Excerpts from the speech of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai on the occasion of launching on 19th September 2007 a multi-million dirham initiative (Dubai Cares) to educate more than a million children world-wide.
This Dubai Cares campaign, that I am launching, seeks to shine the light of knowledge and dispel the darkness of ignorance. Its aim is to give the children of poor countries hope for the future and opportunities to break the cycle of poverty that threatens to entrap them and consign their families to a life with no real future. It will assist several countries in achieving UN Millennium Development Goals for providing children's primary education to every child by 2015.
Since the era of the late Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid, may God ensure their souls rest in peace, the UAE has been committed to offering support and help to our fraternal brothers and sisters in the Arab and Muslim worlds across Africa and Asia. The country's contributions were made in many fields, and especially in the field of education.
There are 120 million school-age children across the world who do not have access to education. A third of the children in developing countries cannot complete five years of education, the minimum required to achieve basis literacy.
Unfortunately, the biggest proportion of these deprived children is in Asia and Africa, especially in the Islamic world and the neighbouring countries. This is in spite of the value placed on education in our holy book, as the first Aya that was sent to the world was a call for reading: IQRA'A.