Young people all over Europe are to take part in a campaign to hold theinternational community to its promises on child labour and education,writes Louise Holden

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York in September 2000, the international community came together and made a promise: every child in the world would have access to free primary education by 2015.

If this goal was to be realised, the ongoing problem of child labour would finally have to be addressed in a meaningful way. The 246 million child workers who remain out of school today would have a real chance to improve their situation. History tells us it can be done: child labour was common in Europe during the Industrial Revolution until western governments decided to make schooling compulsory. Now only 1 per cent of all child labour is in Europe, North America and Australia; the other 99 per cent is in the developing world. Shantha Sinha, this year's winner of the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (the Asian equivalent of a Nobel peace award), told The Irish Times exactly why the abolition of child labour is so important to the developing world.

"All these children live in fear and anxiety without any access to any rights that they are entitled to," she said. "The hopelessness and insecurity their parents undergo in their daily lives are unwittingly passed on to them. Such children must be given a chance to break the shackles of oppression and visualise a world full of possibilities. This can happen only if they are in schools. To do so, all the agencies, institutions, governments and civil society must in one voice state, with full and firm conviction that no child must work and every child must attend full-time formal schools."

Bringing children into school gets them out of the workforce - it's that simple. Whether it's factory work, farm work or prostitution, child labour is damaging to communities. Where all children in a society have access to free education their health improves, they live longer, there is greater equality and less conflict.

The cost of keeping the Millennium Summit promise is $10 billion. It sounds like a lot, but when you consider that more than $200 billion goes on global military spending every day, it starts to look like a bargain. Only $700 million has been raised for the project so far, so at this rate the promise will be broken.

School students around the world are now being asked to take control. Throughout Europe, Transition-age students are being invited to build their own campaigns to put pressure on governments to keep the promise they made. The campaign is called School is the Best Place to Work and will bring together thousands of students.

In January, Irish Transition Year students will be asked to put forward candidates from their schools who can speak up for the rights of their peers in the developing world. The aid agency, Concern, will provide a campaign toolkit to every interested school, and those students who are nominated as campaign leaders can use the toolkit to help add Ireland's voice to the global call for universal access to education.

The toolkit suggests a range of actions, including writing letters to TDs and MEPs, organising protests, raising local awareness, writing articles, producing newsletters, and organising task groups.

Concern will run a series of youth forums on child labour in January and February 2004 to give students a deeper understanding of the problem and to elect a youth council, which in turn will elect an Irish representative for the World Congress on Child Labour in Florence from May 10th to 16th.

For more details and to order a campaign toolkit, contact Lizzy Noone at 01-4177740.