Use this guide to answer your questions and to understand any tricky words on the website.
Send My Friend to School 08 is a campaign to make sure every child goes to school.
As you read this, there are 72 million children who miss out on school because of poverty. Some children can't go to school because they have to work, just to buy food to survive. Others can't get to school because it's too far away. Having a disability can also stop children from going to school. In some countries the government doesn't provide any schools at all. In other countries there aren't enough school buildings, books or even teachers.
In 2000, world leaders made a promise that all children would go to primary school by 2015. They have done some work to make this happen, but things are moving too slowly to meet the target.
A campaign is something that a group of people organise when they feel very strongly about something, and want to tell other people about it. A campaign usually has three parts to it. The first part is the information that the organisers give to people, which is called the 'message'. The second part is 'getting together' with other people, and sharing the message. The third part is the activity that the organisers want people to do. This is called the 'action'.
Send My Friend to School 08 is an example of a campaign. This website is the message about all the children who miss out on school, and decorating 'missing-out' cards and getting MPs involved is the action.
Seven years ago, world leaders made an amazing promise. This promise was to make sure that all children go to school by the year 2015. This promise is called 'Education for All'.
The promise can only become real if everyone makes a big effort - poor countries, rich countries, big companies, and people like you.
The G8 is a group of 8 countries whose leaders try to tackle world problems. They meet once a year and try to decide what to do. The 8 countries are some of the world's richest.
They are: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA, Canada and Russia.
Each year a different leader is the president, and decides what to talk about at an important 'summit' meeting, held once every year. In July 2008 the G8 will be meeting in Japan.
Some people are against the G8, and how it works. They say that it is too powerful, and is unfair because no one new can apply to join.
The Send My Friend to School campaign is organised by the Global Campaign for Education. The Global Campaign for Education is a very large group made up of children, teachers, charities and teachers' groups. There are millions of people from over 100 different countries involved!
The government are the political leaders of a country, which means they decide what happens in that country. The government makes laws that people have to follow, and decides how money should be collected and spent.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of targets written by world leaders. There are 8 Goals, which have the aim of ending world poverty. One of the goals is to make sure all children go to primary school. Another is to make sure less children and mothers die when babies are born.
World leaders promised that they could make all of the targets happen by 2015. Many people think this is not possible, because things are happening too slowly, and world leaders are not giving enough money.
In its first year the campaign was called 'Send My Friend to School' and in the following year 'My Friend Needs a Teacher'. In 2007 it was called 'JOIN UP! - send my friend to school!' and this year it is ‘Send My Friend to School 08’.
The campaign has a different name each year so that people can see different parts of the same problem, of children who miss out on school.
The people organising the Send My Friend to School campaign believe that all children should go to school. This website gives information about the campaign and how to take part in it.
