In the News

Despite tremendous progress over the past few decades, rates of extreme poverty are rising, as is global inequality.

Humanitarian crises abound, including in Ukraine and Tigray, while the environment and climate are in peril. The United Nations' Global Goals — which aspire to end hunger, achieve human rights for all and advance gender equality by 2030 — are further out of reach than ever.

Yasmine Sherif, director of Education Cannot Wait, a UN-funded non-profit organization, said education can play an essential role in helping children like Bertukan and Mune build resilience to trauma. “When you see family members, parents and siblings raped, killed, injured, a child is traumatized and that's why mental health and psychosocial services are another essential component of education,” she told Voa. She added that while food security and access to water are essential for people displaced by war, education is essential in the long term if countries are to be reborn and avoid future conflicts.

For the thousands of students entering their war-torn third school year in Tigray, the consequences are likely to be felt for the rest of their lives.

A total of 1.39 million children in the Tigray region are currently missing out on education because of Ethiopia’s civil war, according to the United Nations.

While journalists are banned from entering Tigray, VOA was able to access the neighboring Amhara region, where schools are beginning to reopen, after Tigrayan forces that occupied much of the region withdrew in December.

Over the past few years, institutions have cracked under multiple strains, including disasters that have disrupted the education of a full 90% of the world’s children and displaced legions more. But through it all, the LEGO Foundation has rarely missed a chance to help vulnerable children.

During the COVID pandemic, the foundation has balanced a strategic commitment to the power of play with clear-eyed investments in health and safety measures, totaling more than $200 million. It has also stepped up in crisis situations. When a major earthquake rocked Haiti last fall, the foundation and LEGO’s owners committed $16 million in support. And when war broke out in Ukraine, it came through again, to the tune of $16.5 million.

In addition to the World Bank and the School Meals Coalition, several organizations and initiatives are already in place to support adolescent girls and end extreme poverty but need more support.

ECW tackles the roadblocks preventing girls in crisis from attending school, and promotes the integration of a gender lens in education policies and practices. 

In response to increasing intercommunal violence in Cameroon that has sparked an expanding refugee crisis in neighboring Chad, the ECW organization today announced US$2.5 million in funding for a new refugee response. education in emergencies that will reach 14,547 refugee and host community children and adolescents in the border region of Chad. This new funding brings ECW's total investment in Chad to US$36 million to date.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) today announced a $2.5 million in grant financing for a new education in emergencies response that will reach 14,547 host community and refugee children and adolescents in Chad’s border region.

"The global loss of childhood and sense of despair have become universal. This is a shameful trend for humanity and the time has come to transform despair into hope. The most cost-effective and efficient way to do so is through urgent, substantive and predictable financial investments in quality education for those children left furthest behind in emergencies and protracted crises." - ECW Director Yasmine Sherif.

Conflicts in northern Ethiopia's Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions have pushed children and adolescents out of school and are fueling humanitarian needs. In response, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, announced on Saturday a $2 million First Emergency Response Grant that will reach more than 20,000 refugees and displaced, as well as host community children and adolescents.

"We must ensure sufficient, sustainable, and predictable funding for education in emergencies, including by supporting Education Cannot Wait’s funding need." 

Education Cannot Wait joins the international community in calling for an immediate end to all attacks against children, teachers and schools following the bombing of a school in Bilohorivka, Luhansk region, Ukraine, in which dozens are feared dead, including amongst those taking shelter there.

NEW DELHI, MAY 7 : Conflicts in northern Ethiopia's Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions have pushed children and adolescents out of school and are fueling humanitarian needs.

In response, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, announced on Saturday a $2 million First Emergency Response Grant that will reach more than 20,000 refugees and displaced, as well as host community children and adolescents.