How your campaigning and our advocacy are making a difference for Mexico’s school children

On 30 April, Children’s Day in Mexico, we made a noise that the Mexican authorities couldn’t ignore. We brought Alma to the capital to tell her story to government officials and foreign embassies. She was even able to take part in a special Children’s Day breakfast hosted by the president! Meanwhile, youth groups and churches around the world held ‘solidarity parties’, writing letters to their local Mexican embassies to press for action on this issue. Alma had to travel for two days to get to Mexico City, and the courage she displayed throughout the whole experience was truly inspiring. During a very emotional meeting, Tania Ramírez Hernández, of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination told Alma: ‘We owe you an apology, this country owes you an apology… We have certainly failed in the process but we are here to protect you, so that your trajectory in life is what you want it to be.’ This is a very encouraging response. Thank you to all of you who wrote letters to the Mexican embassy and prayed!

Children like Alma all over Mexico are being denied their right to an education, simply because of their faith – in one example, around 40 children from one community in the state of Hidalgo have been blocked from attending school since last August. State government officials often attempt to cover up the scale of the problem, and even in Mexico, many people have no idea that this is happening. This shows just how much our Faith and a Future campaign is needed. Your campaigning and prayer combined with our advocacy gets extraordinary results that can change the lives of children like Alma, giving them the chance to have both faith and a future. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done so far – let’s keep up the pressure on the Mexican authorities.

Take action.

Go to csw.org.uk/campaigns to take action for Mexico’s schoolchildren.