Last week, while attending the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, I saw Jessica Alba join Bono, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and others onstage to pledge commitment to 1GOAL: Education for All. It was a really cool moment in a week full of really cool moments, which I wrote about here.
Today Jessica Alba has a great article in the Huffington Post reflecting on CGI, global education, and 1GOAL. Excerpts below, full piece here. We’ll have more on 1GOAL soon!
I was part of a CGI commitment with 1GOAL: Education for All to talk about the 75 million children denied access to education around the world today. If you’re keeping count, that’s as if every school in the U.S. and Europe combined decided one day to close their doors. Joining Global Co-Chair Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, ONE co-founder Bono, FIFA and private sector leaders, I signed up to be US Co-Chair of 1GOAL and help work for a breakthrough on global education centered around the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The 2010 World Cup will be the first hosted by Africa, and 1GOAL views the world’s biggest sporting event as an opportune platform to persuade the millions of fans who peacefully come together to share the love of soccer to also unite on educating the world’s children. Our goal is to sign up 30 million World Cup supporters to call on our leaders to make education for all children a priority and reality. Name by name, we believe we can bring attention to global education disparities and make change a reality.
In the US we take for granted that our children have a right to education and the opportunities education provides. But for tens of millions of kids in the developing world, children who are just like our kids, the chance for an education is a hope and a dream, but not yet a reality. These could be our next generation’s leaders, athletes, doctors, teachers, and parents. They’re ready to do their homework, but school fees, conflict, working in factories and farms, losing their parents to sickness, the cost of a school uniform or simply being a girl can keep them from being able to attend school.
