Shakira - Global Singer

 Good morning Your Highness, excellences, friends,and colleagues. I would like to thank you for the opportunityto be here today. It's also an honor to join forces with EducatedChild, an organization led by a woman who is an amazing role model — a woman who hasshown such relentless dedication to getting every child in school. This is such an exciting day for us becauseit marks the beginning of a new era in my home country Colombia. Most of you may know me as an artist, as anentertainer, and that's indeed my calling and what I've been doing since I was 13 yearsold, but I never would have imagined when I started out that my work as an artist wouldend up being the vehicle for me to serve my greater purpose in life of working towardseradicating poverty through the power of Education. As a Colombian citizen inequality as a conceptthat sadly one becomes very familiar with at a very young age. It's a country like many others in Latin Americawhere a few have a lot; a lot have almost nothing and where if you're born poor, youwill almost certainly die poor. Where people don't access equal opportunities,and because of that generation after generation, after generation live trapped in the samevicious cycle fed by prejudice and inaction. Growing up in my country when I was aroundeight years old, I remember I saw kids my age who, instead of being in school were alreadyworking in the streets, were barefoot in the park. Kids like me whose reality was completelydifferent than mine only because of the circumstances into which they were born. It was really hard for me to accept that toaccept that something so unjust didn't have a solution. There had to be something that could be done. So I often asked myself why the adults, aroundme were so resigned to the fact that these kids who were just like me or even their ownchildren we're living in a parallel reality so different and so cruel. As Kofi Annan put it, poverty is intolerablein a world of plenty, so as soon as I had some success, the first thing I wanted todo was to invest as many resources I could into what later would become the most meaningfulproject of my life, working for children. So I set out to find a team, a team of peoplewho dream big and worked hard and thought like me to help me right the wrongs that Ihad witnessed throughout my entire childhood, and that's when our foundation The BarefootFoundation, ‘Pies Descalzos Fundacion’ was born. I knew, and I was only 18 years old then,but I knew that I wanted to focus on children and improving their lives, but I didn't knowwhere to start. So, I really felt that I needed to learn whatthe roots of inequality and low social mobility were. So, I decided to study the reasons why childrenwere working in the streets or why some children were being recruited by the violent organizations,like the paramilitary or the guerrillas, why were so many children suffering from chronicmalnutrition and I realized that most of the issues that children face in my country hadand have a common denominator; the lack of access to quality education. To me, it became crystal clear that Educationwas a surest way to give all these kids the best fighting chance of improving their circumstancesin life because Education is the great equalizer. When I started building schools in Colombia,which shows the most remote areas, areas where there was literally nothing, no infrastructure,no paved roads, no electricity, no potable water, and we decided to build in those placesbut not only build schools but state-of-the-art schools. Schools with comprehensive models that includedECD programs, school feeding programs, parent and teacher training, and another very importantpart is we've decided to engage the government as a strategic partner and made it nearlyimpossible for them to say no to doing their part by showing them results through our holisticmodel that really proved to work. We noticed that as soon as a school is builtin those places, everything is transformed. The improvements to the infrastructure werejaw-dropping electricity, and potable water were made available, made accessible. Roads were paved, malnutrition plummeted,but the best part of all is the academic results, the kids really responded academically, andnow those kids who could have been recruited by the guerrillas or paramilitaries or thatcould have had a completely different outcomes for their lives, they're now on their wayto the University and thriving in their communities. Some of them are athletes; some of them areprofessionals. That's why… I'm so…It really is a thrill to work forEducation that's why I'm so passionate about it because I've really seen results that areas palpable as this podium and seeing all these success stories that have a name anda last name has been the one of the most rewarding things I've done in my lifetime even moreso than winning Grammys, I think. Now that said, our work is far from beingdone, many developing countries are still rife with inequality and internal conflict,and there are a lot of kids who still need to be reached. History is not only the past. History it's made every day in the present,and what matters now is how we go forward and how we'll fix what's wrong, and that isthe real challenge. This is the goal of the SDGs and what peoplelike Her Highness and myself, and so many more of you who are adamant about achievingare here for. Facts don't lie, and numbers show what anincredible return on investment a quality education provides. For instance, if all students in low-incomecountries left primary school with basic reading skills, a hundred and seventy-one millionpeople could be lifted out of poverty. Systemic change often begins from the bottomup rather than the top down. The government must take responsibility, andwe should all put as much pressure as we possibly can, but the rest of all the civil societyshould also do their part. What we have discovered both here IPS discussand educated child is that many times only one single barrier to entry, such as no accessto transportation or basic needs like a functioning bathroom, can prevent a kid from attendingschool or even put them at risk of dropping out. Sometimes all it takes to change a child'slife is the security of a hot meal in school or the ease of being able to hop on a busthat will leave you safely at your classroom door, it's as simple as that, and these aresimple interventions, and they don't cost a lot. The biggest effort really is in mapping thecommunities; in going door-to-door searching for the out of school children talking tothe parents talking to their families, giving a name and putting a story behind these childrenis the first step to start rewriting their story. Over the next three years, we pledge to getfifty-four thousand kids who are out of school or at risk of drop out into the educationalsystem. Ultimately, more than two hundred ninety-fivethousand people will benefit from this project, including children, teachers, families, andcommunity members. New schools and classrooms will be built,school kits and uniforms will be distributed; children will be enrolled in school, feeding,and transportation programs. Teachers will be trained in strategies andhow to identify those students who are at risk so they can receive psycho-social support,and we are extremely confident that this partnership is only the beginning and will be the modelto replicate throughout my country until not a single child is out of school. This is our responsibility...Thank you...Thisis our responsibility to our children and our debt to fulfill for the generations tocome. Thank you very much.