Co-Founder and Board Director, Abigail Lehman, attended the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in September to represent Photo Start, as we have been granted special consultative status with the United Nations. The Transforming Education Summit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and reinvigorate education, as emphasized by Sec. Gen. Guterres.” Across the globe, nations are entering a new phase of the post-COVID era, facing multiple crises, education being one, and COVID made it worse and unequal. The United Nations summit emphasized the importance of addressing the educational situation as a matter of urgency.
We at Photo Start are incredibly fortunate to be a part of this global conversation about investment in youth. We know it is essential to recognize the learning loss due to COVID-19 and address the increasingly unequal access to learning resources (like digital equipment, laptops, and tablets) that hurt under-resourced communities the most.
“I left this event with a sense of urgency. We must invest. We must act. We must innovate,” says Abby. Nearly 300 million young people across the globe are not involved in any form of employment, education, or training. By giving students a camera and inviting them into a program like Photo Start, we are investing in young people – specifically, those from under-resourced, underinvested, and overlooked communities.
We are deeply committed to closing the educational and employment gaps and the global digital divide that brings an opportunity to those who are digitally literate and leaves behind those who are not.
“What stayed with me the most,” says Abby, “was what a rare moment in time this is…I left this multi-day event feeling energized, activated, and ready to take our message to the world.”
“Attending this Summit was an affirmation that we at Photo Start are absolutely on the right track,” Abby comments. “We could not be more honored to be part of this movement to accelerate the investment in education worldwide. Educating young people empowers them to direct and change their future, making a better world for us al
