School in Warwick backs worldwide education campaign

The youngsters at All Saints’ Junior School are stepping into the shoes of world leaders to tell them what needs to be done to get the remaining 58 million children worldwide into primary school as part of this year’s Send My Friends to School campaign, which is expected to involve about half a million young people.

World leaders will gather in New York in Septemberto decide how to tackle global poverty over the next 15 years. The Send My Friend to School campaign is this year asking young people to step into the shoes of world leaders and tell their local MPs how they would deliver a better future for the world’s children.

In 2000 world leaders promised universal primary education by 2015, but 58 million children are still out of school. At the current rate of progress it will be 2086 before every child gets an education.

Mrs Sutherland at All Saints’ School said: “The whole school has been learning about the barriers to education for millions of children in the developing world. It’s been fantastic to see how much they’ve enjoyed stepping into the shoes of world leaders and trying to make a difference for children that don’t have the opportunities they have.

“They have now created 3D figures of themselves as world leaders and have covered them with ‘If I were a world leader...’ messages to tell politicians what needs to be done to get education for every single child worldwide. Every child has also written a persuasive letter to Chris White MP asking him to take action.”

Mr White visited the school to answer questions from the children about the campaign and he was presented with all the letters to deliver to No 10 Downing Street.