1 million people in 1 day: campaigning… Indian style.

by Avinash Kumar, Oxfam’s For All campaign team, India
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In 2004 India elected a new government who promise to improve the lives of the poorest and most marginalized people in India. It promised a “Common Minimum Program” including more health centers and schools.

In the same year 40 organizations in India (including Oxfam!) began a movement to raise the voices of hundreds of thousands of people calling for the government to keep their promises, and deliver justice to all people in India. ‘Wada Na Todo Abhiyan’ (or ‘Keep the Promises’) is still going strong and now includes an amazing 3000 organizations from 23 states in India. On 17^th October 2007, a staggering 1,236,979 people in 15 states took part in campaign actions to mark World Poverty Day. That’s more than a million people in just one day!

Kids dressed up as doctors to call for Health & Education For All. Credit: Oxfam

Children leading the campaigning!

As part of this movement, India has also launched the ‘Nine is Mine’ campaign led by children across the country. They are calling for 9% of India’s income to be spent on health & education for all. More than 4,000 children launched a petition in October 2006 in Delhi, and following wide media coverage, 20 of the children met the Prime Minister who listened to their demands and assured them of his support. In just one month more than 300,000 signatures were sent to the Finance Minister, and the children also met the Chairperson of the Child Rights Commission.

Since then, 5,000 signatures a day were sent off to the Finance Minister every month until January 2008. The campaign is keeping the pressure up!

Short video on the ‘Nine is Mine’ campaign.

Campaign successes

Massive public campaigning in India has led to some amazing successes.

1. Health & education spending has increased

Following the children’s meeting with the Prime Minister, the next budget saw health spending up by a quarter and education spending up a third. This was still not enough to meet the government’s own promises – but it was a bigger increase than expected because of India’s campaigning!

2. New education bill passed

In an historic victory, after years of delay the Government is finally bringing the Right to Education bill to parliament. If this is passed, it will mean that primary and secondary education for everyone is a requirement by law.

We will be keeping you updated with the latest from the ‘Keep the Promises’ campaign in future blog posts here. To get involved you can visit the ‘Wada Na Todo Abhiyan’ website or take action in our Health & Education For All campaign.

Actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Rahul Bose joins kids dressed up as doctors to call for Health & Education For All. Credit: Oxfam

Hug a nurse

by Patrick Klerks, Online Campaigner, Oxfam Novib
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Oxfam’s Health & Education For All campaign is active in over 15 countries around the world.

This week, we take a look at the campaign in the Netherlands, where signing a petition means hugging a nurse.

Curious what this looks like? Watch this video…

The question remains, why exactly are the Dutch are hugging nurses?

In many poor countries public health services are kept afloat by a skeleton of staff of overworked and underpaid nurses, doctors and other workers. Many put in long hours with for very little pay. Oxfam calls that heroic! We want these nurses and doctors to be seen for the heroes that they are.

Hugging a nurse shows that we appreciate the work these amazing people are doing despite these challenges – we are saying thank you! But people are also hugging to show that they want governments and international institution to invest in and support quality health care for all people.

Poor countries need 4 million more doctors and nurses. This serious shortage of health workers across the world is one of the biggest challenges to achieving health and development goals, and ultimately ending poverty. The crisis is stopping people getting the medicines and vaccinations they need. It is the reason why every minute one woman still dies in pregnancy or childbirth. This is a crisis that’s preventable with the right money provided to poor countries. That’s the money that will pay for more nurses and doctors as well as the medicines and medical equipment they need.

The campaign in the Netherlands has just started and already more than 7000 people have hugged a nurse – and there are far more who have pledged their support for our campaigning on health and education.

Check out these photos to see some hugging action!

And if you’re Dutch yourself, why not get involved in Oxfam Novib’s campaign and hug a nurse yourself!

Hugging a nurse. Credit: Oxfam Novib

Oxfam on tour with Coldplay

by Pete Lusby, Oxfam Coordinator on Coldplay’s Tour
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I’ve just come back from Quebec, Canada and America, where I’ve been organising Oxfam’s presence at Coldplay’s concerts. We’ve been campaigning on the For All campaign, asking the crowd to sign up to the For All Pledge.

We had some great nights. Montreal was an amazing show; the crowd were in full voice all night. The Oxfam Quebec volunteers worked tirelessly, signing up an amazing 1,887 people. In Toronto there were two amazing shows, and thanks to the efforts of the awesome Oxfam Canada volunteering team, almost 3,000 people signed the For All pledge.

