While the world celebrated World Children’s Day on Tuesday, millions of children around the world were not attending school, the UN-backed Education Cannot Wait fund said.
This included some 3.5 million children living in the Lake Chad Basin in Africa’s Sahel region who did not have access to education, the fund said.
The children who are refugees from other countries, internally displaced by conflict and drought and those simply living in some of the poorest parts of the country have not been able to go to school.
The Lake Chad Basin, which includes Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria is one of the most deprived and dangerous regions of the world. Climate change and environmental degradation have exacerbated the challenges the region faces, while Boko Haram extremists have terrorised people across the four countries causing much of the displacement.
However, hundreds of thousands of children now have the chance to study thanks to Education Cannot Wait, a recently created global fund for education in crisis situations.
In addition to supporting the fund, this year the UN is also asking individuals, schools, and corporates worldwide to go blue to help build a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and the chance to fulfill their potential.
Going blue activities include: sharing our promo video for Children’s day, signing the global petition and going blue in support of children’s rights in social media, and much, much more.
UN children’s organisation Unicef has also appointed an Emmy-nominated actress as its youngest Goodwill Ambassador. Global landmarks will go blue, children will take over in parliaments, schools, businesses, sports and on news channels, television programmes, as well as radio stations across the globe.
UN Universal Children’s Day was established in 1954 and is celebrated on November 20th each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare.
The day is an important date. On this day in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, as well as in 1989 when the UN General assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
African News Agency Editing by Naomi Mackay
