There are nearly 15 million out-of-school children aged between five-to-14 in the MENA region according to UNICEF.
The Education Above All (EAA) Foundation and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCCHR) announced a partnership on Wednesday aimed at empowering youth and children worldwide through education, the Qatari entity shared in a statement.
The collaboration between EAA and OHCHR is designed to protect and advance the right to education in vulnerable communities, with a particular focus on Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Colombia.
“This collaborative project seeks to empower and build the capacities of young people and youth organisations in a range of countries and regions, especially those facing conflict and situations of vulnerability,” EAA said.
The joint initiative is divided into two phases. The first involves the establishment of a Youth Advisory Board made up of 10 youths from different regions.
The board members would lead online consultations with youths in Uzbekistan, Guatemala, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Western Africa, among other areas.
The second phase entails establishing a Youth Rights Academy, which would place a special focus on “global thought leadership and advocacy.”
This groundbreaking initiative will unite young leaders globally, offering them a platform to engage in dialogues, debates, and advocacy activities, thereby empowering them to advocate for their human rights.
Established in 2012, EAA, in collaboration with other Qatari entities, has been providing a vital lifeline for students worldwide who have been displaced from their classrooms due to crises and conflict.
The organisation managed to grant 9,800 scholarships and trained nearly 400,000 teachers.
The number of out-of-school children and youth increased by six million between 2021 and 2023, reaching a total of 250 million, according to UNESCO. The organisation cited the “mass exclusion” of females from education in Afghanistan as one of the main reasons behind the rise.
There are nearly 15 million out-of-school children aged between five-to-14 in the MENA region, according to UNICEF. At least 10 million others in the region are at risk of dropping out of school, primarily due to conflict.
“Education is in a state of emergency[…]States must urgently remobilise if they do not want to sell out the future of millions of children,” the UN entity said last September.
UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report found slow progress in education globally.
Since 2015, the increase of children completing primary education has increased by less than three percentage points. The percentage of youths completing secondary education increased by less than five percentage points.
Meanwhile, the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza has disrupted education, leaving hundreds of thousands of students out of school for almost five months.
The war affected more than 625,000 students and nearly 23,000 teachers in the Gaza Strip, disrupting an entire academic year, according to the UN.
Approximately 92% of Gaza’s schools have been converted into shelters for internally displaced Palestinians, and 138 schools sustained significant damage.
On October 10, 2023, Israel destroyed EAA’s Al-Fakhoora House, an educational facility in southern Gaza.
The building belonged to EAA’s Al Fakhoora programme, established in 2010 to honour the victims of prior Israeli bombardments of Gaza.
Its name is inspired by the Al-Fakhoura school in Jabalia, which Israel attacked on November 18, 2023, killing an estimated 200 displaced Palestinians sheltering inside the facility.
In response to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, Qatar pledged last December to sponsor 100 Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip.
