We shall be meeting this Thursday (16th August) 7.30pm at the BMI to
plan for our campaigning opportunity at the ‘Cut the Carbon Rally’ on
Monday 27th August.
Please email me with any requests for materials etc. as we will
ideally be making stuff for the funky stall that we will be having.
Here are the minutes from the two meetings held on Thursday 2nd August for download. Firstly the meeting about ‘upcoming talks’ then the general Oxbrum meeting.
Quick reminder that we’ll be campaigning at the Weoley Castle
Carnival, Castle Square from 12 till 4 on Sunday. Any extra help on
the stall will be most welcome or if not then please come by and say
‘hello’.
Our monthly meeting is at 7.30pm at the BMI, as usual.
Also there will be a pre-meeting at 7pm for those that have agreed to
help organise talks.
Download Agenda Below:
Download minutes of previous meeting:
A great night was had by all who attended ‘Sugarfoot Stomp’ and we made £95 on the raffle plus £70 on the door plus donations of £25 from Linda’s college and £10 from Mrs Sue Taylor, making a grand total of £200.
Thank you to everyone who supported us and a special thanks to Linda and Lee for the magnificent collection of prizes they procured.
Learn about the Darfur crisis or make a donation here
Please join us in Moseley for this groovey night in support of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and bring your friends.
On Saturday the 16th of June, the city of Birmingham welcomed the Celebrating Sanctuary festival, the kick-start to Refugee week. Oxfam were in the thick of it as usual, set up in one of the indoor tents in front of Birmingham town hall. Attending to help out was Maya from the Oxfam Campaigns office with support from Oxbrum’ s Linda, Miriam, Franklin, and myself.
Entertainment on the day came from performances from musicians and dancers from Rwanda, Cameroon, Congo, Iraq and Germany. Local performers from Birmingham also helped out with teaching the public to find their rhythm as well. There were also interesting speakers from Celebrating Sanctuary, Refugee Council and other organisations who talked about the plight of asylum seekers and refugees and how we can help them.
As for Oxfam, our job was to ask people to write their comments on what they would ask Gordon Brown to do on helping refugees in the poorest countries on our speech bubble cut outs. We also gave out local information and important statistics on what is really happening in the world today. We collected a really varied and positive response from the people of Brum- well over 200 messages of support for us to be passed on. We also had the added bonus of passing the message on the kids and their moms and dads by giving out stickers, applying tattoos on arms and doing some colouring in sessions with the huge pile of felt-tip pens we had.
Done all in the name of Oxfam….Hoorah!
Lee
Oxfam volunteers campaigned from Fri 8th to Sun 10th June prior to screenings of the film ‘Black Gold’ at Midland Arts Centre. We were asking the government to stop Europe pushing unfair trade deals on the world’s poorest nations. We arrived prepared with a petition which we were unable to ask people to sign on council-owned property so we came up with the idea of asking people to write messages to the government in coffee cup-shaped speech bubbles.
Black Gold is a 78 minute documentary that transports us across the globe from the coffee farms of Ethiopia to the Coffee shops of Seattle as the main ‘character’, Tadesse Meskela, head of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union, battles for a fair deal on behalf of his compatriots. This narrative is interspersed with segments that show the grim effects of the disparity between the price the farmers are paid for their coffee and the price for which it is sold in Europe and America.
The film manages to deliver what may otherwise seem like dry statistics in a humanised and palatable form and jolts us into taking action and purchasing fair-trade coffee. The strength of Meskela’s resolve in the face of economic injustice was touching and constituted the backbone of the documentary.
Directors Mark and Nick Francis could have gone further down the road of making an example of the companies that are putting their mega-profits before any semblance of principle but they chose to remain within the safe territory of leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions.
The screening was followed by a question and answer session with Oisten Thorson, associate producer, where the audience learned about the journey of making the documentary from initial conception to final cut.
Miriam Taylor
Eight world leaders, one million voices, one message: end poverty now!
Rally activities and the OxBrum giant speech bubble
From the air, it looked like a white circle that surrounds the banks of the Thames, moving noisily, with many extensions from its sides like arms, and gradually fading away after tens of minutes. On the 2nd of June 2007 ‘The World Can’t Wait’, a UK coalition of charities and NGOs, joined, between Westminster and Lambeth Bridge, London, in a protest march asking G8 leaders to keep their promises to end poverty and inequality. And OxBrum was there!
More than 7.000 people registered for this event. It started at 11:00 at the Emmanuel Centre, in Westminster, with registration and personalization of speech bubbles to take along to the march. Music from Kasai Massai, ‘Debt cancellation since 2005, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, from the Jubilee Debt Campaign, and ‘The World Can’t Wait photo Exhibition’ by Oxfam were just a few of the many fringe events which took place before and after the march.
