Last month, A World At School launched a global petition for education with the goal of giving a single loud message to world leaders that we must ensure all children are in school and learning. With 20,000 signatures and growing, the petition is intended to make sure governments know that education is their citizens' number one priority. During the September launch event and youth rally, young leaders weren’t shy to ask world leaders tough questions about their commitment to education and delivering real action.
Youth demand commitments from world leaders and business executives
Question by Munira from Somalia to Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education.
"You speak with the UN Secretary-General and meet presidents and prime ministers who have millions out-of-school children in their countries. We demand action – what will you do to take these messages to leaders?"
“You are absolutely right. In one year, with millions of signatures, with you forcing the pace, we want not just you “Up For School”, we want the 58 million children who are not in school to be “Up For School”. I say to you, child labor no more, child trafficking no more, child slavery no more, discrimination against girls no more, child marriage no more.
Let us over the next year get the message across to every world leader in every country, that we are determined that every single child in this world will have a chance to get their basic right, which is a right to go to school. We have meetings like this and after people speak they turn to each other and say ‘great speech.’ In ancient Greece when they had meetings after the speech they said ‘lets march.’ Let us march so that every child is in school! That is our job over the next year to raise the roof of the world with not only the petition but also the action we take. There is nothing they can do to stop us. We are going to succeed.”
Question by Sumaya from India to Mrs. Graça Machel
"You have been a liberation fighter, education minister and exceptional advocate for women and children’s rights. Our schools and communities are under attack. What should we be doing to protect girls and children generally from the violence that we are seeing against them in school as we launch this global campaign?"
“Together with the fact that I am a voice globally for education, I have been dedicating most of my time in the past few years to community work. I think the best place for us to protect schools from attack is in the community. We have to work very seriously with headmasters, with teachers, but more importantly bring into the school the parents, parents’ associations, community leaders – including the local government institutions – to embrace schools and to protect schools. They know that is the best place they can help their children to learn, to strive and to build their personalities. So my commitment is to work at the community level to strengthen the relationship between the schools and the communities.”
Question by Andres from Brazil to Peter Vesterbacka of Angry Birds
"You reach millions of people each day all over the world with Angry Birds. Can the game be used as a tool for public education in our campaign? What can you do to help us mobilize people for the #UpForSchool petition and what can you do to support global education?"
“We have actually managed to get over 2 billion copies of our game out there. Angry Birds is the most distributed piece of entertainment content ever. We figured, if you can get billions of games out there, how difficult can it be to transform education globally? People look at us and say “hey, its just a game” , but actually what I think is very important here is that I am super excited about what I see because you can do anything if you believe you can.
Back when we launched Angry Birds I told people we were going to have a 100 million downloads. And people told me I was crazy, that's impossible, only Tetris has been able to do that and it took them 20 years. We got to 100 million with Angry Birds in 15 months. I’ve been asked many times how I made this success happen, and I say it’s very easy. I’m sure Gordon remembers one of our first meetings. I was listening to all this discussion about getting the 58 million kids to school but to me that doesn’t even sounds like a big number, how difficult can it be? We just need to believe that we can. And we will make sure that we reach tens of millions of people every single day with Angry Birds and ask them to make education for all.”
Question by Abigail from Zambia to Hadiza Bala Usman
"You started “Bring Back Our Girls”. And we join you in demanding action. We will continue to fight next to you – but we must join up to make this a global plea. Will you join us to not only bring back the girls of Chibok, but to educate all girls and make schools safe for all children?"
“The fact that I am here today means that I am “Up For School”. I am doing everything I can to discuss education and ensure that every child goes to school. For us, the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign is beyond girl child education, it is about all education. We felt that the girls being abducted on their way to school and when they were writing an exam is a symbol that people should realize that kids should be protected in school.
Education is what changes a community so we should all stand together and demand that the girls are rescued and demand that education is protected, demand that our schools are safe. The safe school initiative that has been started is such a laudable initiative that is desperately needed in our community. I will sustain every commitment that “Up for School” stands for and I am standing “Up For School”. “
Question by Cheryl from Canada to Ricken Patel, Founding President and Executive Director Avaaz
"Your members voted this year that education is a number one priority. But we have not seen a petition for education yet this year. We want to combine online and offline petitions to make the #UpForSchool petition the world’s largest. Will Avaaz listen to its members and join us in making education its number one priority? How many signatures can you get for education?"
