Mme Montessori, Mme Pasquier, it’s really a great honour to have been invited to this very impressive gathering. I’ll be honest with you. I had little knowledge of Montessori before coming to this congress and I’ve done some reading before coming, and I’ve also been watching you today. And I was most impressed by a number of things.
First, there’s incredible enthusiasm in this congress, you obviously believe in what you do and that is stronger than anything else, and it is so visible for the external observer and I think you should be very proud of that : you’ve created a true movement.
Second, I‘m also impressed by the fact that we are surrounded here by a large number of young people, meaning to me that the message that you carry, the values that you believe in are going to last and are going to be with you and with us for a long time. Montessori is not a new organisation but certainly is - looking at the people here today - certainly is an organisation with a long future and I want to congratulate you for that, for having created a movement that will last and will have an impact on children of the world.
What I observe when reading about Montessori and when talking to some of you, some very strong element that comes to mind. One is that you DO consider that in the process of education the main actor is the child himself or herself. It’s not the teacher, it’s not the school, it is the child. That is in the centre of the process. It made me think that - as Victoria was saying - that we’ve been, in UNICEF for the last ten years, trying to be the promoter of the concept of the rights of the child and I think that you’ve been the practitioners of it for much more many years. You’ve been the, probably those who have invented the concept that children have rights.(applause) They are object of needs, of social problems (as it appears often in many societies), they are subject of rights, they are persons on their own right. And that rates to a number of values, in the way we are related to the children, that I think is very, very important.
So, I think that we have a natural reason to work together and to be together. I think we believe in the same values, we believe in the same principles. You’d be surprised - because you live in an environment where the rights of the child is something that is very well accepted as natural - you’d be surprised to see how much it is difficult to get that concept across in many parts of this world. How much there is still strong resistance. The idea that children have rights is resisted very strongly by so many people. Many people think that the Rights of the Child are antagonist to the authority of the parents. Some think that the Rights of the Child are some naïve socialist concept - you’ll hear of it, they are very much alive. What I’m trying to tell you is that what you believe in is a struggle and the struggle is not over, and that we need, all of us together, to really together to fight for that concept.
For us in UNICEF we’ve gained today a very strong ally and we’re going to put you to test for that.
Let me then say that this is probably a very opportune occasion. This year is not just any year for UNICEF and hopefully for the children of the world. Many of you will remember that just following the Convention on the Rights of the Child - twelve years ago - the year after, we organised in New York, the First World Summit for Children. It was the first summit of its kind. For the first time in history we had 72 heads of state who came to commit themselves for the future of children. What was interesting in that summit is that - contrary to many of the international congress and conferences - it actually set some measurable goals and targets. And what is even more unusual is that after that summit we started monitoring whether or not the countries and the world community was actually achieving these goals and targets. Another ten years have gone, and this year we are calling the International Committee again in September in New York. First, to have a look at what have we done in the last ten years, for the children of the world; and second, to re-commit ourselves, as world leader, to do better in the ten years to come. We’ve done extensive reviews and surveys - recently over 150 countries have contributed - to sort of assess whether not we have achieved. The picture is gloomy. We’ve done some good things: children are dying “less” than ten years ago, mortality rates have gone down; some diseases are disappearing, or are on the way to disappearing, like polio; nutrition in some parts of the world is better, access to water - so important for the children - is better, but, the analysis also show that, what we had promised the world ten years ago in terms of education, we have not done it. There are still over 113 million children of primary- school age out of school, mostly girls. The quality of education, in general, has not improved. Secondary education is still a far away dream for most women and young women in the world. So we have not done what we had promised to do.
We have not done well, we’ve actually done worse, when it comes to protection of children. We’ve seen in the last ten years more children forced to work before their age, we’ve seen more children victims of war, we’ve seen more children enrolled in armed forces, in militias, forced to kill and maim their brothers and sisters, we’ve seen more children victims of trafficking, child abuse, sexual abuse of all kinds. We’ve not done well in that field. So much more needs to be done.
