Over the weekend, millions of people around the world “stood up” against poverty to call for political leaders to fulfill their promise made in 2000 — to achieve the Millennium Development Goals — aimed at reducing poverty and improving life for the planet’s poorest.
There were big and small events in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami … in Portland, OR, Vancouver, BC, Moscow, ID (even an Oregon town called Boring) … as well as hundreds of similar anti-poverty rallies or meet-ups throughout Europe, Britain, Africa, India, Latin America, Asia.
But there was nothing in Seattle. Nada. Why not, I wondered?
- Anti-Poverty Rallies Worldwide
- MDG campaign
Videos of some of the events can be viewed here, at a YouTube site set up specifically to mark the UN meeting this week on the MDGs and to advocate for these international anti-poverty goals.
Frankly, most of the videos aren’t very good — with celebrities saying the obvious and poor-quality videos of people jumping around, playing drums or chanting slogans about why they don’t like poverty. But I thought this one, from Belgium, was brutally on focus and well-done:
This was a worldwide call to action. We seem to have missed it.
Why do you think Seattle, supposedly a hotbed of global health and development advocates, didn’t participate in this global call for more action against poverty?
