Hello! Well, I made it ... with the support of so many of you - thank you! It was a really beautiful day again and I took it fairly easy and was so pleased to be met by Jane with the folding bike(!) and David Golding from the Jubilee Debt Campaign.
If you haven't already done so, please sponsor me for Save the Children and the Jubilee Debt Campaign. If you have, THANK YOU. Half of your gift will go to Save the Children (www.savethechildren.org.uk/) and half to the Jubilee Debt Campaign (www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/).
Why should you join in?
During the year, Jubilee Debt Campaign secured interim debt relief for Liberia of several billion dollars and received a most generous message of thanks from President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson. And the number of people receiving ARV drugs for AIDS increased from two to three million - that's three million whose children will NOT be left bereaved, heartbroken and desperate in a cruel world. Everyone recognises that neither of these developments would have occurred apart from the efforts of campaigners worldwide (we started it all here in the UK with the debt campaign in the late 90s). But of course we still have far to go!
The fight against HIV/AIDS can be won
Your giving will support programmes which prevent HIV transmission at birth, promote testing and treatment of HIV/AIDS, and support AIDS widows and orphans.
I can see the idea of Save the Children, but why the Debt Campaign?
Two dozen countries have now received substantial debt relief, but at least 60 are in urgent need of it - even after the recent write-offs, we are still extorting over $100 million from them each day in debt repayments. Much of this money was loaned to corrupt dictators in the 1970s when most of the people now suffering bearing the consequences were either children or not yet born. Much of it is made up of exorbitant compound interest, penalties for arrears, etc.
The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) is already benefiting some of the most impoverished countries by billions of pounds each year; Can "direct and immediate help" compare with this? As that lager advert might put it: "We don’t do global poverty reduction, but if we did, it would probably be the best global poverty reduction in the world". But since they don’t do it, that distinction probably belongs to JDC, if the almost ludicrous contrast between the magnitude of its impact and miniscule scale of its budget (smaller than the Northumberland Yacht Club!) is taken into account. Nowhere else can your gift be given such leverage for good.
The Commission for Africa found that Benin was using 54% of its first tranche of debt relief on health; in Tanzania, relief has put an extra two million children (mostly girls) into primary school; in Mozambique, it has been used to provide universal vaccination for children; in Uganda, an extra two million now have clean water; and so on. The fight against HIV/AIDS has been a major beneficiary of debt relief in many countries.
Please help make a difference!
Thanks. Richard.
Donating through this website is easy and secure. It’s an efficient way to sponsor me: Jubilee Debt Campaign / Save the Children Fund get your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.
