A World at School, Gordon Brown's Office, Plan International, RESULTS call for universal education

WHAT'S THE ISSUE?

This year, we’re directing a lot of our energy towards increasing access to education.

57 million kids around the world aren’t able to go to school.

That’s why we’re working to build support for Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the only multilateral partnership devoted to ensuring universal access to education in the world’s poorest countries. GPE is aiming to put 29 million children into school over the next 4 years!

GPE needs to raise $3.5 billion to meet this goal. Leaders from GPE took the stage at the 2012 and 2013 Global Citizen Festival and committed to fundraising enough to meet the demands of increasing access to education over the next four years. But they can’t do this alone.

HOW DID GLOBAL CITIZENS RESPOND?

Together, we’re building a movement of global citizens committed to ensuring that every child can go to school. So far, global citizens have taken over 27,000 actions, mostly petition signatures, calling on world leaders to support GPE.

This month, the Global Poverty Project has been making sure your voice is heard throughout Washington D.C. and with leaders across Australia. Haley McQuire, a young advocate for education, joined us for meetings across Australia.

So far, we’ve had 46 meetings with world leaders! Yesterday, our policy guru Michael Sheldrick met with Australian Senator Brett Mason. Senator Mason confirmed he will attend the GPE replenishment conference in June. This conference is where the key decisions about funding will be made!

Meanwhile, in the United States, we met with the Office of Rep. Fattah and with key leaders from USAID. Rep. Fattah has shown great support for GPE and pledged to continue working with our team to increase access to education. We’ll have some news for you soon!

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

World leaders are meeting in June to determine how much funding will be allocated to GPE. We have just a few months to ensure that global citizens' voices are heard. The Global Citizen team is collating your emails and handover to world leaders soon. We’re scoping out opportunities where these handovers will lead to the greatest impact; we’ll be sure to keep you updated!

We’ll continue calling on the United States Government to make a two-year pledge of US$250 million to the GPE. We’ll also be asking the Australian Government to make a four-year pledge for AUD$500 million. Take action now and help increase access to education at GlobalCitizen.org/FundTheFuture.