In 2005, the GCE was supported not only by United Nation Agencies such as UNESCO, UNICEF, UNAIDS but also by a massive mobilization of over 5 million people throughout the world ranging from children and NGOs to unions, teachers, militants and parents.
On the occasion of the Global Week Action that took place from April 25 to April 30 2005, a wide range of animated activities were organised in all the capitals, cities and villages of the world: demonstrations, gatherings but also debates, shows, theater plays to prove once and again how strong we could be all together in raising our voices for a cause.
Among these different initiatives, two of them proved to be particularly dynamic and successfull in mobilizing people.
The first one, the “Come back to school” of politicians consisted in bringing political actors back to school benches to make them re-discover the real life of a classroom; the success of this activity was real since more than 3 000 parliamentarians and more than 25 State leaders did this experience and many of them pledged to bring positive changes in their respective countries.
The second important action, the “Send my friend to school” challenge, was also very sucessfull. Throughout the world, hundreds of people got caught up in it and made a plain character cut out of cardboard to represent a child deprived of education.
The artist also wrote on each friend a message addressed to world leaders to encourage them to act so for the 100 million children excluded from education not to be condemned to be kept out of school any more. As a result, more than 3 million and a half personal messages were given to the politicians of 115 countries demanding them to sign a commitment to take a specific measure in 2005 to send these friends and all the children to school.
Even if a good quality, basic education is not yet achieved, the results obtained in 2005 are full of hope. With the involvement of so many people, the GCE managed to exert a public pression on governments and on the international community unseen so far, asking them to fullfill their duties and provide a free and good quality education for all, indispensable to eliminate poverty.
Thanks to the GCE, some wealthy countries made concessions and less developed countries were encouraged to accelerate the development of their educational systems.
Mobilization remains indispensable !
2005 Big Book
For further information about the actions carried out in 2005 and the results obtained throughout the world, you can have a look at the 2005 Big Book- Big Book written within the GCE- at the following adresses :
