Hello… Can you hear me?

It started around August 2018 when the European Students Union (ESU) was approached by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) secretariat inviting us to participate in the Youth Caucus(YC) prior to the GCE World Assembly. The YC was planned by an international Ad Hoc Committee with youth representatives from 8 different countries, led by the outstanding Astrid Jagtvard Schmidt from GCE.

The committee met virtually once a week for over 14 weeks to discuss best practices and innovative ways to engage and promote youth participation within GCE. The question “Hello, can you hear me?” was an integral part of our SKYPE meetings.

After months of planning, we finally arrived in Kathmandu. We were meeting and seeing each other for the very first time, but we were already a unified team with common goals and ambitions.

01

Youth voices get unified

With the great support of the GCE, youth representatives from different organizations and regions met for 2 full days, giving us the liberty to discuss & debate on matters we found to be important. At the end of the Youth Caucus, we were already sharing a common language.

Thanks to this progress for the first time in GCE, a Youth-led constituency has joined the board.

In my opinion, the most powerful and inspiring part of the World Assembly was the youth Session on the third day of the World Assembly. We presented to the whole membership a unified genuine youth voice in 5 different languages and dialogued with members and organisations from the 5 continents.

We want youth to be actively involved in & integrated with GCE. In her speech, the UN Deputy Secretary General Ms Amina J Mohammed invited us to be disruptive – and we intend to be! For this reason, we are already pushing for not only one youth seat on the board but two seats, representing the global South & North.

Happily, our emergency motion was passed unanimously and supported by all the GCE members!

02

Time to roll up our sleeves

Our work has just begun. Together with digital technologies we will construct and extend a Youth Network within GCE, allowing many youth-led organizations to be involved and active in ensuring good quality public education, accessible to all, around the world.

From here I send a call to all current and future GCE members: Please encourage youth participation! Together we will build the youth constituency, we need your help, experience, and guidance.

We are young, full of energy and belief that education is the best way to improve our society.

03Daniel Altman is the first representative of a youth-led organisation to be elected in the GCE Board. Originally from Israel, Daniel is an Executive Committee member of the European Students Union. A former Chairperson of the “Shenkar Engineering Design Art” Students’ Union college in Tel-Aviv, Daniel holds B.Sc of Industrial Engineering and Management with specialization in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Creative leadership. He currently studies a Masters of Industrial Engineering and Management.

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The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that aims to end exclusion in education. Education is a basic human right, and our mission is to make sure that governments act now to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality, public education.