Letter to the Editor
Sunday, January 3, 2010
In 1984, Bob Geldof assembled a group of British pop stars to sing, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. The song’s purpose was to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia and has become a Christmas classic. In 2010 a new strategy should be used to feed starving people: educationg children.
Being literate and educated is crucial to ending hunger, fighting the spread of infections diseases, and reducing poverty. The UNESCO Institute of Statistics estimates 75 million children are not in primary school now. These children want to be in school, but can’t because there is no local school for them to attend.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should introduce legislation to create a global fund for education to work on fighting illiteracy and ignorance in the same way the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is fighting those infectious diseases.
If we spend money on helping educate children, we will spend far less in soldiers’ lives and taxpayer’s money to stabilize failed states like Afghanistan.
Jim Driggers
Concord
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