Education Above All (EAA): Calling Attendance

With fear that most schools in Afghanistan could be closed after the Taliban swept to power last month, Education Above All (EAA), a global foundation protecting the right of children and youth to quality education, is launching a new campaign to highlight the deliberate attacks on children’s education around the world. The campaign, created by global creative agency Across the Pond, is being launched on 9th September to coincide with the UN’s annual International Day to Protect Education from Attack, to draw attention to the plight of more than 75 million three-to-18-year-olds living in 35 crisis-affected countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, the Philippines, Sudan and Ukraine, and their urgent need for educational support. The campaign launches with a powerful, heart-rending film named ‘Calling Attendance’, which shows a school teacher calling out names from the register. As she calls out each name, the children answer “here” - but not from the classroom. Instead, we see them answering from their own stark realities: a child soldier polishing weapons rather than studying, a refugee fleeing conflict with just the clothes on her back, a traumatised young boy in a bomb-damaged ruin as war rages around him, and scared young girls facing sexual assault and kidnapping. The beautifully shot but unflinching film aims to illustrate that when children are not in school they are often somewhere much worse. The film will be streamed live as part of a virtual event organized by EAA in partnership with UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Office of the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on the UN’s annual International Day to Protect Education From Attack on 9th September.