EAA Youth Series: Hana Elshehaby
My passion for advocacy, particularly education advocacy, stemmed from my experience with the ‘Future is Female’ (FIF) club at Georgetown. Through FIF, I realised that education was instrumental to uplifting not only women; but, societies as a whole. It was that realisation that then led me to exploring education on a comprehensive level. I was stunned to find that millions of children were denied access to education. Most unsettling was the lack of urgency towards the issue of access to education by the global community. I had then realised that I needed to capitalise on all possible channels to increase awareness around the issue of access to education and to induce change myself through all possible means.
Advocacy became the tool that allowed me to engage with the issue on multiple fronts.
On the one hand, I was able to raise awareness on the pertinent issue of securing the right to access education across various spaces. On the other hand, I was also able to educate myself on the various barriers that exist between out of school children and access to education. Through Education Above All's Youth Advocacy Program, I realised that to redress the issue, we first needed to understand the various manifestations of the problem. Once we understand the different barriers, only then are we able to work towards creating sustainable solutions. Raising awareness is vital to ensuring that the issue of securing access to education is provided the urgency and attention necessary to adopt solutions.
When approaching the question of sustainable solutions, I think it's important to highlight the stake every individual group holds in working towards securing the right to access education. Accordingly, to maximise efficiency and impact, each respective group should be accounted for individually. By understanding the diverse nature of the issues surrounding any given group, we're able to introduce solutions that would redress issues on multiple levels-- solidifying the solutions’ sustainability.
While it is true that bridging between out of school children and education requires the joint efforts of actors on multiple levels, one group that holds distinctive importance is the youth. The youth are not only the group most affected by the issues plaguing contemporary society, they are also the group with the largest capacity for instigating change. As a member of the youth, I believe that we all need to take a firm stand on identifying access to education as a non-negotiable universal right.
