By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

The ‘1 in 11’ campaign, launched in tandem by FC Barcelona Foundation, Reach Out To Asia (Rota) and Unicef is a long-term partnership that will harness the power of sport and play within education to support the common goal of helping millions of children fulfill their potential through quality education.
To begin with, the campaign will focus on three countries of Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh. The campaign also plans to extend the facilities to other countries at a later stage.
Lionel Messi, FCB player, Unicef goodwill ambassador and president of the Leo Messi Foundation, and Serena Williams, Unicef goodwill ambassador, are supporting the ‘1 in 11’ campaign.
World-famous artists Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst have created works especially for the auction. Murakami also designed the campaign logo. Artists including Cai Guo Qiang, Dia Azzawi, El Seed, Etel Adnan, Francesco Vezzoli, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, Luc Tuymans, Manal al-Dowayan, Marc Newson, Richard Serra, Shirin Neshat, Wael Shawky, Yan Pei-Ming and Yousef Ahmad have donated their works for the auction to raise funds.
Currently, 1 in 11 children across the globe are out of school – 58mn out of 650mn primary school-aged children. And there are many more boys and girls – 250mn – who either drop out of school, or aren’t receiving the quality of education that will equip them for life.
The majority of them are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable: children living in areas affected by conflict; children in extreme poverty; children with disabilities and children from indigenous communities.
In many schools, sports programming does not exist, even though studies have shown that including sports in school curricula can inspire children to attend and stay in school, lead to better physical health, and help improve their grades.