Why campaigning works

June 2011: It’s Tea Time for Change

Save the Children teamed up with other development charities to host Tea Time for Change at Westminster Central Hall in June 2011.

More than 1,500 people travelled to Westminster to make the case for international aid and development to their local MPs. They were addressed by Andrew Mitchell and his Labour shadow Harriet Harman.

131 MPs attended with 83% agreeing to support the target of spending 0.7% of the UK’s GDP on overseas aid. 

•  Read campaigner Megan Pennell's blog about the day.

June 2011: Vaccines for All

Over 47,000 campaigners took action ahead of the GAVI Summit in June, calling for world leaders' to fill a £2.3billion funding gap that would provide vaccinations for 250 million of the world's poorest children and save 4 million lives by 2015.

In order to increase the pressure on leaders, we held local events in across the country and held a global teleconference with philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

At the conference Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary announced, that the meeting had smashed it's target - reaching a total of £2.74bn, £440m more than originally set.

Read more about this amazing achievement.

September 2010: Campaigner Pressing for Change

In 2000 countries agreed to targets to reduce poverty, hunger and poverty levels by 2015 (the Millennium Development Goals). Ten years on, the world was seriously behind in meeting those goals.We needed British politicians to take a lead in getting us back on track.

We visited shopping centres and festivals up and down the country; took three famous mums to Bangladesh to see our work first hand and throughout the campaign thousands of campaigners emailed Nick Clegg asking him to press for an end to needless child deaths.

Nearly 65,000 joined the campaign in asking the deputy PM to take a lead at the United Nations summit on global poverty in September 2010.

The UK went on to play a leading role in championing maternal and child health. Save the Children Streatham campaigner, Samir Jahan and mummy blogger Josie George met Mr Clegg at Mumsnet Towers to hand over our petition.

“As a campaigner it’s great to get face to face with people in power and feel that they are listening to you”. Samir Jahan, Save the Children campaigner from Streatham.

June 2010: Poverty Kills Childhood campaign

We ran the Poverty Kills Childhood campaign during the general election to make sure children were not forgotten. More than 30,000 of you helped persuade all parties to commit to protecting aid for the poorest people in the world, and told politicians it's time to stop poverty destroying children's lives at home and abroad.

We worked with local campaigners to hold constituency events with parliamentary candidates. Soon to be PM, David Cameron, even showed up to congratulate us on our efforts in his Oxfordshire constituency.

"Our meeting with David Cameron went very well indeed. We’re happy that we were able to get across the message that so many people in Witney have signed up to say: from Southampton to Sierra Leone, poverty kills childhood,”  said Graham Evans, Save the Children supporter.

April 2010: Success in Sierra Leone

In April 2010, healthcare became free for all pregnant mothers and children under five in Sierra Leone, one of the world’s poorest countries.

Britain played a key role in making this possible, and campaigners played a major part in letting the government know how much support this policy had among UK voters. Thousands of you emailed Gordon Brown and he wrote back to acknowledge your efforts. Read his letter.