Since I have spent time volunteering in rural schools in Sri Lanka and have seen the power of education first hand, I was really excited to hear about the "Send My Friend to School" campaign. As a field correspondent in the NetAid Global Citizen Corp (GCC), I was encouraged to mobilize young people and other members of my community to participate in the campaign, which aims to call attention to more than 100 million children around the world who cannot go to school. Our project was to make cut-outs representing these children who are not in school - called 'friends' and send them to the leaders at the G8 Summit in July. 

I set a goal for myself to collect 1,000 signed friends to send to the G8. I started by inviting friends from my high school over on the weekends to make buddies and encouraged them to spread the word about the campaign. Then I went from class to class in my school, working my way down from seniors to the youngest students in the school. Every age group came up with its own model for making buddies. Even the kindergarten kids could imagine what it would be like to be shut out of school; they asked a lot of questions and decorated their friends with tenderness, treating them as if they were real people.

I also brought the friends with me to the Los Angeles Times Book Fair, which was held on April 23. I set-up an informal booth in the children's area and when kids came by, I asked them to help make a paper doll. While they worked, I talked to them about why access to education matters and how some of their friends in other parts of the world didn't have the same opportunities they did. More buddies were collected and more schools joined our effort.   

Sixty schools and weeks of hard campaigning later, I had reached my goal of collecting 1,000 friends.  

Now that the friends are on their way to the G8, I feel that I have done my part to raise awareness about the importance of education.  I'm proud of the people who made buddies and told their leaders to pay attention to all of our friends who cannot go to school. I hope they will listen to what we are saying.

Read about the journey of the 'friends' made by Mihiri and other students to NetAid, the G8 summit and beyond on the Global Campaign for Education BuddyBlog.

On June 15, I made a trip to Washington D.C. to meet up with young people from seven states who share my passion for making education a reality for all children. All of us had participated in the "Send My Friend to School" campaign and brought representations of buddies along with us that we had made in our schools. We converged on Capitol Hill excited with the opportunity to make our voices heard. From start to finish, the two-day trip was packed with meetings with Senators and Representatives.

We met with the organizers of the Global Campaign for Education to discuss our goals and map out a game plan for making our voices heard. After a quick tour of Capitol Hill, we hosted a group of legislators and their staffers at a reception. Two of the legislators we met that day were Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Texas, and Earl Pomeroy, a Representative from North Dakota. Both listened carefully to our concerns and applauded our efforts.

The second day we hit the Hill running. For my first meeting, I lobbied with a nine year-old from North Carolina. I'm seventeen, but we worked together in talking to a legislative assistant of Senator Elizabeth Dole named Aaron Mullins. Mullins was overwhelmed by all we knew about global education and expressed enthusiasm about getting Senator Dole more involved.   

With the help of NetAid's Helen Thompson – who accompanied me on the delegation - I met with Daniel Greenspahn, a staffer for my state representative, Anthony Weiner. Daniel admitted to having little background on the campaign for global access to education, but we were quick to get him up to speed.  Helen and I shared relevant facts, told him what Congressman Weiner could do to take action and introduced him to legislation proposed by Senator Hillary Clinton for universal primary education.

Near the end of the day, I met with Senator Hillary Clinton.  She is a true leader in the movement to get poor kids in school, so I was thrilled to get a chance to speak to her in person and thank her for her efforts. We spoke about the Global Campaign for Education and I told what my school had done to raise funds and awareness on the issue. As in all meetings, I brought along Larry, a cut-out of a friend made by one of my peers at Thomas Edison High School. She was a great listener and urged me to keep up the hard work.

The meeting was a perfect end to my trip.  It gave me great hope that there are more people out there who see themselves as global citizens and are committed to helping the world’s poor.

Learn how you can wear a white band like the one Ruben presented to Senator Clinton.

Read a news article about Ruben and other students who went to Washington to lobby Congress for universal education.