We took your message to Oslo – and it worked!

Dear NEVILLE,

It worked!  Last week, we asked you to help get the word out about the #UpForSchool petition, so we could get more than eight million signatures to share with world leaders. And together, we did it!

Your message is handed over to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for you by Hellen Griberg, A World at School Global Youth Ambassador

On Tuesday we took your messages to world leaders attending the Oslo Education Summit.  Your message was heard – in meetings with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in the media, and in an inspiring speech given to the whole Summit by Global Youth Ambassador Hellen Griberg.

Leaders at the Summit heard your outrage that last year only 1% of all humanitarian aid went to education leaving millions of children out of school and at risk due to conflicts and natural disasters. They responded to your message – and made a firm commitment to establish a platform for education in emergencies to urgently address the funding gap and crisis.

The Prime Minister of Norway and Presidents from Malawi, Chile and Indonesia and the UNESCO Director General also called for a new International Commission to look at how to reverse the decline in funding to education, to be chaired by UN Special Envoy Gordon Brown.

And on top of this, the Norwegian Government agreed to double its aid to education, and the European Union committed to increase its humanitarian aid to education, and several other countries pledged new funding to help Syrian refugees go to school.

You can read more about the achievements on A World at School – please share the good news on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere!

This is a crucial first step, the result of increased momentum over the past couple of months, built by campaigners like you standing together in your millions. The hard work starts now to turn commitments into increased funding and access to education. Now we need to make sure world leaders know we’ll be watching – and they must deliver.

As Hellen Griberg, the Global Youth Ambassador who took your message to the summit said:  “This is a civil rights movement led by young people demanding our right to an education.  We need to see urgency and political leadership equal to the scale of this crisis. It’s time for action“.

So – let’s make we keep going so that we have more progress to report at the United Nations General Assembly meetings in September!

Thanks for you support,

Ben, Tyler, Kolleen, James & the A World at School team.

 

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More information:

BBC News: Charities and campaigners call for global education emergency fund: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33409112

A World at School News: Action on education in emergencies and funding announced at Oslo Summit: http://www.aworldatschool.org/news/entry/Global-education-action-announced-at-oslo-summit-2108

Young people demand education, A World at School’s Hellen tells Oslo summit
http://www.aworldatschool.org/news/entry/Young-people-demand-education-Oslo-summit-is-told-2105