Welcome

Thank you for all your support and love! As an artist, I am constantly looking for new challenges and ways to express myself. One way is through my music - another is by giving back and doing what I can to make our world a better place.

I want to share with you an issue that I am very passionate about. I believe that every child should have the right to follow their dreams and get an education. Growing up in Colombia, I saw that education can be a child's way out of poverty and a way to fulfill his or her potential. It is a basic right, but too often poor children are shut out.

Globally, 72 million children don't attend primary school and another 226 million aren't in secondary school. In addition, hundreds of millions of children attend some inadequate version of school but can't access the type of quality education that they really need to succeed...either the teachers don't consistently show up or there aren't enough books or the kids are too hungry to focus on their lessons.

We know how to address this. Governments must abolish school fees, hire more qualified teachers and provide textbooks and meals in schools. Most important, they must decide that a child's poverty is not an excuse - that they will educate all children regardless of what family or neighborhood they are born into. And they must prioritize education funding in their budgets.

All I have to do is close my eyes and I can imagine the faces of the homeless children that lived in my neighborhood when I was a little girl. They had no hope. Many of them sniffed glue or took drugs to forget the hunger and the cold. But I have also seen how education can alter the course of a child's life forever.

It's amazing how much difference each person can make, so I hope you will join me in supporting every child's right to a quality education!

Besos,
Shakira