‘One girl told me: children in Syria are just like us’
Hollywood stars Carey Mulligan and Vanessa Kirby say our campaign to unite schoolchildren from war zones with their young British peers has achieved exactly what it set out to do
London school pupils mingled with Hollywood stars at a party to celebrate the success of our Learn to Live campaign. Children from the four schools at the heart of the campaign spent time with actors Carey Mulligan and Vanessa Kirby before Evening Standard and Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev invited
them on a tour of the newsrooms.
Through Learn to Live, run in partnership with the charity War Child, the youngsters have spent months corresponding with children affected by war in Jordan, Iraq and the Central African Republic. Some fled Syria, and others are living in camps after enduring life under Isis or being displaced during the civil war. All the children struggle to get a full education or receive the mental health support they need following traumatic experiences.
Thanks to our twinning programme, the children in London and abroad have exchanged homemade games, video messages, letters and details of their lives to form firm friendships. They have also have affected real change through writing more than 700 letters to the prime minister to demand increased funding to support their new friends. This week the government announced an £11m boost towards mental health support for children affected by conflict around the world.
More than 500 British schools have joined the campaign to link with schools in war zones and deprived areas. Schoolchildren meet Carey Mulligan (L) and Vanessa Kirby, as they are given tours of the Evening Standard and Independent offices by owner Evgeny Lebedev
Mr Lebedev said: “Newspapers can be a great force for good and I am so proud to see how the Learn to Live campaign has demonstrated that. Not only has it successfully made the government focus on the issue of children in combat zones, and helped the work of a great charity in War Child, but it has also linked children across London, like the ones here today, with kids the same age abroad who have experienced the realities of war firsthand. The way they have embraced each other, and learned that they are all the same but just living in different circumstances, is extremely moving.”
War Child global ambassador Mulligan said: “The campaign has had tangible results, which is incredible. The UK government has given us extra funding – but it’s more than that. It’s just put these stories into people’s lives, particularly forgotten conflicts that aren’t in the news cycle, like in the Central African Republic. They have come back to the fore by people reading about them on the Tube every day on their way home from work. My favourite part of today has been speaking to the girls from Hornsey [School for Girls]. One girl, Harriet, said, ‘These girls in Syria are just like us’, and that was the point of this whole campaign.”
Honey Hargreaves, 13, a pupil at Hornsey, said: “I think we have achieved so much, and we are going to
carry on sending them videos.”
Classmate Lola Langham, 13, said: “We started off the project with none of us really knowing what to expect, and we have learned how far the girls [Syrian refugees living in Zaatari camp in Jordan] have come.”
Vanessa Kirby, star of Netflix’s The Crown, who is also a War Child ambassador, has been visiting children at Betty Layward Primary School in Stoke Newington and helped them write letters to Theresa May. On Thursday, she said: “I first saw them months ago when they were starting, and to see the pictures of the kids they have been writing to, and the letters between them, it’s amazing.”
Frances Barber Pupil Referral Unit was twinned with a school in the Central African Republic. Kira, 14, a pupil at Francis Barber, said: “They are very brave children. It has been a very interesting subject, as has visiting The Evening Standard and Independent.”