A One-Man Anti-Poverty Machine

I read on the news this morning that bloggers all over the world were uniting to bring up the issue of ending world poverty. I thought “Blinder! I’m a blogger of sorts, I could totally get into that.” I read on to discover that international bloggers do stuff about poverty day was actually two days ago, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

It turns out that today is also International Make Poverty History day (for normal people, that is, not just bloggers), so I decided today was the day to get out and change the world. I have emails in my inbox about organising “stand up” events. I realised that it was probably too late to organise anything for today, by I decided to stage my own localised demonstration. At half past eleven at work this morning I stopped typing and stood up at my desk for three minutes for no apparent reason. Very few people noticed. Those who did were starting to look at me like there was something really wrong with me, so I sat down again. I think I got my message across.

Lunch time came around, and I decided I could do more. I marched straight down to my local Oxfam shop and took my stand against corporate greed by buying myself a bar of fair-trade chocolate. Take that Establishment! And I didn’t stop there, either. I also bought myself a rather fetching white “Make Poverty History” wrist band. Oxfam Girl was totally impressed. I wore it for the rest of the day, and I’m still wearing it as I write. It was covered by my long-sleeved shirt at work, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the thought that counts right?

So now I’m writing a letter to Kevin Rudd, making sure he’s aware of how many people are living in poverty. And let me tell you, it’s pretty strongly worded. I don’t pull my punches when it comes to letting politicians know how morally superior I am, that’s for damn sure. As soon as I can find someone to translate it into Mandarin for me, the feathers are really going to fly.

Oh yeah. That’s a good day’s work, right there. I’m going to go and get some ice-cream.

Far from home



Garry with 2 Rs