I’m so pleased we’re part of this tour. Sitting amongst the road cases, blogging backstage. Or talking to people on the concourse, before they take their seats. Coldplay may well be stopping by in a town near you on this tour. It’s a show worth waiting for. There’s no reason to wait to get involved with Oxfam’s work, you can take action by signing the Pledge. To find out the latest from Coldplay’s tour, follow my blog.

Oxfam is on the road with Coldplay on their 2008 tour of North America & Europe. Credit: Pete Lusby

Policy wonk and rock singer: fighting for the same cause

by Rohit Malpani

As an Oxfam policy advisor on access to medicines, I believe governments have to take decisive action to reduce the price of new medicines to treat HIV and AIDS that are needed when HIV positive individuals develop resistance to first line treatments. These 2nd and 3rd line treatments, which are patented by big pharmaceutical companies, often cost five to ten times more than 1st line treatments for AIDS. 1st line treatments are far less expensive because they are not patented, which means generic manufacturers can compete to produce affordable versions of older medicines.

So I was somewhat heartened by an announcement by the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, to kick-start the opening ceremony of the AIDS Conference last night, where he pledged to renegotiate the prices of new antiretroviral medicines. Multinational pharmaceutical companies charge high prices for new antiretroviral medicines in Mexico because it is a middle-income country. Yet nearly half of Mexico’s population lives under the poverty line, and high prices for new antiretroviral medicines mean many HIV positive Mexicans cannot get the treatment they need today.

Of course, an announcement is just a first step. The Mexican government will face difficult challenges to negotiate lower prices. Big pharmaceutical companies are fiercely resistant to engage in any price negotiations with middle-income countries. Other middle income countries, such as Brazil and Thailand, have struggled for years to reduce the costs of these key medicines.

Yet these changes are possible when you have passionate advocates reminding the world of why universal access matters.

This morning, Oxfam held a successful press conference with Oxfam policy advisors and Annie Lennox – our ambassador this week in Mexico – who reminded the media and attendees about the need to hold governments to account for achieving universal access by 2010.

Aids activist, Oxfam global ambassador and singer Annie Lennox poses in front of giant letters spelling “access”, in support for campaigners’ call to achieve universal access to treatment by 2010 for HIV-infected people. Credit: David Viñuales/Oxfam

Annie spoke eloquently about the costs and consequences of inaction, especially as it affects women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa. More importantly, she spoke of what is possible, in telling the story of one HIV positive girl she met during her last trip to South Africa, who, upon receiving treatment, has recovered from the brink of death and is now leading a healthy and happy life today. It is a story that is not being told often enough.

Often the urgent messages we wish to deliver as policy advisors are lost behind statistics, cliché phrases and arcane policy discussions held behind closed doors. At such a critical juncture in turning the tide against the AIDS pandemic, the spirited and bold speech from Annie, and the many other excellent speeches, demonstrations and discussions from the first day, are a refreshing boost to defeating a disease that has afflicted millions of poor people for far too long.

Oxfam sings of and censures a scandal of willful neglect

by Mark Fried

DENIED! screamed the headline on the media advisory I and Oscar Alarcón were handing around the press room this morning to drum up interest in the Oxfam news conference scheduled for noon. Oscar works for Rostros y Voces (Faces and Voices) a Mexican agency which is in the process of joining Oxfam International.

“It works,” the advisory continued. “Women want it. It is the only primary prevention method for women in existence. Yet 15 years after coming on to the market, it is largely unavailable and too expensive for most women to buy.”

Have you guessed what “it” is? To make sure the journalists got it, we handed them one in a soft little plastic package about twice the size of the condoms that are ubiquitous here at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City: a female condom, the simple device that could save the lives of millions. The failure of rich country donors and UN agencies to promote the female condom is the “scandal of willful neglect” we denounced today.

Just before the actual news conference began, a dozen participants from the Oxfam International Youth Project gathered outside the media centre, along with Oxfam staff and the exciting AIDS education group Dance for Life. With the sort of panache only Oxfam youth can bring, they performed what will undoubtedly hit the top forty at this conference: “Give Female Condoms a Chance,” to the tune of that John Lennon favourite. The cameras loved it.

On the dais Mary Robinson, Honorary President of Oxfam International and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, eloquently denounced this “scandal born of ignorance and intertia.” Farah Karimi, executive director of Oxfam Novib, too made a powerful plea for “the only method that women have to protect themselves.”

But best of all was Gladys Chiwome, from Women and AIDS Support Network in Zimbabwe. Gladys knows what female condoms mean to poor women: the difference between life and death.

No doubt a good campaign day here in Mexico for the entire Oxfam team.

You can read all about it in the new Oxfam report, “Failing Women, Withholding Protection: 15 years lost in making the female condom available”.