One of the big issues that we’re engaging more and more with at ActionAid Australia is Education. I hate quoting numbers all the time as I think it can sometimes dehumanise a problem that impacts on people and their families. However sometimes these numbers are so horrific they have to be put out there to give us an understanding of how widespread a crisis is.
Some 77 million children are denied an education today. Although active campaigning from organisations such as ActionAid has helped drop this number from 100 million in 2000, it is still an unacceptably high figure. This is even worse for girls – as more girls than boys don’t attend school.
An education is often a ticket to a job and an income, and in poor countries an education can mean the difference between life and death. Official figures claim that over 780 million adults, most of them women, cannot read or write, though the true figure is probably well over one billion. The links between illiteracy and poverty are proven and strong.
To help with our increasing engagement on Education we have been getting the 1 GOAL: Education For All Campaign (which is an initiative of the Global Campaign for Education) going in Australia. Back in October last year the 1 GOAL team held a launch in Australia where Socceroo Vinnie Grella, Matilda Sarah Walsh, the Minister for Sport Kate Ellis MP, Football Australia’s CEO Ben Buckley and a number of NGOs launched 1GOAL:Education for All in Australia. This was accompanied by a video message from the PM announcing his support for 1 GOAL and Kevin Rudd’s voice was added to other world leaders such as President Lula from Brazil and the UK’s Gordon Brown. This is in addition to celebrity figures such as Bono and of course the footballers themselves who are the drive behind 1 GOAL and their numbers include Rio Ferdinand, Thierry Henry, Robinho and Zinedine Zidane.
So fast forward 6 months and we are within 3 months of the World Cup in South Africa and 1GOAL is gearing up. Just two weeks ago the 1 GOAL’ers were out in force at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane for Australia’s Asian Cup qualifier with Indonesia. Thousands of 1 GOAL flyers were handed out and there was a fantastic video on 1 GOAL aired on the big screen.
This weekend the 1GOAL’ers are down in Melbourne for the sell out Grand Final between Melbourne and Sydney (as a Melbourne Boy I think the Victory is a good thing by the way!) We also have some exciting news as Australia’s star striker Tim Cahill has joined 1 GOAL and is the star performer in the 1 GOAL video that will air during the game.
1GOAL enables people to hold their government to account for their promises to achieve justice for the poor. It was only 10 years ago when 164 world governments came together to create the UN Millennium Development Goals. Two of the eight goals involve ending poverty through providing education for all:
• To ensure that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015.
• To ensure that girls have the opportunity for education at all levels by 2015.
World leaders promised to make sure there was enough money and that the policies were in place to make it a reality. Since then many countries have abolished school fees, spending was increased by $4 billion and an extra 40 million children are now going to school. However this is only a good start and much more needs to be done.
The campaign goes into overdrive on 20 April 2010 and will run until the end of the World Cup final on July 11th. So all we want you to do is to add your signature to the petition at www.join1goal.org and demand that world leader’s act to get all children into school and enable illiterate adults to learn to read and write. It’s that simple!
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