Make Poverty History is a new initiative bringing together all the major charities and pressure groups working for fair-trade, debt cancellation and aid for the world’s poorest nations. The aim is to make extreme poverty extinct by the end of 2005 – a monumental task, and therefor one that we all need to get behind.
Their website is now live, and their page describing international trade laws is about the most succinct appraisal of why those laws are so horribly inequitous.
So what can we do? Well, there are lots of action points on the website, but the first one to raise the awareness of the campaign to the level where the pressure will do some good is to wear the white band – get lots of them, give them to your family and friends, explaining what it’s about. Wear them everywhere, and make a fuss.
The G8 summit this year is in Scotland, at Gleneagles – a real chance to pressure the UK goverment to do something about Trade reform and debt cancellation.
Soundtrack – David Sylvian, ‘Secrets Of The Beehive’.