“Every great transformation we have seen in society has been driven by movements out on the street. There is a huge gap between the need that we have to get every child in school and the action that our governments are willing to take to put them there. To close that gap we need a movement. In this room, I se a game changer. We have also found that movements have roots in people. We have raised over one million dollars in a challenge grant --which your movement has helped to multiply from governmental commitments-- to get kids in school in Lebanon. We have also had millions of people stand with Malala behind education policy in Pakistan.
This is the beginning and where we want to go next is to get 100% behind this petition. I pledge that we can deliver 2 million signatures from our community to get started. What is beautiful about education is it brings people from all these different countries together. It has a deep value system. Being “Up for School” means being up for people. It says that every human being is of equal worth no matter what passport we carry. We each deserve a future and we each deserve an opportunity.”
Question by Emmanuel from Sierra Leone to Isha Sesay, Journalist
"Millions of people watch you every day. You covered #BringBackOurGirls and countless injustices against youth seeking an education. It’s a great first step but what else can be done to get the word out that this is a global issue – what will you do to support us to put education in the headlines?"
“I work for CNN International, which is seen in 200 countries and territories around the world. To pick up on what Ricken said, there is that gap between what needs to be done to get these children in school and the action. That's where someone like myself comes in - in terms of using a powerful vehicle like CNN to magnify your voices, to amplify your voices, so people understand this is not just an individual concern, but it is all of our concern. We need to get these kids into school because if you say you are committed to a better world, then you need to take your place in this movement. I am putting this on my front burner as a journalist at CNN to get this story out, to tell the stories of what happens to communities when children aren’t in school and to share the stories of the transformative power of education. People need to understand, feel and really connect to the story. I will use my position at CNN to do that. But one step further, I have set up my own organization called Women Everywhere Can Lead to get more girls into school, to keep them in school and to empower them to become leaders.
Question by David from the United Kingdom: UN Special Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi
"Schools are bombed and children are being kidnapped. This is happening today, right now. You represent us youth at the United Nations and we want our demands to be met now, rather than post-2015. So what can you do to amplify our voices before 2015 and make sure the entire United Nations system stands up for education and puts every child in school?"
“The time is not the post-2015 development agenda or 15 years from now. The time is now and the future is now actually. Do you know the famous movie “Back to the Future”? Do you know what the future was back then? It was October 21st, 2015. In that movie, the future seemed so far away back then. But the future is next year. We are the future and nobody can wait anymore. This is about making bigger dreams. 58 million children are still out of school, 75 million young people out of school, not in training, not given job opportunities, 1.5 billion live in conflict zones or fragile situations, 70% of them are young people. I dream of a day where gender inequality does not exist anymore, extreme poverty will not exist, and the fact that for a child not going to school is something out of the question.
Many of the problems that we have in our world today should be in a museum. If you want to see extreme poverty in a world that is full of resources, you should have to go to a museum. We should not accept that this exists anymore. I am from the Arab region. In the 20th century the Arabs had it all. They developed economies, built bridges, roads, hotels, everything. Every time I go to my region and meet Arabs I ask them, do you know what you have today? The only resource you have is the fact that 70% of your population is under 30 years old. But if you don't invest today in young people the coast will not be clear and the past three years have shown the cost of youth exclusion. What we can do today is take this petition and demand that we will be heard. The deadline we have is a year from now when we will go to the United Nations and face world leaders and tell them the time is now, not 15 years from now.”
Question by Luiz from Brazil to Ms. Baela Jamil
"Pakistan has the second-highest number of children out-of-school – what will you do to help us get all Pakistani children into school and learning? How will you mobilize people for the #UpForSchool petition?"
In Pakistan, for the past five years we have been running the largest survey, called ASER, on learning levels of children. 10,000 volunteers are going to 140 districts and 600 households per district and as many schools. They will also be going there to get the “Up for School” petition signed. We will not just go through the youth of Pakistan, but also teacher unions who have pledged to give commitments.
I’d like to also tell you that today as we launch this, we’ve had in Pakistan another launch of not just “Up for School” but also of 500 Pakistan education youth ambassadors. They are going to be powerhouses of energy, not just working for the “Up for School” petition, but also to mobilize people so that those remaining 5.4 million Pakistani children, a majority of them girls, are enrolled in school. I hope that we will be able to walk the talk. I have much more conviction in the youth than in the people who make policies and we want them to be able to walk the talk.”