The Prime Minister has been answering kid's questions about child poverty as part of Save the Children's biggest ever campaign.
Monday 31 March 2008
'For the Kids' day sees children from across the country co-presenting radio shows and news programmes to promote how simple it can be to save a child's life.
In an interview at Downing Street, the Prime Minister told budding radio presenters Charlotte, Emily and Scarlet that his ambition is to get every child into education:
"I want every child to have the chances that my children have. Seventy seven million children won't go to school today because there's no school to go to and no teacher. We could be the first generation in history that made it possible for every child to have the chance to go to school."
Charlotte from Manchester showed the Prime Minister some pictures of poverty in Sierra Leone and asked what could be done. "We've got the science and we've got the medicine and we've got the technology, so we've got to persuade all countries that we can invest enough in Sierra Leone to end the tragedies that exist there," he told her.
He explained that a better medical infrastructure is desperately needed in a country that has just 70 doctors and 200 nurses for a population of 6 million.
Mr Brown said that simple things can be done to help children across Africa. A fund has been set up to pay for 500 million people to be vaccinated and an announcement will soon be made about providing mosquito nets which help prevent malaria. "As you know, they're very cheap and we want to launch a campaign to persuade other countries, charities and private businesses to contribute a large number," he said.
The PM said that everyone should think about what they can do to make a difference to children's lives in Africa and Emily told him about the work her school is doing to help pupils in Kenya. "We donate money every year and they've built a new school. It's the way a school should be," she said.
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