A British student who survived the Parkland mass school shooting in February has said that he and his fellow young campaigners will not stop until school is a safe place for every child in the world.
Speaking at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, 17-year-old Lewis Mizen said: “We don’t know how we plan on getting to it, but the end goal is that every child in the United States - and eventually across the world - is able to go to school and come home at the end of the day to their parents.”
Mr Mizen, who spent much of his childhood in the UK, said they would not ease off after the March for Our Lives in Washington on 24 March, when many thousands of young people are expected to show their support for the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed by a former student on 14 February.
He told delegates: “But to anyone watching who thinks that - maybe the NRA or the US government - who’s looking at this and thinking, ‘We can ride the storm - once the 24th comes and passes, we’re home free’ - it’s not.”
He added: “This is a lifetime mission for us - this is something we’re going to fight for as long as we’re here.”
The prospect of arming teachers, suggested recently by president Donald Trump, led Mr Mizen to compare the situation in England, where his sister is a teacher.
“The idea that teachers would have to put their lives on the line to protect their students isn’t really something that comes into consideration in England,” he said, adding: “Teachers are there to educate their students - they shouldn’t have to serve as the first line of defence.”
Mr Mizen was also concerned that the debate around how to make schools safer focuses too much on mitigation of damage, rather than preemptive action to protect children from shootings.
“It’s something that shouldn’t ever happen - it needs to be stopped,” he said.
Fellow student Kevin Trejos, 18, said none of the teachers he had spoken to liked the idea of being armed - and even an NRA member had told him the same thing.
Another Parkland student, Suzanna Barna, 17, said of the killings at her school: “Not a single person in our community wasn’t affected by this happening.”
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