Photo: Instagram.com
As of November 15, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has officially withdrawn her position as the goodwill ambassador for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) after close to 20 years of working together.
The Qatari royal’s decision has come after Sheikha Moza observed that UNESCO had failed to execute the job of rescuing and providing aid and relief to the suffering children of Gaza amid the current humanitarian crisis. According to Al Jazeera, Her Highness Sheikha Moza revealed the news during a summit that took place in Istanbul on Wednesday.
“When I accepted then Director General Mr Koichiro Matsuura’s invitation to become a UNESCO Special Envoy for Basic and Higher education, I held great respect for the organization,” Her Highness revealed during the summit. “I was profoundly hopeful that together we could change the field of education and protect it. But I was disappointed in the silence from UNESCO while students are targeted, and schools destroyed in Gaza, which does not align with UNESCO and its mandate on any level.”
View this post on Instagram
HH Sheikha Moza joined UNESCO in 2003, and has spent the past two decades using her power and international reach to support global education. In 2012, she founded the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, which aimed to give children better access to quality education in developing countries. In 2017, the royal also launched a global mission, “Educate a Child”, with UNESCO as its Special Ambassador to help impoverished children obtain access to education. At the time, “Educate a Child” was able to help close to 500,000 children out of the 61 million who were deprived of education. Her humanitarian efforts have not been lost on the region, with many now looking forward to her next project.
