As part of Global Education Week, I wanted to highlight that Columbian pop star Shakira spoke to NPR yesterday after testifying on the Hill for the Education for All Act. You can listen to the interview here. Shakira explains that in order to enroll boys and girls in schools, we need to do at least four things: Hire qualified teachers, provide uniforms and text books, abolish school fees and provide school meals. She says: “I grew up in a country where unfortunately education is sometimes seen as a luxury, as a privilege, and not as a human right. This always bothered me. So this is personal to me. In the developing world, people who are born poor will die poor, and that is because of the lack of opportunities, opportunities that come from education. Education can actually save lives.” If the Education For All Act passes, it would increase U.S. funding from $465 million to $3 billion by 2012 and help 77 million children around the world have access to education.

The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland has called for renewed commitment to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), aimed at halving extreme poverty, boosting health and education and further empowering women across the developing world by 2015.

World leaders called for action as the current steps made around the world are not nearly enough to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, the singer and activist Bono and the multimillionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates are some of the personalities sounding the alarm:

Those goals fixed a 2015 deadline to tackle extreme poverty and improve access to education and healthcare. "Too many nations have fallen behind. We need fresh ideas and fresh approaches. It is unacceptable that one child dies of hunger every day, every five seconds," Ban told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

In honor of MLK Day, ONE member Kyle Talkington of Dallas, Texas wrote a Letter to the Editor and it was printed today in the Dallas News!
-Kim Smith

Today our nation celebrates the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We recognize a man who not only believed in social justice, but a man who proved that when Americans believe in and truly desire something, we are willing to take great risks, share resources and spur each other on to reach that goal.

 Social justice works toward the realization of a world where all possess basic human rights and equal opportunity to access societal benefits such as clean water, proper health care, and education. As Dr. King said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

I am one of over 100,000 Texans and 2.4 million Americans who have joined ONE, a grass-roots movement of people who believe in the opportunity to end extreme poverty in our own time. The birthday of Dr. King reminds me that much remains to be done both inside and outside of our nation’s borders.

    Kyle Talkington, Dallas