This action’s overall objective is to contribute to the mobilisation of greater public support within the formal education sector in the European Union (EU) for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education (MDG2). This action will mobilise support in four European countries for the achievement of MDG2 from teachers, teacherunions and young people through the use of compelling stories told by children who are missing out on education. The specific objective of this action is to increase awareness and critical understanding among teachers, children and young people about global interdependence and their role in tackling poverty and inequality; and to support their active engagement with decision makers in pushing for cooperation between African and European countries in order to meet MDG2.

The action builds on the excellent track record and experience of ActionAid UK (AAUK) and the partners in working with schools to develop active learning programmes on global development issues. Since ActionAid UK took over the chair of the UK Global Campaign for Education (GCE) in 2005 the number of schools taking part in a yearly ‘week of action’ to support MDG2: Achieve universal primary education (UPE) has risen from 800 to 5,000. In Spain, Entreculturas has played a key role in building support for MDG2: it began working with 10 schools and three NGOs in 2003, since then it has set up a network of 11 NGOs, developing the work through 16 local teams in 600 schools. ActionAid Hellas (AAH) coordinates a yearly ‘Global Action Week’ on MDG2 in schools and has increased the numbers of pupils participating from 4,000 in 2004 to 34,600 in 2012. Since 2001, Save the Children Romania (SCR) has been the national coordinator of the GCE. It has successfully included ‘whole school communities’ within its ‘Global Action Week’, involving 102,000 pupils, 4,800 parents and 8,200 teachers in 2011.