Why school ? towards quality education for all

At 2 pm on Friday 20th April 2018 the Awards ceremony was held in the magnificent Assembly Hall of the historic Palais des Nations in Geneva. Opening speeches were by Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, by Claudine Dayer Fournet, Head of Sustainable Development at the Department of Public Education, Culture and Sport of the Canton of Geneva, and by Martine Brunschwig Graf, President of the Eduki Foundation. The ceremony was animated by Laure Bacchiocchi and Thibaud Mabut, students of the College de Saussure in Geneva, who brought dynamism and a touch of humor to the event. The screening of a video prepared by students from the Espace Entreprise and two musical performances by students from Renens (Vaud) and Winterthur (Zürich) all testified to the place the young people held during this year’s ceremony.

Models, comics, board games, t-shirts, awareness-raising videos, radio programs, projects for concrete actions: the 18 winning projects in three categories (artistic, media and concrete action) distinguished themselves by their originality, creativity and by the commitment of young people towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Martine Brunschwig Graf, President of the Eduki Foundation, pointed this out by addressing the students during the ceremony “Education is a precious asset. […] Your work shows that you have thought about this and that you also understood that education should not be a privilege but a right guaranteed to all.”

It should also be noted that this year, a special “Human Rights” prize was awarded by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as part of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The project “Once upon a School” by the HPI Group of Lossy (Fribourg) was awarded for the idea of creating a collaborative board game.