No world leader is safe from Rihanna’s mission to get every child in school, and British prime minister Theresa May just became one of her latest targets. 

The pop star tweeted May — as well as leaders from Norway, Australia, and France — asking governments to stand shoulder to shoulder in support of education. 

Rihanna asked May to make a "historic commitment" of £380 million to the Global Partnership for Education — which is a global fund for education set up by private donors, NGOs, and other international organisations, and works in 65 developing countries to make sure every child gets a quality basic education.

That pledge would be enough to put 1.6 million children through primary school every year, including over 780,000 girls and almost 900,000 children in fragile or conflict-stricken countries.

Join Rihanna and Take Action: Call on Theresa May to Help Thousands of Girls Go To School

But that’s not all. 

Each year, it would put a further 550,000 children through lower secondary school; train 141,000 teachers; build 2,000 classrooms, and distribute 17 million textbooks. 

Rihanna has also tweeted France's President Emmanuel Macron, Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in her latest drive to support global education. 

Rihanna — who has become one of the leading voices in the drive to get every child around the world a quality education — also tweeted the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID).

And all you Global Citizens have joined in the effort as well, tweeting DfID 25,000 times since August asking them to support global education.

But time is running out for governments to offer their support. 

That’s because right now, there’s a financing conference for the GPE.

The conference, held in Senegal and co-hosted by Senegal and France, is the first time European and African leaders jointly raise money to get kids back in school. 

The GPE works to reach some of the most educationally challenging parts of the world — essential in tackling poverty and inequality — but, right now, efforts are severely underfunded. 

Read more: Rihanna Spent a Week in Malawi For a Really Good Reason

Right now, 264 million children around the world are missing out on education. 

If current trends continue, 15 million girls and 10 million boys worldwide will never set foot in a classroom. By 2030, less than 10% of young people in low-income countries will be on track to gain basic secondary level skills. 

It’s statistics like these that inspired Rihanna to put her fame, and her extensive Twitter following, to use to tackle these injustices. 

In 2016, she became an ambassador for GPE, and she’s been taking the role very seriously. In January last year, Rihanna travelled to Malawi with Global Citizen and the GPE, to meet with children at under-resourced schools.

Read more: Et Voila! How Global Citizens (Including Rihanna) Helped Get France to Commit $2M to Education

She travelled with former Australian Prime Minister and GPE Chairperson Julia Gillard, and Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans, visiting students, teachers, government officials, and mentors to better understand the issues and challenges surrounding education. 

“I’m really here to see it,” Rihanna said at the time. “It’s one thing to read statistics, but I want to see it firsthand and find out all that can be done and where to start first.” 

It’s not the first time Rihanna has used Twitter to get her message across. 

Last year, she tweeted Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, Argentinian president Mauricio Macri, German leader Angela Merkel, and French president Emmanuel Macron.

Read more: Rihanna Meets With President & First Lady Macron to Support Global Partnership for Education

To Trudeau, in June 2017, she wrote: “I know you had our backs during the Global Citizen Festival, will you recommit Canada to #FundEducation?”

To Macri she said: “Hey there, what’s your plan for Argentina to commit to #FundEducation?” 

And she even got some responses. 

Even better, the singer actually had a face-to-face meeting with French president Macron in July last year as a result of her tweet, to discuss the critical issue of the replenishment of a global education fund.

And her efforts — alongside the efforts of Global Citizens — are really paying off. 

In 2016, after targeting then-French president Francois Hollande and rallying her fans to do the same, Rihanna was able to persuade the French government to commit $2 million to the Education Cannot Wait fund. 

Quality education is one of the UN Global Goals, a 17-goal plan for ending extreme poverty by 2030. And, for many, it is one of the most vital goals to achieve because it ties into so many others. 

An educated person is more likely to lead a healthy life, for example, and is less likely to die in childbirth. Education helps to promote gender equality, reduce child marriage, and build peace. 

Read more: Why an Indian City Awarded Free Lifetime Education to One Baby Girl

But children — particularly girls, children with disabilities, and children living in conflict zones — are still missing out.  

In South Sudan, in a shocking example, a girl is more likely to die in childbirth than she is to finish secondary school. 

Over 100 million young women living in developing countries are unable to read a single sentence. One in three girls in developing countries get married before they turn 18, and they usually leave education when they do. 

Not only is this deeply unjust, it also ignores the immense potential of educating girls. If all girls went to school for 12 years, low- and middle-income countries could add $92 billion per year to their economies — and a girl who is educated is less likely to marry young, contract HIV, and more likely to have healthy, educated children.

Read more: ‘Sesame Street’ Just Got $100 Million to Help Refugee Kids

Global Citizen campaigns to achieve the Global Goals, including goal No.4 for quality education. We believe that every child everywhere has the right to an education and the right to the best possible start in life. You can join us by taking action here. 

TopicsEducationUKBritainChildrenTwitterRihannaTheresa MayGlobal Partnership for EducationGPE replenishment

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Rihanna Just Tweeted Theresa May — and It’s Possibly the Best Use of Twitter of 2018

By Imogen Calderwood