Samina Begun and Jessica Hardy have won this year’s competition to become the Young Ambassadors for the Global Campaign for Education’s Send My Friend to School initiative.
As well as their trip to Kenya, the role will see the pair raising awareness of the global campaign to achieve universal education.
In 2000, governments around the world pledged to achieve universal primary education by 2015 – a target that was missed, despite much progress being made.
There are still 57 million primary children around the world who are not in education, with more than half of these living in sub-Saharan Africa. Half also live in conflict zones.
World leaders set a new series of Sustainable Development Goals last year, including a pledge to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030. Worldwide there are currently 124 million children up to the age of 15 out of school.
The Global Campaign for Education is seeking to hold these governments to account for this promise.
The Young Ambassadors for 2015 were George Watts and Emily Pemberton from Ysgol Gyfun Plasmawr in Cardiff, who visited Ghana earlier this year to investigate the challenges that girls face to education.
Next month, Jessica and Samina will visit Kenya on a fact-finding mission with Deaf Child Worldwide, the global arm of the National Deaf Children’s Society, to discover some of the barriers still denying millions of children their right to a quality education.
The two pupils will visit projects run by Deaf Child Worldwide and meet deaf children, teachers, government officials and charity workers in urban and rural parts of the country. They will explore what support is needed to ensure deaf children can achieve in line with their hearing classmates.
They will spend time in the capital Nairobi, but will also travel 500 kilometres east to the rural area of Kwale.
In Kenya, most deaf children have no technological support, such as hearing aids. Those who do go to school are often in classes with up to 50 pupils, where the majority of teachers have never received any deaf awareness training. Leaving school with no education or communication skills often commits them to a life of poverty.
Following the trip, the winners will share their experiences to help support the Send My Friend to School campaign. Their diary from the trip will be published in SecEd. They will also be speaking to parliamentarians in the House of Commons and to teachers at the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference.
Samina, 14, said: “I am now really looking forward to learning sign language and to communicate without spoken language. It’s going to really help me understand the situation that some children face in Kenya. I am so privileged to have the opportunity to do my bit in making this world a better place.”
Jessica, 15, added: “We are so grateful for this opportunity. I can’t wait to be able to finally help those who aren’t as privileged as me. I’m really looking forward to being able to get my voice heard and see what change we can make.”
The competition – known as the Steve Sinnott Award – was set up following the sudden death of in 2008 of Mr Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers and a passionate advocate of global education. The award is now funded by GCE UK and the NUT. For details, visit www.sendmyfriend.org/young-ambassadors/