The day I went to Downing Street..

t’s not every day that you get to knock on the infamous black door of Number 10 Downing Street, but then again it’s not every day that you hear the sound of 143,021 voices demanding that the EU protects its life-saving foreign aid budget.

Of course, I’m talking about ONE’s Lifesaver petition which is campaigning to make sure that the European Union does not cut crucial foreign aid. As one of many ONE Campaign student leaders supporting the campaign, I took to Twitter, and into the flats of the University of Birmingham’s passionate students, to gather as much support as I possibly could. A few retweets of support later, varying from the cast of the Only Way is Essex, to the former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, and the Sky News anchor Alex Crawford, I had the honour, along with fellow student leader, Shahban Aziz, to bring the life saver petition to the British government.

Now, I’m not one for stereotypes, but the London isn’t particularly known for its blaring sunshine. In fact, on the delivery day, you could have mistaken central London as being the backdrop for “Saving Private Ryan” with torrential rain, flashes of lightning, and gale-force winds standing between in our way. Three broken umbrellas and a few drenched ONE t-shirts later, we arrived at 3.00pm sharp to deliver the petition, as well as a lifesaver shirt for Mr Cameron himself.

From there, we traveled to the Treasury, where staff kindly accepted a letter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne, and a rather large placard with the faces of those who had signed the petition. Similarly, we popped into the Department of International Development, where the petition was passed onto Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening, which proved to be an incredible result.

The 21^st November 2012 was certainly a success story. It was an honour to deliver such a worth-while petition, on behalf of the thousands of people who care so passionately about saving lives. European aid costs us £12 per year and has already put, between 2005 and 2009, more than 9 million children in primary education, helped vaccinate more than 5 million against measles, and connected more than 31 million people to clean water. The EU is not wasting money, the aid budget is an incredible sign of progress and Europeans are making sure that lives will continue be saved.