Global Action Week 2007 has already got off to a GREAT START around the world !!!!  Thousands of people have already been involved in making chains and press conferences. We need to keep going !

Take a look!!!

Ivory Coast
The Ivory Coast already held a successful press conference today to announce among other things - The Big Chain Reaction which will take place in Abobo, the most populated suburb of the capital, Abidjan. Parliamentarians and mayors will participate in the chain but the most poignant part of this event is that fact that the chain will be lead by KOROTOUMOU, a 14 year old girl who had been a fruit seller until she participated in the Global Action Week's Biggest Ever Lobby in 2004. She has been in school since then!

In Ethiopia, a display of photographs depicting the status of education and the situation of children and adults that are looking for education  was launched todayat the well known Meskel Square in the centre of the Capital City. This is aimed to advocate for "Education as a Right" and to initiate all stakeholders to work hard for the fulfillment of the EFA goals. From 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM by using a Sonic Screen and it is open for every body . It was be inaugurated by Ato Fuad Ibrahim, the State Minister for General Education. There will be other activities, like children's rally to the parliament, media advocacy and panel discussion on selected and relevant themes are also planned for the coming days.

India
Global Action Week Kicked off in India with chains involving thousands of  people including children, parents, teachers and activists from various regions of India. In Tamil Nadu 65000 people joined hands to demand for Right to Education in 12 Districts with 30 NGOs. Orissa alone witnessed participation of 6500 people in the Human Chain on the similar theme. 13 Indian states are also joining up the Week-long campaign. Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, President- Global Campaign for Education & Chairperson, Global March against Child Labour sounded a wake up call upon the Government and demanded education for all as a human right and not as a charity. He called upon the Government to stop inhuman practices such as child labour and human trafficking. In Tamil Nadu 65000 people joined hands to demand for Right to Education in 12 Districts with 30 NGOs. In Orissa alone witnessed participation of 5000 people in the Human Chain on the similar thematic lines at national level

In Jharkhand, the first day of the Week began with annuguration meetings and Press briefings. On the second day (24th April) of the Week, the Chief Minister of the state is joining the Action Week in support of the issues that is being raised towards achieving the Right to Education. In West Bengal, the Human Chain was formed at the Gate of Kolkatta University near Vidyasagar statue at 4:00 pm. ed with 500 participants. In Bihar, the Human Chain was formed at Beilly Road, Patna. Around 500 participants came from various parts of the state on the first day. More than 10 NGOs took the lead.

Israel
The Israeli coalition has already done some very important lobbying for action week.   The DCI's ; Education Child Rights Coalition met with Mrs. Alisa Ulmert ( The Israeli Prime minister wife) for promoting Child Rights Issues and Legislation. They have also sent a letter to the Child's Rights Committee Chairperson in the Knesset ( The Israeli Parliament) requesting a Committee discussion regarding Education Rights matters.

Honduras
Honduras had an inauguration event today- April 23rd. Their action week is packed with activities.  Watch out for the chain surrounding the presidential palace on Wednesday afternoon!

Madagascar
Today Madagascar started with many politicians going back to school!   They are gearing up for the Big Chain Reaction in Antsohihy on Wednesday.

Nepal
In Nepal , Action Week is being celebrated with the new face of the country "New Nepal!" This year Action Week starts with the Press Conference on the 23rd with the participation of the Education Stakeholders, Teachers, Government and the Journalists. On the 25th is the Symbolic Solidarity on Big Chain, the global activity with the Chief Guest, Hon. Mr. Pradeep Nepal, Education Minister. There will be a voices from the children and we will take the Minister's commitment for the Rights to Education. Interaction programme in two Television channels and one Radio will be done and a separate Interaction Programme is as well planned. There will be participation from the UN agencies, ILO, Government and NGOs/INGOs working in the field of Education.

