Royalty in the News

Jordan’s Queen Rania is in South Africa, promoting education as an UNICEF ambassador. She went to the country’s infamous Soweto township, and to its Phefeni Secondary School.

Upon the Queen’s arrival at the school, a lively celebration was held in her honor, who joined local women and children eager to demonstrate a few steps of their wonderfully empowering dance.

In her role as UNICEF’s Eminent Advocate for Children, Rania then met with UN representatives and school teachers who explained how ambitious educational programs promote girls’ empowerment by tackling three inter-related threats to girls’ education: gender inequality, and violence in schools.

Over the course of her South African visit, Rania also met with anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel.

Queen Rania has been an outspoken advocate of women’s and children’s rights. As honorary chair of the Global Action Week on Education she led a Big Read on Friday for children at a library in Johannesburg.

South Africa’s education system is still struggling to overcome inequalities entrenched during apartheid.

An international reading literacy study in 2007 placed South African schoolchildren aged 11-12 last out of 40 countries when it came to basic reading skills.