Can blogging end poverty?

Can blogging end poverty? This is the headline in an article that challenges whether Blog Action Day can achieve its intended outcomes. Is serious attention being given to an important issue, or is it just a fad for a day only?

Read all about it! …in todays Guardian via John Hilary: Can blogging end poverty? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk and then join the debate here and leave your comments.

It’s time to Get Fair!

Get Fair is a new national coalition of organisations and individuals campaigning for an end to poverty in the UK.

The coalition points out that over 13 million people in the UK live in poverty, including:

• 30% of children
• 30% of disabled adults
• 23% of pensioners
• 20% of women

The campaign wants all political parties to commit to concrete measures to ensure everyone in Britain has:

• An income that meets minimum living standards
• Affordable housing and decent neighbourhoods
• Fair access to services, without discrimination

Visit the Get Fair Website for more information and to see how you can get involved.

Campaigning against World Poverty

For Blog Action Day 2008 we invite you to visit the websites of some of the well-known campaigners against World Poverty. Click on the relevant image.

Actionaid Fair Trade Foundation

Make Poverty History Oxfam

The World Bank

The World Development Movement

Child poverty campaign

Millions of children are being “failed by the system” and living in or on the brink of poverty, it has been claimed. Research by the Campaign to End Child Poverty found that in 174 of the 646 parliamentary constituencies across the UK, more than half the children live in poverty or are in families struggling on low incomes.

Child poverty has been defined as:

A couple with two children living on less than £312 per week after housing costs, and a single parent with two children spending less than £231.

Using this definition then it has been estimated that two-thirds of children in Blackpool live in poverty!  Read the Blackpool Gazette article for more via Blackpool child poverty shock – Blackpool Today

Send a message to Gordon Brown MP Click image to visit End Child Poverty Website

Thousands of people are campaigning for the Government to keep its promise to end child poverty by 2020. More than 10,000 gathered in Trafalgar Square in London on October 4th for a rally to highlight the plight of nearly four million children who live below the poverty line in the UK.

“The Government will have a legal duty to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020″ says Gordon Brown following talks with campaigners. However, this does not mean it will happen, so join the campaign to end Child Poverty by sending a message to Gordon Brown through the End Child Poverty website.