Teachers Without Borders: would you change the name?
Am rung with the news that GB (not Great Britain - but he who would be PM) has announced £20 million for children’s education in war zones in Africa. So three cheers! I cannot help but notice that since the introduction of the Liberal Democrat campaign to set up an education version of the Red Cross Gordon has been a bit more visible on this issue.
Which reminds me - I am mulling over the name of our campaign. Perhaps we should call it the Ed Cross instead of Teachers without Borders? When I was looking for a catchy title for an International emergency education response team - an education version of the Red Cross in fact - someone suggested the Ed Cross, but I thought it might upset the Red Cross at the time. However, as our campaign progresses I have come round to thinking that Ed Cross expresses what we are trying to deliver much better than Teachers without Borders. What do you think?
Anyway - back to Gordon's £20 million for African war zones given to Unicef. Save the Children - who are leading the campaign to get the government to accept education as part of first humanitarian response - identified that out of 80 million children not in education in the developing world nearly 40 million are in war or conflict-affected zones. That means Gordon's beneficence - whilst very welcome - is delivering about 50p per war zone child without education - albeit that his money is earmarked for Africa only whilst the 40 million children I refer to are across the whole developing world. So - not looking a gift horse in the mouth – but there is much more still to do.
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I went to school with someone called Ed Cross!
Seriously, though, I think the name is open to ridicule (sorry, Ed!).
Conversely, what with MSF and Reporters without Froniters and Doctors Without Borders, I can't tell whether Teachers Without Borders is part of a theme or crass bandwagoning.
BTW: I've written my own take on my blog (about which you, Jo Chrsitie-Smith and I were chatting on Tuesday) at http://liberalpolemic.blogspot.....ordon.html