According to UNICEF, close to one billion people are functionally illiterate, that's one-sixth of humanity. Facts like these can be found on UNICEF's website and helped persuade KLM to select the UN body as its first AirCares partner.
KLM joined Northwest Airlines on November 1, 1999 in the AirCares programme that has so far raised some $ 4 million for charitable causes worldwide, since it was launched in 1992. Each quarter AirCares focuses international attention on a new nonprofit charitable organisation.
Besides supporting this charity themselves, KLM and Northwest invite companies and passengers on KLM and Northwest flights to contribute with an onboard public awareness and fund-raising campaign providing the passengers with information on the mission of the current project, according to KLM. The passengers are offered an opportunity to donate Flying Dutchman points or money to the AirCares charity featured at that moment. AirCares focuses on charitable organisations which:
do not discriminate on the basis of gender, religion, race, politics or nationality in their membershipUNICEF's remit covers all aspects of what it should mean to be a child. When it was founded in 1946, the organisation's mission statement was `to advocate and work for the protection of children's rights, to help the young meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential'. It underlines that mandate today.
Working with other UN bodies, governments and non-governmental organisations in 161 countries and territories, UNICEF lightens children's loads through community-based services in primary health care, basic education and safe water and sanitation in developing countries.
Alongside basic necessities, they are also talking freedom to play, access to stimulation and education, things most westerners take for granted.
That's one of the reasons why, out of all the projects covered by UNICEF (which range from tackling child labor, turning around the devastating impact on children of HIV/AIDS and ensuring safe motherhood), KLM has chosen to support those projects which focus on education.
It is, after all, an investment in the future. And it's not just a matter of educating children, says the airline's website. Many parents in third-world countries see no reason why their children especially daughters should go to school; UNICEF educates them too.
Money is also spent on school buildings, educational material and teacher training. India operates many such projects. Many Indian children have to survive on the streets from a very early age. Obviously, if children are forced to undertake manual labour to help support their family, or have to fight for mere survival, there's not much chance of them `reaching their full potential.'
UNICEF ensures that as many children as possible are taken out of such child-unfriendly situations both in cities and in rural areas and given a basic education.
Classes are geared as much as possible to children's specific needs, and to encourage unwilling parents to allow their children to partake. UNICEF also provides free meals. Having followed these programs, the children can slip easily into regular primary education. Current estimates are that 130 million children throughout the world do not attend any sort of primary education and that a further 200 million receive relatively poor-quality schooling.
In Accra, 80 per cent of children attending UNICEF's special unit for street kids are unable to read or write. At the center, children don't just learn the 'three Rs' but are taught specialist skills such as woodworking, weaving and electro-technology. They are also given classes in health care, AIDS and hygiene.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.