UNITED NATIONS GIRLS EDUCATION INITIATIVE

LONDON, UK, 27 August 2009, The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) launched its World Cup 2010 project "1GOAL" at Wembley Stadium on Thursday 20 August.

Celebrities from the football world joined with representatives from FIFA, GCE and Queen Rania of Jordan. Each said what the campaign means to them. Queen Rania’s speech included her showing a red card and saying it was an offence that 75 million children were not in school, and that 1 in 4 women could not read.

Host Gary Lineker was joined on the stage by Gugu, a 9 year old girl from a school in Johannesburg and Aaron Mokoena, the captain of the South African football team. Each used moving examples to talk about the importance of education to them.

1 Goal is a GCE-FIFA 2010 World Cup initiative aimed at ensuring that all children receive an education. It uses the forthcoming World Cup as a focus and calls on football fans to sign their names to show their commitment at www.join1goal.org

As Queen Rania said, “It’s about reminding world leaders to play by the rules and keep their promises to children of the developing world. I think that’s worth signing up for.”

Read more about the event in 2 blogs – one from a member of the DFID team and one from Oxfam.