Jess Hardy and Samina Begum, Young Ambassadors for Send My Friend, joined former child refugee and War Child young campaigner Oscar Kashemwa to tell politicians about the urgent need to provide more funding for education in emergencies now.

The young campaigners were speaking in the House of Commons to help launch a new report from the Global Campaign for Education, “The fierce urgency of now: delivering children’s right to education during crisis.”

The report highlights that in 2015 alone the education of 80 million children was disrupted by humanitarian crisis, but despite this less than 2% of humanitarian aid is spent on education in emergencies.

Oscar, a former refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo told his personal story to this audience.

“Being brought up in a war, or being a refugee who had to keep moving from place to place to stay alive, means that I did not have a normal childhood. I could not go to school, I did not have a settled home life, and found it hard to make friends.” 

Oscar says that he is one of the lucky ones. He is now living with a foster family in the UK and although has missed many years of education is already average in his class. He hopes one day to be a vet.

Nazma Kabir, Plan UK’s director of programmes spoke about the urgent need for action by global governments. The new Education Crisis Platform will launch at the World Humanitarian Summit in May. This is a huge opportunity to galvanise political commitment and further funding for education in emergencies.

The Minister for the Department for International Development, Nick Hurd said the UK will continue to champion the Education Crisis Platform, and are committed to supporting it.

The Young Ambassadors spoke about the Send My Friend to School campaign telling how passionate young people across the country were about getting education for every child worldwide, whatever their situation and asked MPs to visit schools this Summer term and take their message to the highest levels.

Oscar finished by saying, “With education children can achieve their goals… I know I’m one of the lucky ones… please do all you can to help children who don’t have an education”.