“Class It On” and Save the Children

Save the Children are currently running a very ambitious campaign to raise awareness of the number of children dying each year from preventable diseases.  1 in 5 children miss out worldwide miss out on the vaccines that we take for granted here in the UK.

On June 13 the UK is hosting a half day global vaccination summit in London where world leaders and decision makers will decide how to get vaccines to the world’s poorest children.  Save The Children have made suggestions as to how 4 million lives could be saved by 2015 if the following commitments are made at the summit:

• To find funding for the work of the global immunisation drive led by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) so millions more children – including the poorest children from the poorest countries who are currently missing out – can be protected from life-threatening illnesses and diseases

• To invest in more health workers and care services because vaccines don’t inject themselves and there is a global shortage of 3.5 million health workers

• To work with manufacturers to reduce the prices of new and existing vaccines – especially for new vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhoea – the two biggest killers of children worldwide.  That way, donors can but more vaccines and poor countries can afford them long-term.

Tens of thousands of people have shown their support for the Save the Children Immunisation campaign by signing up to the online petition which will be presented at the global vaccination summit of June 13^th 2011.

In order to spread awareness, a wide range of activities have been taking place with the message ‘pass it on’ the idea is that bloggers and tweeters spread the word about the campaign through a wide variety of means.  And I think we should join in with… ‘Class it on’

I’d love to get as many class bloggers as possible involved in this campaign which will be a great opportunity to raise awareness of this important issue whilst also creating new links between class bloggers.

So here’s my challenge to you and your class bloggers:

To celebrate the fact that we’re all lucky enough to be protected against preventable diseases and can look forward to growing up fit and healthy, I’d love to see your pupils blog on the topic:

“My diary, June 13^th 2031” (exactly 20 years after the global vaccination summit)

Your pupils can write, draw, video, record – whatever they like – but please add their entry to the link below so it can be shared.  I’d love to see their imaginations go wild.  Maybe we’ll all be living on the moon by then, or deep beneath the sea.  Perhaps cars will fly and we’ll all be keeping pet emus… who knows!

Please “class it on” and get as many class bloggers involved as possible and don’t forget to sign the petition.