millennium Development Goals:
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Running
a parallel course is another campaign. A campaign aimed at bolstering
support for one particular goal; a goal that is believed to be the
foundation stone to achieving many of the others.
Primary education for all. For free.
There
are currently 75 million children around the world who are not in
school. The positive effects of educating these children would
reverberate through their communities, nations and the world. There
would be a sharp and immediate drop in deaths from diseases like HIV
and malaria, and the effect on domestic economies would be immense. It
would alleviate the lives of millions who live in extreme poverty and
open up a world of opportunity for so many for whom the future is a
dark, hard place.
1Goa l is the brain child of the Global Campaign for Education
in partnership with FIFA and championed by Queen Rania of Jordan. The
aim is to amass 30 million signatures in support of the universal right
to education by the close of the final game of the 2010 World Cup.
30
million signatures to demand world leaders fulfil the commitment they
made when they signed up to the Millennium Development Goals.
The
numbers are compelling. It would cost $11 billion to provide the
world’s children with one year’s primary education. This roughly equals
the amount of money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in one
month. It is also what Americans spend on their pets in three months.
1
Goal is not asking for money, rather it is leveraging the solidarity of
sport to create a platform for collective advocacy. As millions around
the world tune in to watch their teams compete, FIFA and 1 Goal will be
encouraging every football fan to sign up to the petition.
Queen Rania used her speech at
this month’s LeWeb 2009 conference to issue a call to action to
bloggers, tweeters and all users of social media to use the power of
the net to spread the word about 1 Goal.
In September 2010,
the General Assembly will convene to review the progress made towards
achieving the Millennium Goals. 1 Goal will be there on behalf of its
global ‘team’ to remind them of their promises.
Let’s all be a part of it.
Related links:
The Conversation (Sara Refai & Mai Abaza’s blog)
