Actress Priyanka Chopra Promotes Refugee Education on Ethiopia Visit

From Voice Of America

Actress Priyanka Chopra is in Ethiopia to promote access to education for refugee children.

Chopra is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations children’s agency. She spoke with The Associated Press after visiting a school for refugees from neighboring Sudan.

She says “if we don’t care about these children, I feel that they will be extremely vulnerable to extremism and violence.”

The Bambusi camp’s primary school director, Yetinayet Girma, told Chopra they have shortages of teachers, classrooms and textbooks for over 6,000 students.

UNICEF says Ethiopia has 906,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers mainly from neighboring South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia.

Chopra calls that “incredible, given that Ethiopia itself is not such a well-to-do country.” She says the world should learn from the government’s commitment to refugee children’s welfare.