Dubai Cares, the philanthropic organisation, will address the importance of education for girls in developing countries as part of an annual Ramadan initiative.Titled ‘Girls’ Education Campaign 2011’, the month-long project aims to raise monetary funds and awareness through channels and activities.The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)’s Global Monitoring Report 2007 on education showed that 42 million females in countries around the world are unable to attend school due to several cultural and financial reasons.
“It is a known fact that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of a country goes up when a girl gets educated, but we have a lot of cultures and traditions around the world where communities reject or refuse to send their girls to school. We (Dubai Cares) have running programmes related to girls’ education, that we launched three years ago in Pakistan and Yemen, but this year we wanted to promote it further and spread the awareness to the local community. Hopefully by the end of this Ramadan the public would understand the importance of this issue and help out with their support,” said Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares.
Part of the campaign will see a mock classroom being built in Dubai Mall where a donation of Dh50 will give visitors a chance to place a foam brick to form the structure.“Basically what we’re doing is build a replica of a classroom and those will be made from ‘bricks’ that look like books made out of foam. Each ‘brick’ will cost Dh50 and, by the end of the month we’ll be able to complete it. This Ramadan, we are trying to bring the community’s focus toward a specific segment, that is, primary education for girls,” said Anas Bukhash, Senior Communications and Community Engagement Specialist.
About 39 million adolescent girls are missing out on education and two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate adults are women, according to a United Nations report on millennium goals.‘‘Some of us actually go to communities and teach them the importance of educating girls. The impact eventually comes from these listeners who spread the word to their neighbours and communities. To date, we have reached 24 countries since 2007 and about five million beneficiaries,” Al Gurg said. – Khaleejnews
