AP News, October 18th, 2007
Schoolchildren in a Kenyan slum belted out a Bob Marley ballad Wednesday as they joined a continent-spanning effort to draw attention to the crushing poverty that campaigners say contributes to tens of thousands of needless deaths each day.
The "Stand Up, Speak Out" campaign is part of U.N. efforts to promote the Millennium Development Goals that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education by 2015.
Hundreds of events were being staged to heighten awareness and pressure governments to act in the interests of their poorest citizens. In schools, stadiums, streets and offices from Asia to Africa, thousands of people sang songs, listened to speeches and rose briefly to their feet in moment of solidarity and protest.
"The idea has been for people to take a stand at schools, workplaces — wherever they are," said Kumi Naidoo, one of the leading organizers of the day's events.
In the impoverished Korogocho neighborhood of the Kenyan capital, about 1,000 pupils and a smattering of adults gathered in an outdoor amphitheater next to a garbage dump, listening to music and watching traditional dancers stomp their feet to tattoo of skin-covered drums. The children sang "We Shall Overcome" in one of Kenya's languages, Swahili, then rose to their feet and held hands while wailing the refrain from Marley's "One Love."
On the lawn at U.N. headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and several hundred adults and youngsters recited a pledge to fight poverty.
Around the world, an estimated 1 billion people live on less than $1 per day, according to UN figures.
Organizers say that 50,000 people die each day from preventable causes linked to poverty and they called on participants to help fight the underlying causes.
In India, the Women's Tribunal Against Poverty, an umbrella group of women activists, gathered 400 activists in New Delhi to discuss their experiences of poverty and their demands from the government.
"This conference in a sense will look at the doubly marginalized, poor women from minority communities," said Sandhya Venkateshwaram of the international non-governmental organization CARE.
In the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, hundreds of volunteers joined Mayor Sadeque Hossain at a rally in front of city hall, to call for an end to poverty.
In Manila, the Philippine capital, about 2,000 government officials, teachers, students, soldiers and ordinary citizens, assembled at the seaside Rizal Park to rally against poverty.
Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Muneeza Naqvi in New Delhi, Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka and Edith Lederer at the Uited Nations contributed to this report.
