(Originally published in The Huffington Post)
Last September, a small group of young campaigners came together to launch the Youth Education Crisis Committee. We stood up with Malala Yousafszai, Ahmad Alhendawi, and Ashwini Angadi to launch a group with a simple mission: to bring the world’s attention to the millions of children around the world left without an education due to conflict — and the importance of investing in a future of Education without Borders. In conflict and in emergencies, young people can lose a lot — the worst of which is hope. We know that only education gives hope for the future and lays the foundation for preventing future crisis.
We resolved to focus first on the plight of the millions of innocent Syria refugee children forced to flee their country — a humanitarian crisis that has been variously described as the worst since the Rwandan Genocide, the Vietnam War; perhaps even World War II.