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Gordon Brown sent off to Japan with 60,000 wishes for action
UK campaigners have sent Gordon Brown off to the G8 in Japan with strong anti-poverty messages. On 3 July, a Tanabata tree and a 60,000 strong petition were delivered to the Prime Minister’s door.
- 60,000 wishes for action were delivered to Gordon Brown ahead of his trip to the G8 2008 summit in Japan<br /> Credit: Oxfam
Petition names had been collected by UK NGOs such as CAFOD, Oxfam and World Vision as well as the Trade Union Congress.
The petition called on the G8 to increase aid and make it more effective; to support public health care; to assist free education in the developing world; and to stop harming and start helping the environment.
The hand in came just days after activists from the Jubilee Debt Campaign wrapped Parliament Square with a giant white band made of 10, 000 paper chains. Each link was a demand from a UK citizen calling on the G8 to drop the remaining debt. These were then gathered and delivered to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Japanese embassy in London.
Glen Tarman, GCAP Global Council member from the UK NGO Platform BOND, said:
“The G8 must not renege on promises to deliver on education, health, HIV/AIDS, climate change and aid commitments. So many millions around the world called upon the G8 leaders to act in Gleneagles, UK, in 2005. Now leaders Yasuo Fukuda, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Stephen Harper and Dmitry Medvedev have all received to their doors a further call from citizens around the globe to take urgent action so the world can move forwards, with no further backtracking, in the fight to end poverty.”
