Edinburgh, 2nd July

This year the UK hosts the G8 summit. There will be events and demonstrations all year in the UK to petition the G8 group to put, in particular, Trade Justice, Poverty and Ecology high on their agenda. A collaboration of charities and faith groups have used the summit and high profile demonstration, as a spring board for their own push to ‘MakePOVERTYHistory’ - a campaign which aims to help poor people by making trade fair, increasing aid and dropping debt.

What do we want?

The Make Poverty History coalition is calling for three things:

Trade justice
Debt cancellation
More and better aid

Why choose 2005 for Make Poverty History?

2005 is a third of the way to the 2015 deadline to reach the Millennium Development goal targets, and it’s a wake up call to ensure that world governments meet these.

This year the UK is hosting the annual meeting of the G8, the world’s most powerful political leaders, and holds the Presidency of the European Union.

In December, the UN will meet to discuss progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.
The World Trade Organisation meets.

Add in World Debt Day, World Aids Day, Red Nose Day, the Global Week of Action for Trade Justice and there are many chances for us to make sure world leaders know they need to take action now.

How building a united world can help make poverty history

Youth for a United World (The young people in the Focolare movement) supports Make Poverty History as an effective means of building a more united world. So this year we have chosen to take our theme as 'How building a united world can help make poverty history'. The Y4UW globally and in the UK have a long history of building a united world to help make poverty history. In some cases there has been definite action; a sponsored run, international café or visits by young people to Africa and other countries. But also in our day-to-day lives we love our neighbours as ourselves and we know that our lives are being lived to support and love our neighbours in poorer countries. This year we want to focus particularly on how our Ideal can make poverty history.

The activities we do this year will all be influenced by this theme to some extent. The main event will be our trip to Edinburgh to the G8 demonstration. To find out more about this go to: http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

Y4UW have organised a weekend long trip to Edinburgh during the G8 Summit from the 2nd-3rd July. As well as taking part in the 'Make Poverty History' demonstration we will have a programme of our own including a special evening of entertainment, sightseeing, and have also organised accomodation. To download a booking form for the weekend CLICK HERE.

For more information about the weekend please contact James - 07816 635761, or Claire on - 07766 810851