Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait
NEW YORK, Dec 23 2020 - As Mohammed, a Palestine refugee with impaired vision who attends a specialized UNRWA programme for children with disabilities, told us during our mission to Lebanon a week ago: “I was worried. I was worried that I could not continue my education because the programme was going to be cut. Now I have hope that I can continue to study and make my dream come true.” As 2020 comes to a close and we reflect on Education Cannot Wait’s mission this past year, two things stand out: hope and action. Amidst multiple crises around the globe, exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic, hope has been the fuel driving us all forward to take action to deliver to those left furthest behind. Indeed, while hope is life-sustaining for a young girl or boy enduring conflict, forced displacement and disaster, it cannot be sustained without action.
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF OPAC
2020 marks 20 years since the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC). Ratified by 170 States, OPAC is an indispensable complement to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). To celebrate this milestone, the Center for Children’s Rights Studies and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child planned a commemorative conference in Geneva on September 29, 2020. Regrettably this was cancelled due to the pandemic related public health situation. This led us to ask several of the distinguished speakers to record brief statements instead and to post them on this dedicated website.