In 2005, 60 million girls were still excluded from education (UNESCO data).

To draw attention on this situation and on the risky discrimination it represents, the GCE focused its action in France this year on the education of women and young girls.

Aide et Action together with its partners leaded the Campaign for the right to a good quality education for all to inform people about the situation of young girls in the world and to make sure that public authoroties will keep their promises.

The International Women’s Day (March 8th ) proved to be the first significant moment of this campaign; several actions to increase the visibility were organized by students in 19 French cities to let young girls and women have a say.
During that day, a vast bill campaign was set up.
During the week preceding March 8th, students were moved by some posters stuck on their schools’ walls “What can be done for a girl to equal a boy” The answer was given to them on March 8th with a second poster “Enable her to have access to education” .

The Global Action Week, organised from April 24 to April 30 2005 was the peak of the mobilization period with the organisation of several events and activities throughout France.

Finally, another significant moment of the campaign took place on May 31 in Paris at the Institute for Political Studies (Sciences Po) with the conference organised by Aide et Action and inaugurated by Talisma Nasreen, a famous and committed militant for Women’s rights in Bangladesh, condemned to death by a fatwa in her own country.

The conference was the occasion to call upon French public authoroties, the medias and NGOs with regards to their pledges in favour of education and raise the awareness of students, NGOs, associations promoting women’s rights to this crucial issue for development.

Finally, a “Proposal for a quality education for every girl and woman” was circulated throughout France to denounce how ridiculously low the government aid to support basic education is and the failure to respect gender equity in access to education.

Aide et Action alone managed to collect several thousands of signatures which were finally given to the Republic Presidency on November 2005.

At the beginning of 2006, based on our information, the following report can be made:

1) 128 specific actions were taken in 35 cities by both Aide et Action’s network and students mobilised by the Association Déclic.

2) Our activities together with those of our main partners made it possible for 729 000 people (a lot of them did not know Aide et Action) to discover the message of Aide et Action’s campaign.

3) 272 800 people became more deeply aware of the assocation’s stakes, objectives and actions.

4) 15 150 people actively mobilized and participated in a concrete action (conference, brochure’s signature...)

5) Finally, 32 specific articles about the actions of Aide et Action’s campaign were published which proves the media’s interest in local actions led by committed citizens.

The mobilization was therefore at its height and gradually bears its fruits. For Aide et Action, the results of the 2005 campaign are more than satisfactory. We thank all the people who contributed to it, no matter how (volunteers, sponsors, solidarity classes, partners, branches and communication partners). Nevertheless, as we fight for Development, we cannot be content with these results since we are aware that greater effort have to be  made to achieve our aim to provide all the children a complete, good quality, basic primary education before the end of 2015.