The fight against poverty

13 May 2005

600 million children live in absolute poverty. Every year more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases – that’s one child every three seconds. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Poverty doesn’t occur through chance or bad luck.

Fight against poverty

When the leaders of the world’s richest countries (the G8) meet at Gleneagles next month, they have the power to cancel the debts that the poorest countries are repaying, to increase and improve aid, and make trade fair – but only if everyone tells them we want them to.

This is exactly what the Make Poverty History campaign – the largest ever group assembled in the UK to fight against global poverty – was set up to do.

Make Poverty History

Y Care International, the international development and relief agency of the YMCA in the UK and Ireland, has been involved in Make Poverty History since day one. We’re now one of over 400 member organisations of the coalition.

Along with over 300 young people from YMCAs across the UK – one of the largest groups of young people taking part – we’re set to join thousands of people gathering in Edinburgh on 2 July to tell the G8 leaders to end global poverty.

And on 1 July, the day before the rally, starting at 1.30pm at Livingston Football Club, we’re running a day of global youth work workshops, campaigns training and entertainment – to help young people really understand what Make Poverty History is all about. This is part of Y Care International’s global youth work programme – specifically targeted at young people involved in the YMCA movement in the UK and Ireland – which helps young people make sense of a complex world.

Young people take lead

What makes Make Poverty History different is the focus on action, not cash. Y Care International believes that young people must be at the heart of that action. And it must be all young people. Marginalised young people in this country who experience hardship are better placed to make local-global links between the issues affecting them personally and the problems affecting young people across the developing world.

‘Bungle’, a High Wycombe YMCA resident, says: “We need all young people to be involved in Make Poverty History – school children, university students but also young people who might not normally get involved in this kind of thing. I help out at a youth club on Tuesday nights, and when I wear my Make Poverty History T-Shirt everyone asks me about Y Care International and what the campaign is about, they’re all really interested and want to help.

“By being involved in Make Poverty History I know that I’ve done something and done my bit to help people worse off than me,” he adds. “And the experience of being involved in the campaign means I’ve picked up skills which I’ll use in the future.”