Over 20 Million People 'STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY' to Set New Guinness World Record
Release Date: 20 October 2006
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary-General
Dear e-CIVICUS Subscribers,
For this weeks column, we would like to pay tribute to all of the different groups, constituencies and country coalitions in the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) who have supported us in the Global Month of Mobilisation to fight poverty and inequality. On 15-16 October, 23,542,614 people, in over eighty countries around the world, set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of people to "STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY". Together, we have sent a clear message to world leaders that we are going to keep pushing them to deliver on aid, debt cancellation, and trade justice, and to ensure accountable governance. They must keep their promises and the world must meet and exceed the Millennium Development Goals.
From cricket fans in Jaipur, India, to school children in Gaza and the Westbank, from crowds at a concert in the slums of Mbare, Zimbabwe, to a huge gathering in Times Square, New York, people all over the world joined together in protest. We were protesting because the crisis of poverty and inequality has reached an unbelievable scale. Over thirty thousand children are now dying every single day just because they dont have clean water, enough food or the most basic of medicines. More people have died from extreme poverty in the last ten years than in all of the wars of the 20th century put together.
But the most tragic thing about all of these deaths is that we can afford to stop them. The world has never been richer, yet we have never left so many to die. Citizens of the world are coming together in increasing numbers to demand that this changes. We saw it in 2005, and now in the course of just 24 hours a single day more than 20 million people stood together in protest.
In confirming the new record in Londons Trafalgar Square on October 17, Guinness World Record editor-in-chief Craig Glenday said, This is the largest event Guinness World Record has been involved in. Its overwhelming for us to know that this many people have pulled together on a single day. Were still getting numbers in from around the world now, so this figure should increase. It shows amazing spirit. By the time we get all the figures in it will be the largest single coordinated movement of people in the history of the Guinness World Records.
No child should die from extreme poverty today not 30,000, not 3,000, not one. Thank you to all of you around the world who have taken action and I hope we continue to unite until we win.
The Stand Up record attempt, organised by the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) and the United Nations Millennium Campaign was organised in the build up to the International Day for Poverty Eradication on 17 October.
In Solidarity,
Kumi Naidoo
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