CAIRO: The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its implementing partner Catholic Relief Services held a ceremony to celebrate the commencement of the new school year, entitled “Back To School.” Seven thousand school bags including study materials were given to refugee children during the event, held at College de La Salle in Daher. The event entailed various entertainment shows and games for children, in addition to a short speech by heads of hosting agencies: Mohamed Dayri, UNHCR Regional Representative in Cairo and Jason Belanger Catholic Relief Services Country Representative in Egypt. A number of representatives from the Egyptian government, heads of some UN agencies in Egypt, heads of NGOs, in addition to refugee children and their families attended the event. This initiative reflected UNHCR emphasis on the profound importance of education. “Education is a precondition for the exercise of human rights, many of which require a minimum level of education. The right to education can be characterized as an ‘empowerment right' which provides the individual with control over his or her life and the power to interact meaningfully in his or her community. At the international level the right to education has been recognized by several universal and regional instruments,” Dayri said. Dayri emphasized that UNHCR realizes the significance of education and considers it an imperative issue. “The protection role of education has been outlined in the UNHCR Agenda for Protection, namely under Goal 6: Meeting the protection needs of refugee women and refugee children, which, encourages states to accord importance to primary and secondary education for refugees, in recognition that education is an important tool of protection. UNHCR is also paying great importance to using education as an effective strategic tool for the protection of children, whereby it includes education as one of its five global priority issues for girls and boys of concern”, Dayri added. It is worth mentioning that UNHCR, in cooperation with its implementing partner CRS, has, for the past years, continued to provide child persons of its concern with education grants, with a total of some 6,000 children of concern supported with the grant for the school year 2009/2010, and with a total of some 4,000 students of concern having received their UNHCR education grant through CRS so far as at end of September 2010. Dayri thanked the Egyptian government and people for their hospitality despite the difficulties of hosting refugees in urban areas. He also expressed his appreciation to the Donor governments which enables UNHCR and other agencies and NGOs of undertaking their role in providing protection and assistance services to refugees. Dayri extended his appreciation to refugees and asylum seekers themselves for supporting the most vulnerable in their communities. Egypt began chairing UNHCR's Executive Committee as of October 2010 and for a year to come. The Executive Committee is body which approves of UNHCR's programs and budget, as well as provides guidance on refugee protection. Egypt has hence made a great commitment to the cause of refugees in Egypt and world-wide. BM