Níger
All sorts of activities have been happening in Niger – a grand launch, a television debate. Politicians will be going into schools and also non formal schools such Koranic schools.   On April 25t there will be a massive pacific march involving everyone from teachers, parents, pupils, adult students and civil society all wearing t shirts and carrying of banners with slogans in French, Hausa, Djerma, Fulfulde, Tamasheq, Goulmance, Kanouri and Arabic all demanding the right to an education for all on April 25th  2007 .

South Africa
On Friday 20 April the week of action  kicked-off in the Western Cape, where teacher unions and NGO's marched to the provincial parliament on to deliver their demand to the legislature. They received great media coverage.  Today Monday 23rd of April :An educational festival was held featuring song, dance, theatre and poetry at the Paul Nell Hall Westonaria (Bekkersdal) , Gauteng. Activities include speeches by municipal representatives and local activists. Cultural activities will include poetry, dance, and musical performances by local and community groups.   The community hoped to mobilise the support of the local municipality to introduce free quality early childhood education for all children. A number of speakers including Bishop Paul Verryn addressed the gathering.  And there is more to come ….

Surinam
A discussion with children based on three positions about education: No education no future,  Human rights are Children rights and Education is a wish of every child has been held. The Surinam coalition was so organized they held to two practice sessions with 220 children before the grand finale at the Square of Independence at 4pm today - April 23 rd  involving children from outside the capital increasing the number to 650 children.

Rwanda
Rwanda held a GCE launch with the media, coalition members  and 25 headmasters on the 21st April . They had 4 case studies from different people including from street children. The launch was for raising awareness on the theme and inviting people to participate in the locally planned events on the 26 th and  30th April.  The National event will happen on May 5th. During the launch there was time for question and answer tackling issues that prevent people from getting their rights in education.

For the last five years Global Action Week has been building momentum, ensuring local and national leaders are obliged to put education and literacy on top of the political agenda and this year is no exception.  Here are just some of the headlines on people JOINING UP around the world for action week 2007.  

Bangladesh
CAMPE is storming ahead with their Action Week plans with 30 partner organizations already organizing  loads of exciting activities locally including open meetings, JOIN UP events with photo petitions, street drama, painting competitions and the list goes on. CAMPE is also publishing wake up calls to Bangladeshi leaders on the right to education in the major daily newpapers !"

Gambia- Senegal
Campaigners from Gambia and Senegal are JOINING UP in a human across the border between the two countries near farafenni.

Guatemala
In the lead up to Action Week there was a final of a song contest on April 11th. This will be followed by a concert and massive human chain across Guatemala on April 27th !

Kenya
The week will kick off with a press conference on April 23rd.  Ten schools will attend a public hearing on the 27th of april,2007 with the Minister for Education attending as the guest of honour.  Also a march will culminate in a CHAIN reaction in the Eastlands area of Nairobi.

Lebanon
There will be an exchange involving disadvantaged and more privileged children going to the same school for a day.   A human chain is going to be formed and paper chains are going to be made. Even a school that was affected by conflict last year will be taking part in action week.

Peru
There will be a festive parade from the Palace of Justice to the Congress on the 25th of April in Lima.  Simultaneously there will be activities in the other 16 regions of the country.

Somalia
The Somalian coalition is holding an Officials Join Up day to coincide with the President of Somalia holding a conference on peace building from April 16th –April 18th  which will involve many decision makers and influential groups. This will give the Somalian coalition an opportunity to secure even more pledges for action week.

Vietnam
Groups of school children are already painting about the right to an education while those children unable to go to school in the same villages are doing the same. There will marches encouraging everyone to JOIN UP which will go from village to village involving all members of the community to raise awareness.

The artwork and photos resulting from all these activities in communities and provinces will be displayed during national GAW 2007 in Ha Noi in public spaces.  A national dialogue on education and literacy will be televised during action week.

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A basic education is a right inherent to being human, each child’s birthright and thus constitutes an end in itself. However, education is also a means to an end: it is required to ensure all people can live in a dignified manner and participate effectively in society. It also enables human beings to exercise all the other human rights (enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights).

