Billy speaking: This is my friend, Sulee. She is 12 years old and lives in a village in south-east Asia.

She has seven brothers and sisters.

Her mother and father are so proud of her because she looks after her brothers and sisters and tends the goats on their small farm.

Sulee has never been to school and will not do so now. In fact she is engaged to be married.

Eilidh speaking: This is my friend, Aliya. She is 12 years old and lives in a village in east Africa. She has seven brothers and sisters.

Her mother and father are so proud of her because she looks after her brothers and sisters and tends the goats on their small farm.

Aliya has just been given the opportunity to go to a new school in the village. She is determined to go every day.

Someone else speaking?

What you are hearing is a true story, by the way.

It just hasn’t happened yet.

It is now 18 years in the future.

This is Sulee in 18 years time. She is now 30 years old.

She is a mother of 3 boys and 3 girls.

12 year old Chan is her favourite. Her mother and father are so proud of her because she looks after her brothers and sisters and tends the goats on their small farm.

Chan has never been to school and will not do so now. In fact she is engaged to be married.

In Sulee’s country things have improved a little since she was a girl, but there is still a lot of unrest.

A lot of people are still hungry and most people die before they are 50 years old.

This is Aliya in 18 years time. She has three children, aged 5, 6 and 8.

She did not get married and have children until she finished her business course at university.

She and her husband now have a small business supplying medicine and medical equipment for the new health centre in the village.

Her children all go to the school she attended.

In Aliya’s country, the economy is growing thanks to peaceful times in the last 15 years. People are on average twice as rich as they were when she was a child, although there is still some poverty.

There is still disease as well but AIDs is much less common and malaria and yellow fever only break out occasionally.

Billy: Remember my friend Sulee, aged 12.

Please,Send My Friend To School. You can see why.

This is how......