New initiative to raise funds for education of children

10:00 PM

5

April

2015

Al-Sulaiti (left) and al-Ghamdi announce the partnership between EAC and QC yesterday.


Gulf Times

Educate A Child (EAC), a global initiative launched by HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser as part of Education Above All (EAA), and Qatar Charity (QC) announced yesterday the launch of the “Teach Me” campaign.
The main aim of the initiative is to raise awareness about the issue of millions of children out of school worldwide who are missing out on basic primary education as a result of poverty, conflict, natural disaster and discrimination and the need to provide them with high-quality education as one of their basic human rights.
Launched in 2012, EAC aims to trigger significant breakthroughs in providing quality primary education to 58mn out-of-school children around the world. Through EAC-supported programming, children overcome barriers to educational access and retention. The joint campaign follows a Memorandum of Understanding Qatar Charity and EAA Foundation signed last year. Under the MoU, the two parties will co-operate on joint activities in a number of countries targeted by EAC.
The one-year “Teach Me” campaign will focus on fundraising for educational projects and activities in countries where children suffer from hard and extreme conditions. The campaign will seek to raise QR110mn, which means that over 270,000 children will receive access to one year’s education. 
The cost of a full year study for one child is QR400. Donors can also give any amount of money to the campaign through the donation channels that QC will dedicate to this campaign at its headquarters and branches in Qatar.  
Donations can also be made to EAC through Qatar Charity’s collection points in shopping malls, special donation boxes in schools and other centres, and through Qatar Charity’s website qcharity.org/eac, as well as by bank transfers. 
Individuals can also donate by sending SMS via Ooredoo and Vodafone using the code “Edu” to 92429 to donate QR1,000, to 92428 to donate QR500, to 92642 to donate QR100, to 92632 to donate QR50, and to 92133 to donate QR25.
Mohamed Ali al-Ghamdi, QC director of international development, said: “The Teach Me campaign supports children’s right to education, as too many of them are deprived of this right worldwide, especially in countries suffering from wars and natural disasters. This dictates that all virtuous people work to change this situation.
“The campaign is in line with Qatar Charity’s objectives, as education is one of our focus areas. Qatar Charity has offices and quality educational programmes in most of the countries targeted by the Teach Me initiative. I am optimistic that this first joint effort by Qatar Charity and Educate A Child will succeed and that the public in Qatar and the rest of the world will positively interact with it.”
Fahad al-Sulaiti, deputy CEO, EAA, said: “We are delighted to be starting this joint campaign with Qatar Charity, and are grateful for their support in raising funds for Educate A Child’s cause of providing access to quality primary education to out-of-school children worldwide. 
“There are 58mn children around the world who are not benefiting from their basic human right to education, and we hope that this joint initiative will be a step towards making a difference to out-of-school children.” 
He said the joint campaign would target children in six countries including Syria, Syrian refugees in Turkish and Lebanese border village, Iraq, Sudan, India and Pakistan. The initiative would be held in co-ordination with the authorities concerned in the targeted countries, which covers the payment of teachers’ salaries, renovating schools, building new ones and operation of some others.