G8 ‘friends’ launch events on June 16th

G8 ‘friends’ launch events on June 16th

After the resounding success of the Send My Friend to School campaign in April, GCE and ANCEFA member coalitions are aiming to hand over a million cut-out ‘friends’, made by children around the world, to the G8 leaders in Scotland. On or around 16th June, the Day of the African Child and the GCAP Africa’s White Band Day, 12 countries will hold high-profile ‘send-off’ events to launch the ‘friends’ on their journey to take young people’s demands to Scotland.

Campaigners hope these events will attract further media attention and mobilise public opinion in favour of increased G8 aid commitments and debt cancellation, with a particular emphasis on our collective responsibility to make sure every girl and boy in the world can go to school.

Currently only 1 in 2 African children gets even a primary school education and there are 22 million African girls who don’t attend school at all. Please log onto www.sendmyfriend.org before the end of the month, and make an on-line friend to help us reach our target of 1 million friends for the G8. This is a great activity to do with your own children or your child’s class at school to help introduce them to the fight against global poverty and exclusion.

Highlights of national plans for June 16 ‘send-off’ events, which are being supported by UNAIDS among others, include …
Senegal…
Around an international ‘Dakar +5’conference organised by UNESCO, the national education coalition is holding a huge lobby meeting with the President of Senegal on 16 June. At this event all the messages and 'friends' cut outs made during the GCE GAW will be handed over. They plan to involve 500 children and well-known Senegalese celebrities and musicians as well as the media.

Brazil
The National Campaign for the Right to Education, an alliance of teachers’ unions, NGOs and social movements, will hand over 15 “mamulengo” puppets ( giant show puppets used at Carnival time in Brazil) to the Finance Minister and the British Embassy. The puppets will also take part in the ‘big hug’ that GCAP is planning around the Treasury building on July 1.The puppets will represent segments of Brazilian fundamental education in a situation of vulnerability: children’s education, rural education, education of the Afro-descendant population, education of bearers of special needs.
In Brasilia (capital city of Brazil) the puppets will be paraded in a colored car (bearing the sign “Towards Scotland”). Young campaigners will depart from a community with serious educational problems in the outskirts of the city and will take a small courier bag to the G8 for the representative of the Embassy of England. Afterwards the puppets will deliver a message from the National Campaign to the Minister for the Treasury and will proceed to the Airport. From there will depart to Scotland.

South Africa…
Two linked events are being organised by GCAP and GCE members, including SANGOCO, SACC, EJNF, SAMOHO and Oxfam, to commemorate the June 16 schoolchildren’s uprising and mobilise the youth for the ongoing struggle against poverty and injustice.
At the Soweto museum dedicated to the memory of Hector Pieterson (the boy who was killed by police in the 1976 riots), 200 students from 14 local schools will participate in a morning seminar in dialogue with activists from the 1976 generation. In the afternoon, 50 of these young people will travel along with the cut-out ‘Friends’ they have made, to join a massive rally at the Soweto ‘Mound of Hope’ featuring football matches, cultural events and a march.

UK…
A huge event on the South Bank in London will take place on 16th. This will be an opening/private view of the Send My Friend to School
exhibition created by famous Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. They will
be inviting children from various schools who have been involved in the Send My Friend to School campaign, coalition members, celebrities involved in the
campaign and a select group of media. VIP guest is Gordon Brown (TBC).

The event will be led by the children as Send My Friend to School is seen as the children's strand of Make Poverty History. Children will show guests round the exhibition.

US…
An event is being planned on Capitol Hill with children and Friends on the 16th.
CNN/ Today Programme are interested. There is a possibility of Laura Bush endorsing the children’s messages to the G8.

France…
The coalition is trying for a formal meeting with Chirac in collaboration with French
GCAP coalition and UNESCO. They plan to organise an event on the 21st June on the day of the Summer festival when all the streets in France are filled with bands and music, involving a band and the children with the ‘friends’ hand over to either other G8 embassies or another political figures i.e. ministry of foreign affairs

Germany…
They are planning a meeting on 14th June with their Commissioner for Africa who is coming to G8. She has asked NGOs to meet with her before she comes over. The German GCE group will hand over the cut-outs and take photos of the event for the media.

Tanzania…
TEN/MET, a very large national education network, and its members including Oxfam, Fawe and Haki Elimu, are planning events in two rural districts on the 16th. Members of Parliament, TV and radio journalists, and representatives of G8 embassies will carry out simultaneous visits to schools that participated in the ‘Send My Friend to School’ activities in April.
Ethiopia
In coordination with the GCAP coalition, the GCE and ANCEFA member coalition BEN is planning a day long programme with G8 embassy officials, Ethiopian radio and TV, government officials and children from the schools who took part in the GCE’s send my friend campaigns global week of action. The compere will be Ato Tesfaye Sahillu, a well-known children’s TV presenter.

Ireland
The Irish Coalition are organising a media/public awareness raising event on the 15th June to post the Irish Friends to the G8 with the theme; "Educ8 to End Global Poverty". Children representing each G8 country will be present. The Minister for Education and Science, Ms.M.Hanafin has been invited to officiate. Eight boxes containing Friends will be prepared addressed to each G8 leader. Particularly good-looking lifesize Friends, wearing white bands, will be displayed by each child.

Singapore
The GCE members led by World Vision are doing a 30 hour famine camp and making cut-out friends as one of the workshop activities during the camp. These 'friends' will be 'launched' over to G8 with media coverage.

EU
Special hearing on EU aid to education will take place in the European Parliament on 22 June with Louis Michel (development commissioner), Amina Ibrahim (Nigerian MOE and member of the Sachs commission education task force) and Assibi Napoe (coordinator, African teachers' union federation).

India
GCE member coalition, NCE, is planning a send off of ‘friends’ at the end of June and targeting cricketers and Bollywood stars.