UNICEF begins education campaign in Kenya

The UN children’s fund, together with Educate A Child, a program of Qatar’s Education Above All Foundation, has launched a project to accelerate access to education for children in the most remote areas of Kenya.

The program, Operation Come-To-School, seeks to reach out to 300,000 kids in the East African nation by 2018, the two agencies said in a joint statement issued in Nairobi on Tuesday.

The program will help children in the arid and semi-arid lands in northern Kenya, and informal urban settlements in Nairobi and the coastal regions.

“UNICEF is committed to supporting the government of Kenya to ensure that out-of-school children are not denied one of their most basic human rights – the right to education,” said Pirkko Heinonen, Acting Interim Representative of UNICEF in Kenya.

Heinonen said the program is in line with Kenya’s Ministry of Education’s 2014-2018 National Education Sector Program to accelerate access to education for the most marginalised children.

Kenya has nearly 1.5 million children, aged 6-13 years old, who are out of school due to poverty, child marriage and gender-related cultural practices.

The programme will focus on improving demand for education to increase school enrolment and attendance; enhancing school facilities, including construction of classrooms, solar lighting and sanitation facilities; strengthening in-school teaching and the learning process through a child-friendly school approach; providing mobile schools and alternative basic education so that nomadic children can access education, and strengthening the county’s education system.

“The agreement with UNICEF Kenya represents an important additional milestone to our efforts to ensure every out-of-school child in the country is given the opportunity for a basic education,” said EAC director Mary Joy Pigozzi.

“As we continue to push for universal primary education, it is through the local expertise of our partners that we will make a difference for children and communities across Kenya,” she added.

The Qatari foundation has been a partner of UNICEF since 2012.

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