ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, this weekend you have probably seen Sky News has reported on the distressing story of the Syrian migrants whose boat capsized as they tried to reach Greece killing three of their children.  Rescuers found people struggling in the water after the vessel which had set said from Turkey capsized off the small island of Agathonisi.  Despite the winter, tens of thousands of migrants are still trying to cross to Europe each and every week.  I’m joined now by Sarah Brown, the global education campaigner, she’s President of the Theirworld charity and chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education, she’s in North Queensferry and a very good morning to you, Sarah Brown.  Education, do you feel it is a bit overlooked, as one of the drivers of why people engage in these perilous, perilous journeys?

SARAH BROWN: Thanks Dermot, yes, I’ve watched your coverage this week and it’s been truly distressing to see the lengths that families will go to to try to reach safe haven and a future for their children.  Education really is the route through for children, it’s the place they can go to and learn and help build their future and also often the place where they will get their best nutritious meal of the day so we are hoping to keep increasing the numbers of children from Syria whose families have settled in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Turkey and to make sure there are school places for them there.  

DM: So we are talking about initially the refugee camps?

SARAH BROWN: There are families who are in refugee camps but there are also families who are dispersed through the country, through the towns. I  was in Lebanon just recently and in Beirut there are thousands of Syrian families who settled there who are getting a relatively warm welcome there because of course the Lebanese remember the times when the Syrians looked after them not so long ago and what we have been doing with the charity Theirworld is working very hard with the government, with other NGOs to create places for schools, often in double shift schools where the same school building can accommodate two sets of classes in one day and that doubles the numbers of course that can go through any school.   

DM: And it’s a no-brainer of course but it must be said out loud that without education these are the people, the young people who we hope, it’s a little distant at the moment but we hope will one day return to their country and rebuild it.  

SARAH BROWN: Yes, Dermot, you are quite right.  I’ve met young children where their dream is to be an engineer or a doctor or a teacher and those are the skills that they want to take back to their own country to help rebuild it with the devastation of what’s going on and of course we know there is such a crisis going on there that we face the prospect of more children coming over with their families and an ever-increasing burden on those host countries so I think it is very important that we continue to work with the UN, who have their fourth Syria pledging conference coming up which will be the biggest and most important one yet, to be able to pull in support from governments, from individuals, from businesses as well which is where I’ve been working the last couple of weeks, to try to make sure the funding is there to get those children a school place.

DM: Tell me about that, you mentioned the NGOs, the government, I think people know about those sources of funding but why is it in big business’s interests to help out?

SARAH BROWN: I think if we are going to reach this target of making sure we protect children everywhere and particularly looking at these Syrian children in crisis now, that everyone needs to play their part.  Wealthy businesses know that for their future customers, for their own stakeholders, they are going to need to play their part and contribute.  These people are people too who may well be shopping for their products one day in the future if they can get their lives back on track, why would they not play their part?  They are part of our society.  My plan is to go to Davos next week where all the business leaders meet up the top of a Swiss mountain.  It is not the thing I would choose to do but I am determined to go there already with a group of businesses who are going to pledge cash and also pledge in-kind services to help build schools, provide technology, provide school furniture and help with training teachers, providing learning materials. There is lots of things the private sector can do alongside government and alongside the non-profit groups.  I think if we all work together surely we can reach every child.

DM: It’s interesting you say that, do you feel as a critical mass when it comes to understanding the scale of the humanitarian crisis, it’s often been said we have been very late realising just how bad, how awful this has become.  It is what, five, six years now nearly since the civil war began.

SARAH BROWN: Yes, these are desperate times for these families and if you think of it, more than six years ago many of these children were getting up in the morning and putting on their backpacks, heading off to school just as our children do here in Britain.  So this is a complete change of circumstance for them where they are in real distress and those families are going to such desperate measures to try to find safe haven.   

DM: And for those who still remain to be convinced, we are just looking at some of the pictures we have been referring to, Sarah Brown, of Lisa Holland’s report from the seas of the Mediterranean, those awful pictures of just one rescue going on among so many.  For those who remain to be convinced, you would say to people well look, I suppose this is one of the keys to stopping people thinking that they have to try to do this.

SARAH BROWN: Look, there is a way.  If you look at the governments of Turkey, of Lebanon, in Jordan, they have already been very generous.  When we are looking at the numbers that we are dealing with right now, there is about 1.3 million school age children who need to be in school and those governments with support from donors, from the foundations and others coming to the fore, have managed to get nearly half of those children into school already but the numbers we are dealing with now, we are talking just over 700,000 school age children and maybe about 85,000 little ones needing early years support, those are the sorts of numbers that we are talking about.  I think at the pledging conference coming up, I think with the opportunities we’ve got with business leaders, with governments, with international agencies, there’s a real chance that we could finish that job, make sure that those children have the funding for their school places and settling into their temporary homes closer to Syria and with the dream to go home one day too.

DM: Sarah Brown, very good talking to you and very best of luck with the campaign.  

SARAH BROWN: Thank you.