State Minister and Education Cannot Wait Director Visit Damaged Schools; launch A multi-Year Resilience Education Program

Tuesday 18 February 2020

 

 

On February 13, 2020, Her Excellency Tsion Teklu, State minister of Education and Yasmin Sherif, Director of Education Can’t Wait visited schools damaged by recent ethnic conflicts in Somali and Oromia regions.  

 

Accompanied by Ekin Ogutogullari, Country Director of Save the Children in Ethiopia and UNICEF’s country Representative in Ethiopia, the high-level visitors had the opportunity to meet children and their parents and learn the impact of conflicts on children’s educations first hand.  

According to Education Cannot Wait data, in October 2019 there were over 1.4 million children of school going age affected by displacement in Ethiopia. Currently, there are 107 schools destroyed in Ethiopia, 621 partially damaged and 94 schools closed due to insecurity.  

Up on concluding the visit, Education Cannot Wait Director, Yasmin Sherif said, “It is honor and privilege for me to come the long way to visit Ethiopia. I am excited to see the commitment of government of Ethiopia and its partners Save the Children and UNICEF to deliver quality education for children affected by crisis. I want to thank Save the Children, UNICEF and most of all, the government of Ethiopia for organizing this trip.” 

On February 14, both her Excellency the State Minister and Yasmin Sherif launched a Multi-Year Resilience Program that aims to improve learning through equitable access, crisis-sensitive and quality education for 745,997 children affected by emergencies. The program will run for three years in 44 prioritized woredas of Afar, Amhara, Beneshangul- Gumuz, Oromia, SNNP, Somali and Tigray Regions.