Postcards From The Edge

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Jan 31, 2023, 07:00 ET

Children worldwide call on leaders to make good on promises of universal education in ground-breaking campaign from Education Cannot Wait.

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Through an innovative campaign delivered by the UN's global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), girls and boys worldwide are sharing "Postcards from the Edge" to call on world leaders to make good on promises to ensure education for all by 2030 as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals.

"They are inspiring testaments to the amazing power of education to transform lives. We must listen to the world's children. They deserve their human right to an education," said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

To date, more than 50 letters and drawings have been received from crisis-affected girls and boys supported through ECW-funded programmes across more than 20 of the world’s toughest country-contexts. ECW’s strategic partners - including Educo, Plan International, Save the Children, Street Child, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, World Vision and many others - continue to collect these first-person accounts to highlight the singular power of education to end violence, hunger and poverty worldwide.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lucas*, a 14-year-old refugee from the Central African Republic recounts the story of seeing his mother murdered and his village burnt to the ground.

Through a multi-year resilience programme delivered by UNHCR with funding from ECW, the boy is now back in school and dreams one day of becoming a doctor.

In his postcard, Lucas makes an impassioned plea for world leaders "to think of us refugee children and provide funding to let us finish our studies."

Several letters were submitted from girls and boys in Afghanistan. With new rules banning girls from education and stripping women of their human rights, it is not clear if Zehab* from the Uruzgan Province will be able to continue her education. But for now, she is still able to attend a non-formal community-based learning programme.

"I want to get education and become a well-known doctor. But I am wondering that I might not achieve my dreams, as girls are not allowed to attend schools in Afghanistan," she says in her postcard. "I call on the world leaders to help us and give us the opportunity to learn and lead our future."

Worldwide 222 million girls and boys like Zehab and Lucas are having their futures ripped from them by the converging impacts of conflict, climate change, forced displacement and other protracted crises.

Leaders across the globe will come together at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference on February 16 and 17 in Geneva, Switzerland. Throughout the event, youth advocates and global champions will read the Postcards from the Edge to ensure the voice of the world's most vulnerable children are heard.

*Names have been changed for privacy purposes.

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