And what will be interesting in this new summit in September is that the heads of state who will be coming -and we have already 74 confirmed to come - will be in a position to have to admit their accountability, that we haven’t done what we promised to do and to then tell the world, well: we have learnt a lesson at least, but we WILL do better. And among the new agenda, what will be at the very top of the agenda will be EDUCATION. I think - if we have not done well on the ground - we have I think made some progress in making a lot of the leaders of this world understand that education is the absolute total priority, that there is no hope of success in development unless we do better in education. There is no hope of success for peace in the world unless we do better in education. So we certainly hope that this new summit will re- commit and provide a new momentum for doing better for our children.
what will also be different from the previous summit is that, in the last ten years, we have realized that politicians, the governments, are not the only ones who influence the children and their conditions of life, that the world of non governmental organisations has grown - we have already over 3700 NGOs registered to come in September - 3700 from all over the world. But also, we’ve learnt that the private sector today, the multi-nationals, the seniors of these international companies are making decisions that have tremendous impact on the conditions of life of children. We want to bring them in, we want confront them with their responsibilities, with their accountability. They will come. They will be there.
But that’s not enough! And I think the last one you will like: we believe that, as this conference being about and for children, we must have children to come. We must have them to come and tell us what they think is important to them. They’re going to be come ; they’re going to be there. They already participated in some of the preparatory conferences. They will come and we’ll make sure that this is not a token gesture of folklore. We want children to come who have true personal experience and will share it with us and with you and with the rest of the world. It works, we’ve learnt that children can be extraordinarily convincing, YOU know that better than we do. And we have certainly learned from you on that: children are certainly the best actors of their own future and we must give them that freedom and that right. It’s not easy. I tell you, you’d be surprised - because you believe in what you do - you’d surprised to see how many responsible people around the world are not accepting that concept, are saying: “ What? Children in an international conference? No way!” It’s extremely difficult; but we keep pushing and we need allies like you and we count on you for that.
So, here we are. In a year where we believe that something important, something that will have an impact on children, will happen. But that would be another conference and it could easily be just another bunch of papers ending in the drawers at the UNITED NATIONS. How can we make sure it doesn’t?
For that we try in UNICEF to do two things: one is to build on the momentum. The fact that this event will have a lot of visibility, it will generate a lot of, you know, press coverage and media of all sorts, and we want to use that opportunity to create a movement, to launch what we thought of as “The global movement for children”. Where we want to call on all people around the world who have a “stake” in children; children themselves, people like you, NGOs, all the teachers of the world, all the nurses, midwives, all those who have a say for the future of children. Among them parents and families. We need to give them a voice; we need to offer them an opportunity to participate. And we will offer a voice. We will be the last speaker of all these participants, of all these people who want to say: -“The future of humanity is our children”. And there is no way to build a better future if we don’t start by investing in our children, by giving them a voice, by listening to them, by protecting them, by educating them, by giving them appropriate nutrition and health care. All these things that we take for granted, are not.
The 160 countries in which we are working, the relations we have, the network we have with all the partners of the world we want to concentrate, focus on our efforts, our resources, our competence on a limited number of goals that will be achievable and that we hope will also lift the rest of the world to move in the right direction. These five priorities are some of the traditional ones of UNICEF.
- We want to continue to immunise children, it is so important it gives them the first right which is the right to live.
- We want to concentrate, secondly, on early child care and development. You are the experts on that, I don’t have to go on, but we want to make this a UNICEF priority, this is new. We will need your expertise; we will need your support in the countries in which you are working. You will hear from us in the months to come: that’s the price you will pay for having invited me here.
