Volunteers help realise Goal 6: Halting the incidence of major diseases

In 2000, ten million people volunteered to support the immunisation of 550 million children as part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The vast majority were concerned citizens, volunteering in their own communities. They gave their time to ensure that children reported to immunisation stations, were properly documented, and received the oral vaccine. The total value of the support provided by volunteers was estimated at $10 billion, well beyond the reach of governments or international and national organisations. This example illustrates well how the solidarity and creativity of millions of ordinary people, channelled through volunteerism, are key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Palestinians and Israelis march

On 7 February 2004 an estimated 3000 protesters, including Palestinians and Israelis, demonstrated against Israel's controversial separation barrier which cuts through the West Bank. Protesters marched along the wall for two kilometers in the biggest anti-wall demonstration yet.

"No to apartheid," and "the wall creates a prison for Palestinians, a ghetto for Israel," the demonstrators chanted, many of them waving Palestinian flags.

The protest was organised to put pressure on the Israeli government by two peace groups, the Israeli-Palestinian Taayush movement and the Israeli Gosh Shalom Movement. They call for ending the occupation and withdrawing from the West Bank.

Citizens unite to achieve Goal 2: Global Campaign for Education (GCE)

Education is a basic human right and is fundamental to the fight for human dignity and freedom. Worldwide, 125 million children and 880 million adults have been denied that right. A further 150 million children will not finish primary school.

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) promotes education as a basic human right, and mobilises public pressure on governments and the international community to fulfil their promises to provide free, compulsory public basic education for all people; in particular for children, women and all disadvantaged, deprived sections of society.

April 19-25 2004 saw the world’s biggest ever lobby on education. The Campaign mobilised 850 000 people in 105 countries to lobby for Goal 2 by calling on their governments to prioritise and provide resources for education. In support of the GCE, young people in the UK invited their MPs to come back to school for a day, and told them why they think education is so important.
Source: CGE website

Uganda postage stamps

Uganda issued a set of postage stamps on the eight MDGs. The designs were developed during an earlier action, an MDG painting competition in secondary schools.

Brazil takes action on Goal 1: Zero Hunger Campaign

President Lula da Silva’s Zero Hunger Campaign is an innovative approach to eradicating hunger and achieving MDG Goal 1. Brazil has one of the highest income inequalities in the world. There are 46 million poor people in Brazil. Zero Hunger was created to fight hunger and its structural causes, going beyond eliminating hunger today by ensuring long-term food security for all Brazilians. It aims to ensure that all families are able to feed themselves with dignity and with the regularity, quantity and quality required for the maintenance of physical and mental health. The program includes direct aid to the poor, but also training to help people feed themselves, and it involves businesses and ordinary citizens as well as government.

Zero Hunger gives the poor an electronic Food Card to receive food aid if they take a three month literacy course. It teaches them how to build cisterns to collect rainwater and how to plant vegetable gardens. It also enlists local community volunteers to help collect emergency food baskets, clothes and medicine, provide weekly meals for the hungry, develop seed banks, offer courses about food nutrition, etc. Popular support for the program is very strong, with affluent neighborhoods organising gift campaigns and large companies offering free advertising, phone lines and other services. “Micro-credit” financing—small loans to poor people to set up a business or family agriculture—is especially encouraged, as it has been so successful around the world.

The Zero Hunger project is inspiring people in all walks of society (actors, musicians, churches, youth groups, business, etc.) to form partnerships with government in this effort. As President da Silva explains, “If every business entity, every person who has a soul and political awareness in this country decides to join this campaign to do away with hunger…it won’t be the miracle of one President. It will be the miracle of the Brazilian society….Don’t keep waiting for the Brazilian government….”