NEA's work to gain a quality education for all students extends to children well beyond our nation's borders. Recently, in Spain and in India, President Reg Weaver and Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen met with political and education leaders to advance the needs of children there.

Weaver met in Spain with union leaders to discuss the education of immigrant and minority communities, and what role unions played in improving services for those children.  He toured schools where many North African students have come. At an alternative school whose population was predominantly Moroccan immigrants, Weaver received a personal and poignant look at the vocational education students were receiving. Noticing that his cane was a bit worse for wear, the students asked if he could live without it for the day. The next day, they presented him with the cane, fully restored in their carpentry shop.

"We must use our collective strength to demand more resources, so that every child has an opportunity for a quality education," Eskelsen told the 10,000 teachers gathered at the All India Primary Teacher's Federation. Later in the trip, Eskelsen met with children recently rescued from a slave labor factory where children's clothing was being made, bound for the U.S. Her visit attracted widespread attention, and meetings were lined up with local dignitaries.

NEA works in partnership with Education International, the consortium of teachers unions from around the world.

Interested in working on the world stage yourself? NEA will sponsor a select number of members to travel to England in April as participants in a workshop on the Magna Carta. The workshop, a joint project of the NEA and the United Kingdom's National Union of Teachers, will focus on developing strategies and materials for teaching about the Magna Carta's tenets of freedom, justice, fairness and human rights. Get more application information here.