‘G8 …world can’t wait … G8 … world can’t wait… G8 … world can’t wait; p-u-u-u-m, j-i-i-n-g; b-o-o-n-g’, and a huge noise coming from mobile phones, alarm clocks, trumpets and bells roared at 2:00pm in a mass moment. This was to send loud and clear the message: ‘The World Can’t Wait’, to Prime Minister Tony Blair before he set off for Germany for the summit. The more than 4000-sized crowd mostly dressed in white, held banners, speech bubbles with all sorts of messages such as: ‘G8 put an end to poverty’; ‘More aid to poor nations’; ‘Clean water, food and education and health care for all’; and ‘Make trade fair’. At the climax of the rally, a boat carrying Annie Lennox, amongst other celebrities, made its way through the water several times up and down, giving some poverty statistics, drumming, chanting and finally ending with the Michael Jackson’s famous hit, ‘Heal the World’.
The march lasted for about 90 minutes after which, Oxfam Birmingham (OxBrum), after a busy two weeks G8 targeted campaign period with the collection of over 100 voices and over 200 speech bubbles for poverty, broke its speech bubble bank, and displayed Birmingham speech bubbles on the field, forming a giant speech bubble to the admiration of on lookers, who quickly moved to take photos of it together with the OxBrum banner.
So…What did we want from this campaign?
v Debt cancellation and more and better aid
v Trade justice
v Healthcare, education, water and sanitation for all
v Firm plans to prevent catastrophic climate change and address its impacts
v An Arms Trade Treaty to protect people everywhere.
What did we want people to do?
v Give their message to the G-8 leaders by signing an action card, by texting ‘VOICE’ to 87099 or online at www.oxfam.org.uk/g8
v Encourage members of parliament to sign EDM 1219, asking the UK government to use its influence in Europe and the G8 group to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals are met.
v Encourage others, both individually and in a group to raise their voice against poverty.
v Join the rally on June 2 in London.
After ‘The World Can’t Wait’ Rally
Tony Blair arrived in Germany not just as a bearer of our messages to the G8 leaders, but as an activist with a speech bubble: ‘Eight world leaders, one million voices, one message, end poverty now’. The fallout from the active campaign, although did not go far enough, were reflected in the $60 billion pledge to fight malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, and some commitment to reduce green house gasses by the main stumbling block to global carbon dioxide reduction, the anti-green George Bush.
The way forward
The limited success from the summit is a tip of a huge iceberg of what the power of our voices can do. But this proves wrong those who say campaigning is a waste of time.
Having lived in Africa for over two decades, I have witnessed first hand, the consequences of unfair trade deals for African farmers: the fluctuation in prices of agricultural produce, trade barriers to African exports in western markets, and dictation of prices on produce exported to, and imported from the west.
Every day thousands are dying from lack of medical facilities or ill-equipped medical facilities; dysentery, diarrhea, cholera, as a result of lack of clean drinking water, malnutrition, and lack of educational infrastructures or staff.
Due to these difficulties and the length of time it takes to get result from campaigns, 99% of the people from African origin, whom I met whilst campaigning, refused to give their voices or sign a speech bubble; ‘It is a waste of time’, they say.
First and foremost, OxBrum wish to use this opportunity to thank all those who took part in the campaign directly and indirectly and to edge people to keep up their moral and the campaign in their own little ways, in their little corners, anywhere, any time. It is worth noting that change doesn’t come over night; it may take as long as a lifetime or centuries. It is necessary to persist until we succeed as already reflected in the latest G8 summit. Please put your hands up for poverty now and forever until we make it!
Frankline Agbor
On Thursday 31st May, some of the funkiest and most original poets in the UK got together to raise their voices against poverty and encourage others to do so in “Poetry Dubbin’ Poverty”, a ‘Your Voice Against Poverty’ poetry night at Cafe One.
This was certainly the most exciting event OxBrum have been involved with in the run up to the G8.
Kokumo, Sue Brown, Moqapi Selassie and Roy McFarlane got on stage, recited their poems and used the power of the spoken word to send G8 leaders a strong message against poverty. Galvanised by the energy and the brilliant atmosphere, many others in the audience (and amongst them OxBrum volunteers!) took the mic and a lot of courage, and performed amazing poems against poverty!
If you click on the links below you will be able to listen to the voices of Birmingham dub poets sending a strong message to G8 leaders- they must listen, and as I write, something is already happening- it is so exciting!
Dub poets Kokumo and Roy McFarlane give their voice against poverty
Kokumo roaring against poverty!
Here are more voices of Birmingham poets- amonst them, the soft and regal voice of amazing poet Sue Brown, the upbeat radio presenter Derek from New Style radio.and many more!
Sue Brown-B’ham
Reed – Hockley
Konic – Jamaica
Derek d – Newstyle
Oewn – Bham
Bambi- Angola
?? – Bham
Franklin – Goa
Sam -Cafe One
