Simple Math

Oct 18th, 2007 1:58 PM UTC
By annisa.wanat

6 spectacular Columbia College students
+ 4 dedicated ONE volunteers
=
393 Chicagoans standing up for the world’s poor and 129 signatures on a petition for the Jubilee Act.

Throughout the day Wednesday, six amazing students from the Artists of Foreign Policy group visited classes at Columbia College in Chicago to count their colleagues who wanted to take a stand against extreme poverty and global disease.

In the evening, they joined with the ONE Campaign and the Critical Encounters “Poverty and Progress” program at Columbia to hold a public event on the Millennium Development Goals and show the audience how easy it is to get active in the fight. They shared the stage with artists in the area who have written performance pieces on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, genocide, and water shortages, as well as speakers on how unfair debt practices have contributed to the crisis.

After the stand, participants made paper clip versions of themselves to put on a map as a permanent exhibit of those that made the stand. And they took the first steps toward action by linking their names together to form a chain that will accompany a petition to their senator asking him to co-sponsor the Jubilee Act to so that impoverished countries can stop repaying debts and start investing in education, adequate housing and basic health care.

-Annisa Wanat

TAGS: Global Day of Action Against Poverty