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World Music stars demand education for all

Amadou & Mariam, Malian music stars and Sightsavers ambassadors are joining the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) at the 'Keeping Our Promises on Education' high level donor pledging conference in Brussels to demand that world leaders keep their promises on education.

The duo, long-standing campaigners on education for all, will be addressing and performing to conference attendees such as Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Paul Wolfowitz and George Soros. In 2000, 180 world leaders made a commitment to provide free universal primary education for all by 2015 as one of the means of tackling poverty. At the mid-way point of this Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 80 million children are still out of school; a third of these are disabled.

Amadou and Mariam will be highlighting the very real danger of the goal failing because disabled children are consistently ignored. Only 2% of disabled children are in school and studies have shown that disability is a greater barrier to education than gender, household economic status or rural/urban living. They will be calling on governments to ensure that all future funding includes support to inclusive education.

Amadou & Mariam are also lobbying their own Malian Finance Minister and Ministers across Africa to ensure the 10 year plans being drawn up to ensure education for all include inclusive education strategies. The 10 year plans, an initiative of the African Union will be presented to G8 donors at the 'financing for development' conference in Accra as a means of securing funding to tackling the challenges of ensuring education for all in Africa.
Amadou Bagayoko said: 'It is really important for us to make disability visible at this meeting, children with disabilities risk becoming one of the most excluded groups if action isn't taken. Education helped to shape and change our lives. It is a scandal that any child should miss out on the opportunity to experience gaining an education. It is a double outrage that children who are disabled children are not being given equal opportunities to access education because of their disabilities.'

A total of $10 billion annually would meet the goal of enabling all children to have a primary education. Yet, the most recent figures show aid to basic education limping along at less than a third of that amount.  The total goal amounts to just five days of global military spending.

Dr Caroline Harper, Chief Executive of Sightsavers said: 'Why should disabled children be left to last to benefit from education? Ministers and officials have the chance to fulfill their Millennium Development promise of all children completing a primary school education by 2015 but only if they include plans on disabled children now.'

£3.3bn ($6.3bn) is still needed each year if world governments are to collectively honour their promise of providing free universal primary education for all by 2015.  Urgency is of the utmost importance as the increase in education aid must be made in the next two years or millions of children, often the most vulnerable will continue to be denied the most basic of human rights.
Co-convened by Louis Michel, Gordon Brown and Paul Wolfowitz, the meeting is the best opportunity in five years to secure the breakthrough needed to keep the promises on basic education. To date countries such as the US, Japan, Germany and Italy collectively give just 10% of what is needed to address the global education crisis. Going forward rich countries urgently need to donate more and better aid in order to keep their commitments.

Amadou & Mariam will be joined in Brussels by activists from around the world, including former child labourers from Ghana, Colombia and India who are now in school, young campaigners from Germany, Spain, UK and GCE members.

 For further information or interviews with Amadou & Mariam please contact Michelle Akande at Sightsavers International by email makande@sightsavers.org or phone 01444 44 66 86 or  0044 (0)7775 928253

Notes to editors
Amadou and Mariam are available for interview
Sightsavers has been working through local partners to prevent and cure blindness and achieve full social inclusion for people who are blind within a wider disability context as a means of tackling poverty for over 50 years. As a development agency Sightsavers believes in the social model - seeing the individual not the condition and recognise that many of the barriers which exist are due to society not the disability.
GCE coalition members include; ActionAid, ATL, Book Aid, Comic Relief, Education Action, EIS, IDCS, LCD, NASUWT, NUT, Oxfam, Plan, Save the Children, SSTA, Sightsavers International, UTU, VSO, World Vision


Don't deny disabled children an education - email Gordon Brown

Please join Sightsavers as members of the Global Campaign for Education to get all children into school by 2015 by emailing Gordon Brown, asking him to use his influence to ensure disabled children have access to free education 

how we work thumb Children and education

Sightsavers supports the principle of inclusive education. This is where children who have a disability such as being blind or visually impaired are included in the mainstream education system. 

 

Statistics

Did you know...

  • 80 million children are currently missing out on school
  • Disabled children make up a third of all children out of school in the developing world
  • 90% of children who are blind don't go to school