The Send My Friend to School campaign has been taking off in parliament this year and was mentioned in Prime Minister’s Questions, International Development questions, debates and even a parliamentary petition!

Schools around the UK have been taking action to ensure that every child can go to school, no matter where they live in the world. This year the Send My Friend campaign has had the theme of 1GOAL to use the power of football to send a strong message to our politicians that the public wants action on this issue.

9,000 schools across the country have signed up to the campaign, holding events such as assemblies and special lessons and sending thousands of ‘supporter scarves’ to Prime Minister David Cameron asking him to commit to the fight to achieve education for all.

And over 80 schools have met their local MPs to ask them to take action. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen this paying off, with many MPs talking about the campaign in Parliament. Pamela Nash MP, who is currently the youngest member of Parliament, asked the following question as her first ever Prime Minister’s Question:

I am sure that the Prime Minister is aware of the send my friend to school campaign, in which my young constituents at Victoria primary school in Airdrie are involved and about which they will be writing to him this week. The campaign aims to ensure that the Government direct the £8.5 billion that was committed by the previous Labour Government towards universal primary education by 2015. The matter will be discussed on 7 July at the education summit in South Africa, which is tied in with the World cup. Has the Prime Minister personally spoken to President Zuma and other African leaders about their pledges, and will he confirm that a review of the Department for International Development’s funding will not compromise our pledge?

Another new MP, Esther McVey, used her maiden speech (the first speech a new MP makes in Parliament) to talk about the campaign:

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech during the debate on global poverty-a debate in which I was inspired to speak after meeting class P of Hayfield primary school in Upton. If I had not spoken today, I am convinced that they would never have forgiven me-so more of class P later…

Class P has signed up to the 1GOAL campaign to help global poverty through education. The campaign is trying to use the profile of the 2010 World cup in South Africa, bringing together footballers and fans of all ages with charities and local and world leaders, to make education a reality for 72 million primary school children worldwide by 2015. I asked class P to explain what poverty meant to them. They said it was about not being able to go to school to learn and make friends, about being sick but not having a doctor and about living in fear. Most of all, poverty is about living with no hope and dying with no one caring. According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die that way each day, and 10.6 million children die before the age of five-that is the same total as all the children of France, Germany, Greece and Italy added together. So today I bring the message of the next generation to the attention of the current generation-beat poverty through education.

And John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington presented a 'supporter scarf' from a school in his constituency as a parliamentary petition in the House of Commons. He commented:

I would like to submit a petition on behalf of hundreds of the children, parents and friends of Cavendish primary school in West Didsbury in my constituency. They have signed a petition in support of the 1GOAL Send My Friend to School campaign, which calls on world leaders to ensure that all children around the world will have a primary school education by 2015. I suspect that this is the first time that a petition has been submitted on the Floor of the House in the form of a scarf.

News of more school visits by MPs and more parliamentary actions is coming through all the time, so the campaign is looking very exciting at the moment.

Thanks to RESULTS - this news story is taken from a blog posted by them. Take a look to see more updates on recent events connected to 1GOAL: http://resultsuk.wordpress.com/