There is often a gap between the language of “rights” and the setting of “development goals” such as the Education For All (EFA)  and Millennium Development Goals (which are often more influential in defining the actions of governments). The EFA Goals, that were reaffirmed at the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000, were unusual in recognising the right to education:

The Right To Education

2007, is a crucial year as it is the mid-point towards the EFA goals. Time is running out to achieve these.  It is an important moment for demanding more urgent action to achieve education rights. Rather than being a distant ideal these rights need to be converted into a reality now – and the EFA goals give the deadline.

The focus on Education as a Human Right leads the campaign to promote the entire Education For All agenda. Too many governments have been pressurised to make choices between investing in one part of EFA over another. But education rights cannot be traded off against one another. Adults and pre-school children have as much right to education as primary school children. A rights-based approach means we need to look at the 6 EFA goals holistically or as a chain – rather than taking any one of them separately.

Delivering on these 6 EFA goals is not an act of charity by governments – rather it is their responsibility as governments to deliver on the right to education for all their citizens. If a government fails, it is not just that they are missing out on a globally agreed goal - rather they will be violating a basic right and should be held accountable.

Focusing on “rights” should give us more passion and purpose than ever.

The central concept underlying this year’s Global Action Week campaign is that civil society would create a chain of testimony and accountability from local to national then onto regional and international so that world leaders are at the end of a civil society monitoring chain - a ‘chain’ of people joining hands and messages to pass up the realities of where EFA is ‘on the ground’ and what violations there are to education as a human right.

The previous Global Action Week campaigns have shown that if we unite and speak with one voice, we can make a powerful impact and force our leaders to take action before it is too late. The EFA goals must be met and the leaders of the world should not let another generation of children and adults go without an education.

Campaigners should take heart from the fact that there has been some progress over the last decade. For example:

However, major challenges remain; where access to education has improved, systems are struggling to meet increased demand and the quality of education can suffer. And there remain many countries where fees, charges and lack of education infrastructure keep large numbers of children out of school. There has also been chronic under-investment in Early Childhood Care and Education and Adult Literacy programmes. It is therefore imperative that GCE keeps up the pressure that is starting to see some positive, if slow results. The main focus for the 2007 Join Up For Education activities will be centred on the concept of ‘chains’. These can either be represented through artwork such as paper cut-outs or chains of real people joining hands. 

The GAW 2007 challenge is for everyone to Join Up and form the longest ‘people chain’ ever across the world so that leaders can see how campaigners everywhere demand that the right to education is realised for the millions and millions of people who otherwise will not receive an education – something that is their right. Over 100 countries will be involved in building the chain.

The Big Chain Re-Action is the main focus of the GAW 2007 campaign with human chains formed in marches, rally, races, vigils and dances.   This should ideally end in the delivery of nationally collected ’files’ to the President or Prime Minister at the national Big Chain Re-actions.

As the main focus of this year’s campaign people chains should take place locally, nationally and internationally around the world. The numbers of people involved need to be added together nationally but then there also needs to be a function available to all coalitions to add the numbers of chains to a global tally in order to see how many people take part in this Human Chain around the world. This would mean people joining hands or making ‘friend’ style cut out figures as paper chains that join together.

The chains act as the means of the delivery of the files and evidence to Governments. These could be photographed from above and also spell out the key messages and slogans around the issues of ‘education rights’ and that ‘the time to act is now!’ This could lead to good photo opportunities which then get counted for the final tally of the Worlds’ Largest People Chain to be handed over to World Leaders. This is important for the international aspect of the campaign. It will allow the GCE secretariat to co-ordinate a ‘moment’ during 2007, i.e. G8 leaders,  when the global tally of ‘chains’ are handed over to the world leaders and it is a clear way of showing the strength and size of the movement.

How to Do This

Coalitions can organise the making of chains by either: