The Power of Humanity - United Nations Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director
Published on 08/07/2025 at 18:06 | prnewswire.co.ukThe climate crisis is making matters worse. As people are forced from their homes by floods, droughts and other extreme weather events, we see further massive disruptions in education, impacting negatively on progress to economic and social stability. On our current trajectory, climate change will force 140 million people from their homes by 2050, disrupting continuous access to education for millions of school-aged children each year.
Today, as we commemorate United Nations Day, we must stand up for 1.1 million Palestinian children in Gaza who acutely need us and we must support all the national and international staff in UNRWA, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and WHO, and other aid organizations, living and working amongst them as I write this.
Education Cannot Wait has invested in 44 lower-income, crisis-affected countries across the globe. These are countries who cannot manage the needs alone. ECW has already reached 9 million children and adolescents with quality education. We have done so based on the imperatives of humanity and impartiality – without discrimination as to race, ethnicity, gender or religion. We have done so with an absolute commitment to the UN Charter, just like all our colleagues in the UN system and its civil society partners.
Education is one of the most critical tools we have in our global efforts to end violent conflict, breaches of international law and the erosion of our humanity. Today, we stand at a crossroad. We have choices to make. Do we choose 'the will to power' or the 'will to humanity', or finally a configuration of both? This is the choice we have to make, now.
In all that we dream to possess and achieve,
let us seek to remove the "I" and the "me".
In all that we yearn to become and to be,
let us seek to merge the "them and we".
Because for all that we crave and all that we want
there is a greater 'What shall be?'
Humanity set free.
Let me conclude by stressing that my modest poem is not simply a wishful ideal. It represents hardcore international law. The United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all related conventions, along with International Humanitarian Law, provides us with the roadmap.
We can no longer walk blindly.
In the final analysis, when all else falls away during our short lifespan on earth, true power can only be measured by our collective capacity to feel for – and serve – all of humanity.
That's the power of humanity.
Yasmine Sherif
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