Malala day, 12 July 2013: London and New York Malala Day was celebrated in London and New York by young campaigners calling on global leaders to make sure that 57 million children around the world go to school. Malala day, 12 July 2013: London and New York

60 young campaigners at the Houses of Parliament In London, 60 young campaigners gathered at the Houses of Parliament to attend a special Malala Day event. While global campaigners were getting ready to attend the world’s first UN Youth Takeover in New York, these young people came up with a bold message from the UK, to add to the global movement calling for change. Photo: Mark Chilvers/GCE UK 60 young campaigners at the Houses of Parliament

“This can’t be taken as another flimsy petition “This can’t be taken as another flimsy petition. The MDG is approaching and we need to take action now. “It’s about time we got our voices heard and eventually we will get 57 million more children the rights and education they deserve.” Read their full messages on the PDF. Photo: Mark Chilvers/GCE UK

Sam and Millie, Young Ambassadors 2013 Our young ambassadors Sam and Millie, travelled to New York to hear Malala in person. Read extracts from Sam and Millie’s blog about their day: The big day is here, Malala Day! Here we are, pictured outside the UN building in New York!

Sam and Millie at the UN youth takeover in New York, 12 July 2013 We took our seats with Annika Erickson Pearson a young campaigner from the Global Campaign for Education US who we had met the previous night, and has the shared goal, as with everyone in the chamber, to get universal primary education by 2015. The room was buzzing! Then, as the room fell silent, dignitaries from the UN entered with the star of the day amongst them, Malala appeared! Everyone leapt to their feet and started cheering and applauding the ‘bravest girl in the world’.

“Malala Day is not my day “Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every girl and every boy who have raised their voice for their rights.” It started by an opening speech by Vuk Jeremic who, to inform world leaders of the importance of education, quoted Nelson Mandela saying ‘Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world’. Then Ban-Ki-Moon followed and reiterated the importance of education and the significance of young people taking over the UN. Next Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, gave a powerful introduction to Malala Yousafzai on this, the occasion of her 16th birthday. ‘You can last 30 days without food, you can last 8 days without water, you can last 8 minutes without air, but you can’t last a second without hope’. There was an explosion of sound to welcome Malala to the microphone. Malala’s speech was truly inspirational and was one of the most moving speeches we have ever heard. This memorable speech brought all 500 young people to their feet in long and spontaneous applause. Malala has given hope to so many, we are sure that this will be a historic turning point to finally reaching the shared goal of education for ALL.

“My ideal teacher was the one I had when I was young.” Gordon Brown MP Next we had a stall in the Youth Fair so that we had our opportunity to explain the Send My Friend to School campaign to all of the other participants at Malala Day. Then there was sudden excitement… ‘a special guest is coming, a special guest is coming’! Mr Gordon Brown MP arrived in the room and was escorted across to an awaiting TV camera for an interview about the day. Then as he was making his move away Sam ran up to him and asked him to take part in our exercise to create an ideal teacher puppet, to which he obliged. He wrote ‘My ideal teacher was the one I had when I was young’.

“Our first appointment with the Deputy UK Ambassador to the UN, Philip Parham.” We had three main talking points from the youth outcomes document that we wanted to address including girls, children with disabilities and the global lack of trained teachers. We discussed the 1.7 million professional teachers needed with him. He said that, like us, he feels that a proportion of the UK’s international aid should be targeted at training more teachers so that the quality of education and learning can rise. Next, we wanted to talk to him about the amount of girls who miss out on an education. We told him of what we had seen in India; sometimes girls miss out because of their culture or due to them being pulled out of school as they are being sexually teased or harassed. Again he was supportive of our cause and explained that the UK government is trying to support 1 million more of the poorest girls in school through the Girls’ Education Challenge. This is an initiative that calls upon national government organisations (NGOs), charities and the private sector to find better ways of ensuring girls receive a quality of education and transform their future. He was keen to say how important the British government was in working towards progress on education. The UK government has reached their commitment of 0.7% of GNI on international aid. This, he thinks has given the UK soft power within the UN to take leadership in achieving the promises made at the Millennium.

We are having an impact! The UK government is now giving more than any other country in aid to education. Sadly, the global picture doesn’t look so good - many countries are giving less than last year and education aid has fallen by £200 million globally. £17 billion a year is needed to get every child in school - about four times as much aid as is currently being given.

So we can’t stop campaigning yet… In the words of Malala Yousafzai: “I speak, not for myself, but for those without voice to be heard… “Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.”

www.sendmyfriend.org This project is funded by the European Union