- Our third priority is education but a very special part of education. We want to make a difference in the world for girls’ education. We want all the efforts to concentrate on getting the girls in school, keeping them there and making them to learn something useful for them in the future. Not only because it’s their right and the “right thing to do”, but also because we strongly believe and we have enough evidence on the ground, that when women are educated, the society is different. It is better for their children, it is better for peace, it is better for a better world in future.
- Our fourth priority, is unfortunately a priority that is imposed on us by the circumstances. If we do not do something serious about HIV/AIDS, we are losing control... what is happening, particularly in some parts of Africa, is absolutely scary. We see some societies that are being dissolved from inside. This is an absolute, total, overwhelming priority and we have to do everything possible for it. It does mean better health services, it does mean better education because there is no proper prevention that is not started with education, particularly education of the adolescent. This is a priority that we would have loved not to have but it has come to us. That was not planned in the ‘World summit for children ten years’ ago, nobody knew. But it is here and we have to deal with it.
- And the fifth one, and it has something to do with you and it’s about child protection. We must not tolerate what is happening to children on some parts of the world today. We must not tolerate to see children enrolled in armed forces, children to be forced to kill, children to be abused, to be treated as slaves, to be mistreated in the most unbelievable way. This is happening in front of us. We must stop that. We must stop it by denouncing, by being there on the ground, by educating, educating, and educating. Educating all the parents, the families, the social workers, the responsible people at community level. This is the only way that we can make some progress..
So, we will try to do that in every country we are working in, about 150. Wherever we meet, from now, wherever we meet, in these countries, somebody who says: “I work with Montessori”, we’re going to call them, call them to task. We need your help.
I will end, because I know that you’ve had a long day, and it is difficult to speak to people at the end of a meal, I am coming back to ‘The global movement for children.
We would like to rally the world around ten points. Ten which I like to call the Ten commandments for children. They are what we all need to do, as a minimum commitment, for children. I will read them, because the wording is important.
1/ ‘LEAVE NO CHILD OUT’, that is: do not accept any kind of discrimination. You’d be surprised. Discrimination, racism, is not about adults, it starts with children, it starts with gender discrimination among others, but all kinds of discrimination. Don’t accept it.
2/ ‘PUT CHILDREN FIRST’, that is: in every decision we make (individually, family, community, government, companies) think about the implications for the child and consider that the best interest of the child is to be the overwhelming decision making condition.
3/ ‘CARE FOR EVERY CHILD’ For every child; that means do whatever is necessary to give every child a good start in life. A good start in life means a very simple thing: to be born from a mother who is still alive after you are born, which is not the case unfortunately for so many children, have access to decent nutrition, have access to immunisation, good health-care and love and care from your family.
4/ ‘FIGHT HIV/AIDS.’ I do not have to repeat that.
5/ ‘STOP HARMING AND EXPLOITING CHILDREN.’ Stop. It is happening in every one of our societies, not only ‘somewhere else’, in every one of our communities, it is happening. If we look at it seriously, we will find it. We must stop it.
6/ You will like this one: ‘LISTEN TO CHILDREN’. “Listen to children”, you work it and I understand that it is the base of your philosophy. We must make it the philosophy for everybody. It must not be the privilege of Montessori, it must be everybody’s view.
7/ ‘EDUCATE EVERY CHILD’, no need to comment on that one.
8/ ‘PROTECT CHILDREN FROM WAR’; it is not acceptable what is happening in certain parts of the world; the absolute victimisation of children because of the craziness of their parents
9/ ‘PROTECT YOUR EARTH FOR YOUR CHILDREN’. Think about it, we are making decisions today on our environment that will have no impact on us but will have impact on our children. Let’s think about it.
10/ ‘FIGHT POVERTY.’ The last one and probably the most important and the most difficult one: fight poverty; invest on children. We believe, and I am sure you believe that there is no better way to spend your money than to put it for the future of your children. We wish to educate them, to treat them well, to give them a choice in life, to listen to them and to allow them to grow as decent responsible citizens.
May they build a better world than the one we have.
Thank you very much.
