With the 2030 Agenda adopted in 2015, the international community under the umbrella of the United Nations has committed itself to 17 global goals for a better future.

The guiding principle of the 2030 Agenda is to enable people everywhere to live in dignity, while sustainably preserving the natural foundations of life. This encompasses economic, ecological and social aspects. The 2030 Agenda emphasizes the shared responsibility of all actors: politics, business, science, civil society – and every individual.

The Werner Erkes Foundation has set itself the goal of promoting the sustainability goal of HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION with its initiative. While most children and young people in Germany go to school every week, around one in six children worldwide cannot attend school. For the children concerned, this means that they have little knowledge and often learn neither reading nor writing nor arithmetic. As a result, they can only do a low-skilled job later on and often earn very little money.

Children living in poverty in particular are unable to attend school because they lack the money for tuition and school supplies. These children start working early to support their family. Sometimes there is no school nearby at all.

This makes it difficult for them to escape poverty. They lack important qualifications and skills. The low level of education of a population is not only a problem for the people concerned, but also for the country as a whole. If a country does not have educated and qualified specialists, it can hardly develop further and grow economically in the long term on its own.

Even if many children are able to go to school, more than half of them still cannot read and write properly. This is often because the schools and teachers are poorly equipped. While schools in Germany are increasingly using computers and technology, almost half of the schools south of the Sahara have no access to drinking water, no electricity, no computers and no internet. In addition, there is a lack of qualified teachers to effectively impart knowledge to the students.