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Make
Poverty History
The
Make Poverty History campaign (which is written
as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) is a British and Irish
coalition of charities, religious groups, trade
unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who
mobilise around the UK's prominence in world politics,
as of 2005, to increase awareness and pressure
governments into taking actions towards relieving
absolute poverty. The symbol of the campaign is
a white "awareness bracelet" made of
cotton or silicone. Usually on the band the words
would be written in black, with the 'Poverty'
word a lighter shade. A 'virtual' white band was
also available to be displayed on websites.
TV
ads ran for many months, urging people to speak
to their representatives about stopping poverty.
However, the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom)
banned the ads, deciding that the ads were "wholly
or mainly political" in nature, since they
aimed to "achieve important changes".
The campaign said it was "disappointed"
in the decision.
The
three demands of the campaign were:
* "Trade Justice"
* Drop the debt
* More and "better" aid
It
should be noted that none of these aims were new
(there have been many attempts over the last few
decades to promote them), but the scale of the
2005 campaign dwarfed previous efforts.
On
January 31, 2006, the majority of the members
of the campaign passed a resolution to disband
the organisation, arguing that the UK coalition
had only agreed to come together formally for
a limited lifespan, to correspond with the UK
holding the presidency of the EU and G8. Around
forty groups had argued against the dissolution.
Some have been critical of the ending of the coalition;
the Left-wing activist Alex Callinicos wrote that
"disbanding of mph has a lot to do with the
interests of the big NGOs that dominated it"
and that "scrapping mph was an utterly shameful
decision. It can only promote the belief that
those who currently dominate the world are benevolent
figures who will, with a few pushes from below,
continue to take "small steady steps forwards".
(Credit:
Wikipedia).
Website
Make
Poverty History
The
biggest ever anti-poverty movement came together under
the banner of Make Poverty History in 2005. In 2006,
the fight against poverty continues. Take action now
to pressure politicians and decision makers to help
make poverty history.
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