1-Goal Education for All is a large-scale campaign launched by FIFA with the objective of providing education for all children, with particularly focus on children living in poverty. This is in line with the pledge that world leaders, together with the leaders of major development institutions, made in 2000 to educate all children on earth by 2015.
The Goal
As of the latest statistical count, around 67 million children all over the world are denied the chance to learn in the classroom. Thanks to the worldwide pledge to reduce this number, 40 million children have been sent to school since 2000. By providing children with education, they are given tools that they can use to help themselves out of poverty. It is believed that a single year of primary school can increase the wage of a person later in life by about 5 to 15 percent for boys, and that a single year of secondary school can increase a person’
1-Goal is FIFA’s part in the campaign. It was launched when FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter took the pledge in behalf of the organization to become part of the major global initiative known as ‘Class of 2015’. 1-Goal’s role is to encourage people to support the said initiative so that the governments involved will hold to their promise of helping send each child to the classroom within three years.
FIFA’s Social Arm: A Focus on Education
Aside from the 1-Goal campaign, education reverberates strongly within FIFA, with it being the central focus of the official campaign ’20 Centres for 2010’, which was conducted during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Although the main objective of ‘20 Centres for 2010’ was to build 20 Football for Hope community centres all over Africa, it is considered as a step towards providing education as the centres may be used as space for providing informal education to disadvantaged children.
In 2011, 1-Goal focused on women’s and girls’ education, recognizing the fact that in the last decade, 53% of girls still remain out of the classroom. It was found that when school fees force parents to choose whom to send to school, daughters usually lose to sons. 1-Goal also helps to address other challenges such as making schools safer for girls and helping more women to become qualified teachers so they can provide the necessary support for female students.
1 -Goal was launched at the Wembley Stadium in London in 2009; the launching ceremony was attended by Queen Rania of Jordan, former England team member Gary Lineker, captain of South Africa’s national football team Aaron Mokoena, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at FIFA Federico Addiechi, and Arsenal defender Mikael Silvestre, to name a few.
