03-05-2009
I am honored to be standing today on the soil of a city chosen as the World Book Capital.
We have convened here today to follow Amsterdam’s example in appreciating the value of the book;
As the coordinator of the Global Campaign for Education in the Middle East and the Maghreb, I hope that today we will all rally under this year’s action and motto the “Big Read: Open Books, Open Doors.”
I began my professional life as a school teacher; a profession highly respected by my parents, specially my illiterate mother. My mother felt insulted when a bank employee once asked for her finger print instead of her signature. She was determined to learn how to write her name. Now she signs official documents. The greatest passion of mother was to send her children to school. Today I fulfilled her dream not only by obtaining the degree she wanted me to have, but also by representing a number of coalitions focused on improving formal education in the Middle East including the Global Campaign for Education.
Established in 1999, The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that holds governments accountable to their ongoing promises to provide Education for All. The GCE's mission is to ensure the action of governments in guaranteeing the right of every girl, boy, woman and man to a free quality public education.
The GCE has a successful track record in uniting a number of people and organizations in more than 100 countries to demand Education for All. Civil societies , trade unions, child rights campaigners, teachers, parents and students all came together to demand universal education, a goal that is still far fetched.
Despite the increase in school enrollment last decade, the Arab region is lagging behind cementing the goal set for 2015 “Education for All”. Yet the region achieved a gigantic step in bridging the gap between males and females enrollment in primary education. Still it is regarded among the lowest in the world. Girls constitute the major portion of drop outs and illiteracy in the globe. Of the 58 million illiterate individuals, 39 million are women and 6 million children are drop outs. Meanwhile, the government spends only one fifth of it's budget on education.
The Global Campaign for Education is setting foot in the Middle East including Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Lebanon where Beirut will be the next book city.
Education in Palestine is deteriorating due to the Israeli occupation and policies (closures, checkpoints, house demolitions, land confiscation, the wall among other things). Education has become a risky and exhausting experience for Palestinian children and teachers who have to take a daily trip bypassing all the aforementioned obstacles. Nevertheless, Palestinians are now more aware of the importance of education more than ever as a means to fight occupation.
In a nutshell, I would like to share the story of Um Omar and her decision to join the Global Campaign for Education: Um Omar is a 60-year-old woman from a village in the West Bank. She asked the coordinator of the GCE to enroll her in literacy program. She had heard from her neighbors about the campaign, and had seen the posters in the village. Her decision to join the campaign came as a result of an embarrassing incident when she was visiting a friend on the 4th floor of the hospital where she had to use the elevator, but she had never learnt to read the numbers. She pushed all the bottoms of the elevator trying to guess which number was four. Afraid and anxious, the minutes in the elevator felt like days to her. After surviving the elevator, Um Omar decided to join the campaign to learn reading numbers as part of her readiness plan to use them again when needed.
