According to UNESCO: there are over 154 million children in the world deprived of education due to poverty, slavery, racism, religious extremism, gender discrimination, and geographical isolation. The cost to educate a child in the third world is about $ 1 per month per child. To achieve global literacy, the investment would be $ 8 billion per year for 15 years.

Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority.

But what I really believe is education is a key to pretty much everything - prosperity, economics, peace, stability.

The solution to terrorism is education, not bombs.

If you really want to change a culture... empower women.

Once I started the first school, I realized this is what my life is meant to be, is to promote education and help kids go to school and that's very clear.

Because most of the girls were still in mourning and all of them had lost their textbooks, even pencils and pens, Shaukat Ali began the first classes by reading to them from poetry and religious texts. "Reading, literature, and spirituality are good for the soul," he told them. "So we will start with these studies.