News

The upcoming ADRA’s Education Summit will take place on April 20, 2021. It aims to provide a platform for an international and cross-cultural dialogue, where people from different parts of the world and diverse communities can contribute to a broad vision for the achievement of educational excellence and equity for all children and youth.

“ADRA Europe is organizing this event as part of the global Advocacy Campaign, "’Every child. Everywhere. In school.’" As many are aware, we were able to collect more than 1.,3 million signatures in our petition. ADRA also prepared a Global Education Report with the situation of out-of-school children in the world. As a follow-up, we are organizing this event to increase our influence and partnership with other actors,” said Joao Martins, ADRA Europe director.

ADRA’s Education Summit will bring together experts in education, social innovators, investors in education, decision-makers, people from faith-based organizations (FBOs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs).

Themes and issues the summit Summit will address (two thematic pillars) will be Inclusion in Education and Education during Emergencies (including pandemic).

Context

At the most fundamental level, the world has still not achieved the commitment made by the world’s governments to provide access to education for all children. While there has been remarkable progress worldwide in giving millions of children, including girls, access to primary education, millions of children never receive any schooling, primarily girls and children, in conflict zones.

Discussions also focus also on the role of nongovernmental schools and organizations. Historically, communities of faith have played an important role in social welfare and education. For decades, donors’ engagement with religions and faith-based communities had not been an issue in the western development sphere. In the past years, the role of faith communities in development has come to be taken into account more and more. A major part of development aid is directed to regions in which religion is an important part of social life, and, sometimes, religious leaders are the only way to reach local communities. In some of those regions, half of all aid and education services are provided by faith-based organizations, and so the international community, therefore, should consider the work of FBOs on the ground, especially in the light of localization and equal partnerships, which are high on EU agenda.

ADRA’s Education Summit will develop a document with practical and innovative solutions toward more inclusive and equitable education for all children.

About ADRA

ADRA is the global humanitarian arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church—part of the 20-million strong Adventist community, with hundreds of thousands of churches globally and the world’s largest integrated healthcare and education network.

ADRA delivers relief and development assistance to individuals in more than 118 countries—regardless of their ethnicity, political affiliation, gender, or religious association.

By partnering with local communities, organizations, and governments, ADRA is able to deliver culturally relevant programs and build local capability for sustainable change.

To learn more, go here (ADRA International) and here (ADRA Europe).