Artist Takashi Murakami joined the leaders of UNICEF, Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona and the director of the Reach Out To Asia campaign in New York on Friday to launch a joint drive to improve the lives of marginalized children in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal.
The "1 in 11" campaign involves artists and world-famous athletes, including Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi and American tennis pro Serena Williams, to raise global awareness of the fact that 58 million out of 650 million children of primary school age, or 1 in 11 youngsters, are not in classrooms.
"Through my participation in this campaign I have been learning a lot about the actual condition of the children around the world," Murakami said.