Shakira: Why Education Is So Important

Shakira and her boyfriend, football star Gerard Pique, get ready to board a plane at the airport on Tuesday (July 14) in Miami, Fla.

The 34-year-old Colombian singer recently penned a piece for the Huffington Post titled “Education for Peace,” where she reflected on attending the Third Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem last month.

“The afternoon of the conference, I visited the Max Rayne Jerusalem School, an inspirational place where half of the student population is Israeli and half Palestinian. Students learn together, across all divides, speaking both Arabic and Hebrew, learning and playing together without difference,” she wrote.

“There is no other investment that has the kind of social multiplier effect that early education has,” she added. “It is an incredible thing to nurture and watch grow and spread. Seeing the students flourish at Max Rayne School – as with visiting the children in my schools in Colombia who are now on their way to college instead of guerilla armies – only reaffirms my conviction that education is the very substance of peace. ”