UK youth call on their Parliament to fund GPE

Young people in the UK delivered a message to Parliament to send their friends to school, referring to the more than 260 million children who do not have access to education worldwide. The campaign asked the UK to fund GPE to help it reach these children.

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4 minutes read
Send my Friend to School campaigners pose with their puzzle pieces in front of the Parliament in London. Credit: SFS
Send my Friend to School campaigners pose with their puzzle pieces in front of the Parliament in London.
Credit: Send my Friend to School/Tom Maguire

Yesterday 18 young people from all corners of the UK travelled to the Houses of Parliament in London. Why? We had a very special mission – representing the 300,000 UK young people who have taken part in the Send My Friend to School campaign calling on the UK government to pledge US$500 million in the Global Partnership for Education replenishment.

We are the Send My Friend to School Campaign champions and since the beginning of the year we have been campaigning to find the #MissingPiece. We have found that world leaders have promised every child in the world a quality education but a key piece of the puzzle is not in place – the money to pay for this education. This leaves the global picture with 263 million children missing out on school and many more in school but not learning.

Young people stand with their signs in front of the UK Prime Minister's residence

Young people stand with their signs in front of the UK Prime Minister's residence

Photo Credit: Send my Friend to School/Tom Maguire

We knew we had to act to change this. To get the attention of our local members of Parliament (MP), thousands of us across the country have been creating paper puzzle-piece messages, to represent that financing is the missing piece of the education puzzle. And yesterday we took the message to Parliament – meeting with our constituency MPs, parliamentarians and ministers. We created a scrapbook of all our activities and handed it to Alistair Burt (DFID Minister), Priti Patel (Secretary of State for International Development) and Theresa May (Prime Minister).

Treeve White, Campaign Champion, said:

Today we have campaigned and convinced Parliamentarians to work towards a brighter future in education. We are one step closer to achieving our goal.

Lucy Holloway, Campaign Champion, said:

I feel we have made a huge impact in Parliament. We spoke to several MPs, questioning and speaking to those who can make a change. I feel confident our goal can and will be achieved through so much of the campaigning being done by everyone all over the country. It has been an experience i will never forget because we have made a difference to help children around the world who are unfortunately not in school.

We hope that the UK government will listen to our call and invest US$500 million in the Global Partnership for Education to play their part in ensuring that every child across the world gets a quality education.

To find out more please see the Send My Friend policy report: ‘The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: Financing a Learning Generation’  or visit the website: www.sendmyfriend.org

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