United States Action Week 2007 Activities

Action Week 2007

Freeman, a former child laborer who is now in school, before his speech in the Russell Senate Building.

credit: Hilary Wallis

Over 1,000 schools across the country in 40 states received the PBS Wide Angle DVD, Back to School, to show students. This is a US Global Campaign for Education partnership with Channel Thirteen New York, PBS Wide Angle and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Over 50 students from across the country and ten international students traveled to Washington, DC to talk to their Senators and Representatives about the importance of supporting universal education.

• Global AIDS Alliance and RESULTS set up over 50 meetings with Congressional offices on Monday and Tuesday of Action Week.
• CARE, Global Kids, School Girls Unite, NetAid, and Girl Scout Troop #728 of New Jersey brought young people to Washington; Relief International / Schools Online brought ten additional young people from Palestine and Tajikistan to accompany the U.S. students.
• Kolleen Bouchane of RESULTS designed a training program for the young people to participate in on Sunday and Monday about advocacy on education as a human right.
• The students met with the following Senate offices: Richard Shelby, Barbara Boxer, Saxby Chambliss, Barack Obama, Ben Cardin, Kit Bond, Richard Burr, Judd Gregg, Frank Lautenberg, Hillary Clinton, John Warner, Maria Cantwell, Jeff Sessions, Dianne Feinstein, Johnny Isakson, Richard Durbin, Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe, Claire McCaskill, Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu, Robert Menendez, Charles Schumer, Ron Wyden, Jim Webb, and Patty Murray.
• The students met with the following House offices: Spencer Bachus, Michael M. Honda, Nanci Pelosi, John Lewis, Jan Schakowsky, Chris Van Hollen, Thomas Allen, Kenny Hulshof, Virgina Foxx, Paul Hodes, Rodney Frelinghuysen, Michael Ferguson, Rush Holt, John Hall, Peter King, Carolyn Maloney, Edolphus Towns, Yvette Clarke, Nydia Velazquez, Darlene Hooley, Thomas M. Davis, Cathy Rodgers, Rick Larson, and Jay Inslee.

Global Action for Children held a launch event with the U.S. Global Campaign for Education on orphans and education featuring Angelina Jolie and Gene Sperling.

Some excellent posters and postcards on education as a human right have started to arrive in Washington. This includes stunning artwork from Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performance and Visual Arts in Harlem, Long Beach Renaissance High School for the Arts in Long Beach California, as well as refugee youth from Burma and Liberia.

Specially for US GCE, Hilary Wallis of the Empowerment through Art Program, has created an art exhibition on Education as a Human Right using the posters, postcards and artwork from schools and community organizations across the country. The exhibition was on display in Washington, DC at the Global Campaign for Education youth training at the Churchill Hotel, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Russell Senate Building on Capitol Hill and the Center for American Progress.

The International Center on Child Labor and Education together with US GCE held an event to join hands on Capitol Hill to remind leaders to keep their universal education promises on Thursday in Russell Senate Building. It featured former child laborers from Colombia, Ghana and India.

The ONE Campaign sent an email mobilizing their grassroots organizers interested in education issues to participate in Action Week in their communities.

Websites promoting Global Education Week were created by several organizations, including: Amnesty International, NetAid, CARE, Teach for America, National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.

Amnesty International, Global Kids and NetAid prepared and distributed curricula on universal education for Global Education Action Week.

NetAid created a Link Up! digital website chain where students and organizations across the country can upload photographs to form a chain of education rights activists.

The Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations hosted students for a training program on universal education. The training included a screening of the PBS Wide Angle documentary Back to School.