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Taking the stage in Berlin, the world’s education ambassador treated trade union delegates at the International Trade Union Confederation Congress to a rousing speech to stress their role in creating quality, accessible education around the world.

A morning plenary debate over trade union amendments was put on pause Wednesday to allow Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, the chance to rally trade unions.

Emotionally charged, and speaking freely without a script, the former UK Prime Minister called on the trade union movement to join the Emergency Coalition with Education International (EI) to get 57 million children into school, of which 30 million are girls.

Before a packed room, he preached the importance of unions, looking to the mining tragedy in Turkey as an example of the power they hold.

“If anybody has any doubts about solidarity, and about how people help each other when faced with difficulty, how the injured help the dying… let them see the importance of solidarity that you represent,” he said, stressing how that same solidarity is needed to ensure teachers and students can enter classrooms safely, without fear.

Education International General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, who joined Brown in Nigeria to launch the Safe Schools Initiative, praised the UN Envoy for his support of EI, and for his unique partnership with the organisation.

“On behalf of EI, I want to thank Gordon Brown for coming here today to share his passion with global unions to see that no child grows up without a quality education,” said van Leeuwen. “Together we have the opportunity to bring about real change.”

Brown harnessed the power of storytelling, looking to older conflicts, such as the Rwandan Genocide, and the current crisis in Nigeria, to show how education becomes the target of violence.

“It is every parent’s nightmare that their child goes to school, what should be a safe place, a safe haven, and never comes home,” said Brown, referring to the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria’s Borno State. “The international community must do more to help the Nigerian government to save these girls, create safe schools, and to ensure that every girl has the opportunity to go to school.”

The UN Envoy let his audience of over 1,500 know that trade unions can play an instrumental role in not only ensuring that students learn safely, but that their teachers are able to work without fear of violence. Since 2009, 171 teachers have been killed in Nigeria “because they were teaching girls,” a sobering fact that has only recently come to light.