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Register an Anti-Poverty Week 2009 event or attend an Anti-Poverty Week 2009 event

Take the challenges!

Religious? No? Fine! You are? Go to church! This year the Justice and International Mission (JIM) Unit are assisting the Victorian Council of Churches (VCC) to hold an ecumenical service at Melbourne Marthoma Church on Sunday 11 October the at 3pm, at 149 Royal Parade, Parkville. Those attending will pray for all VCC member churches and their work with people in poverty. It will highlight anti-poverty campaigns of the JIM Unit like Just Holy Hardware which seeks better working conditions for people making Christian-related products like Bible covers and crosses. Stirring music and campaign information will be available – all welcome!

The Issue

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27)

Poverty is all around us, close to home and abroad.

JustAct poverty busters for Anti-Poverty Week 2009

There are plenty of initiatives that aim their sights at global poverty, such as the fair trade and anti-sweatshop movements. There are also the Millennium Development Goals – positive global goals in areas such as tackling the lack of educational opportunities and environmental sustainability and, most importantly, reducing poverty and hunger generally. A more peaceful world results in less want – less money on bullets and more money for feeding children.

Lots of campaigns aim to counter poverty in our local community. Schools, universities and churches are becoming Fair Trade Communities – by switching their tea and coffee to Fairtrade certified products and giving poor farmers a better deal.

Fair trade is a way for poor communities to get a better price for their produce and a way out of poverty. World Fair Trade Organisation shops Oxfam, People for Fair Trade and New Internationalist are helping the cause of fair trade. People are worried that their clothing could be made in a sweatshop or by a poor homeworker – either here or overseas. We can buy our clothing more responsibly through supporting Fairtrade certified clothing products and No Sweat Shop label approved garments. You can even buy Fairtrade footies and munch on a Fairtrade chocolate bar!

Even closer to home we know that vocational education and training assists poor people in our own community to obtain the skills they need and, hopefully, better work.

This month we have lots of opportunities available for JustActivists. Read on…

What you can do in Anti-Poverty Week 2009

nssWe can make a start by being a part of Anti-Poverty Week 2009. Last year in Anti-Poverty Week an escape artist stripped down to his undies to fight poverty at Flinders St Station in the center of Melbourne. Rather than get arrested, he became the focus of media attention for promoting  No Sweat Shop label and Fairtrade garments (he was wearing Rise Up undies made out of Fairtrade cotton). Such clothes enables  young kids in developing countries to leave the cotton picking industry and return to school (and the model’s ‘attire’ was manufactured in Australia under guaranteed legal minimum wage and conditions).

This year there is no need to strip down to your undies like our escape artist, but you can run a barbecue, invite a speaker, hold a forum or play a stunt in aid of strengthening public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship around the world and in Australia. All you need to do is go to the Anti-Poverty Week website and register your event!

You can also attend an event in your local community.

Anti-Poverty Week 2009