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LATIN AMERICA: Poor Response to Global Call Against Poverty
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 19 (IPS) - The creative approach of using football matches, student gatherings, shows or
events indirectly related to the issue of poverty enabled Global Call to Action
Against Poverty (GCAP) activists to reach a wide variety of audiences in Latin
America with their message.
However, as in previous years, there was little specific mobilisation in the
region, with only a few small demonstrations held in some countries, and no
activities – either in the streets or the media - at all in others.
In Brazil, the Rede Mineira da Cidadania (Citizenship Mining Network)
estimates that it reached at least 110,000 people with its Levantese Minas
(Stand Up Against Poverty Minas) message from Friday to Sunday, when it
carried out a food collection drive at 30 spots in Belo Horizonte, the capital
of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, and put out messages on the
Internet and in other media.
GCAP played videos and sound recordings at a party in a house where events
are held, which was attended by more than 2,000 people, Walfredo
Rodrigues, the Rede's coordinator of the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and the "Levantese" campaign, said to illustrate
the type of activities carried out.
The GCAP video says that nearly 16 million people are still hungry in Brazil,
despite the widely-praised economic and social advances made in the
country.
The Rede Mineira da Cidadania was founded in 2007 by a group of
intellectuals, social educators and community leaders to get volunteers
involved with activities linked to the United Nations and efforts towards
compliance with the MDGs in the state of Minas Gerais.
The Rede's events also focused on other MDGs and worked to draw in new
volunteers for associated projects. A team of more than 120 people worked
on the three-day campaign, especially in churches and NGOs, which collected
the food items, said Rodrigues.
This was the first year that the Rede took part in the GCAP Stand Up Against
Poverty campaign. "It's a good idea, but the mobilisation could be better if
information on it was put out further ahead of time, and if there was greater
participation by the third sector (NGOs and volunteers)," he told IPS.
GCAP is a coalition of hundreds of organisations that was set up at the World
Social Forum in 2005 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, and is
linked to the United Nations MDGs campaign. It estimates that last year, more
than 116 million were mobilised under its Stand Up and Take Action
campaign to end poverty in support of the MDGs.
"There was not a great response here in Peru because activists have an
agenda that is different from our own," the GCAP coordinator in that country,
sociologist Héctor Bejar, told IPS.
In Peru, GCAP urged people to Stand Up Against Poverty in events and
activities organised by different groups for other purposes over the last few
days, such as a nationwide hearing on climate change on Saturday, where it
presented its report on the progress the country has made towards meeting
the MDGs.
The hearing, organised by the Movimiento Ciudadano frente al Cambio
Climático (MOCICC – Citizen Movement Against Climate Change), brought
together more than 1,000 people, including journalists, to hear the accounts
of people who have suffered the consequences of climate change, as well as
proposals to deal with the challenge.
Halving the extreme poverty rate by 2015, from 1990 levels – the first MDG –
and the rest of the U.N. goals were not a central focus.
Other events at which GCAP made its call to Stand Up Against Poverty
included a fair held by the Federación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas,
Artesanas, Indígenas, Nativas y Asalariadas del Perú (FEMUCARINAP – National
Federation of Peasant, Artisan, Native and Working Women of Peru) in defence
of Pachamama (Mother Earth) and food sovereignty.
"We joined in these activities because we didn't want to distract these
organisations from their agendas," said Bejar, who added that the reach of
GCAP depends on the political circumstances because "our network has
agreed to work with the social organisations" in each country.
The limited response to the GCAP campaign is partly due to the fact that the
priorities of many NGOs in Latin America differ with the MDG campaign,
which is a United Nations, and thus government, initiative, a Brazilian activist
who took part in GCAP activities in previous years, told IPS.
In Brazil, the problem is not so much poverty in and of itself, as targeted by
the MDGs, but social inequalities, said the activist, who asked to remain
anonymous.
Furthermore, it is difficult to plan wide-ranging actions because of a lack of
funds, which tend to arrive too late for the Stand Up Against Poverty
weekend, she added.
Another hurdle, she said, is a lack of information on the campaign.
"I'm here because the business administration teacher invited us, explaining
that the U.N. is carrying out this campaign, so I came to see what it's all
about," Alonso Zavala, a student at the ISEC University, a private business
school in Mexico City, commented to IPS.
Zavala and other university students were attending the three days of GCAP
activities organised by the local U.N. office, which several NGOs took part in.
However, many of those attending did not fully understand what GCAP and
the MDG campaign were about.
The Global Youth Action Network (GYAN), with the help of the non-
governmental Islas Urbanas (Urban Islands) movement, set up a rainwater
collection system in the community of Villa Victoria, 120 km from the
Mexican capital, aimed at preventing gastrointestinal infections.
"We have helped assure that 560 small children have clean water, which
means we have helped reach one of the MDGs," said Mariaoliva González,
director of the local branch of the GYAN, one of the groups taking part in the
activities organised by the local U.N. office. "These days it has rained a lot,
and we collected a lot of water," she told IPS.
*With additional reporting by Milagros Salazar in Peru and Emilio Godoy in
Mexico.
(END/2009)
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