High School Students Around the World Participate in Global Campaign for Education

Atlanta teens are raising awareness about the importance of education in the fight against poverty. (© 2005 CARE/Valenda Campbell)

ATLANTA (April 27, 2005) - Atlanta students won't stand by while their counterparts in many countries have no chance to get an education.

Local high schoolers are joining more than 2 million kids worldwide as part of the Global Campaign for Education, a lobbying effort that seeks to hold lawmakers accountable for their promises on education for the world's children.

Dozens of teenagers gathered at CARE's Atlanta headquarters last month to write letters and create paper cut-outs representing out-of-school children in the developing world. These items have been sent to lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to raise awareness and urge greater funding for global education. Youth in over 100 countries are joining forces in advocating for free, good quality education for all.

"Every child should have the right to an education, but that is not the case in many developing countries," said Vanessa Burton, a 12th-grader at Atlanta's Riverwood High School. "As citizens of the world's richest country, we feel a responsibility to advocate for our fellow young people."

In 2000, 189 heads of state signed the Millenium Declaration, committing their countries to development goals including that equal numbers of girls and boys would have access to school by 2005. But the world is falling short of that goal. Today, an estimated 100 million children, 60 percent of them girls, are still denied the right to an education.

Each year of schooling missed reduces a girl's future earnings potential by 10 to 20 percent. But lost education means more than economic losses. The world's failure to meet 2005 goals for girls' education means over 1 million unnecessary child and maternal deaths this year, according to World Bank researchers.

"The total foreign aid contributed by the world's richest countries toward basic education each year amounts of about half the cost of one Stealth bomber," said Burton. "We can and must do better."

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