Your Voice Heard!
This year the UK is leading the effort to make poverty history around the world. The first thing we can do is sign up to the campaign, lending them your support will impress on the government how important this issue is to their public. But what after that, when I've brought my wrist band and stuck a MPH poster in my bedroom window and car, what can I do now.

The G8 Summit - Edinburgh, July 2nd
Well there is the Edinburgh G8 Summit this July. This is when the leaders of the 8 'greatest', most powerfully countries in the world gather to have a chin-wag about where they see the world heading. Tony Blair is making Poverty the key issue and we need to support him.

The problem faced is America. The American government is predominantly selfish (in particular the Central American oil states). They do not want to adopt global policies that will require them to pay more money, thorough fair trade, or to cut their ludicrous consumption of the earth's resources (i.e. Kyoto).

So getting America to adopt any of the MPH goals (Trade Justice, Drop the Debt and More and Better Aid) is going to be tough, as this will cost the American people money - meaning they will be forced no to consume so much fast food or drive such stupendously grotesque, wasteful vehicles.

Multi-Nationals
But what can you do now? Well I'm sure you buy products from multi-national com-panies. These countries have many bases throughout the world, and are especially good at exploiting poor countries to produce their products. The reason for this is that poor countries have cheap labour, they can be paid a pittance in crap jobs under horrible conditions yet are willing to work as something is better than no-thing.

Further to this building factories in these countries is cheaper as the rules and regulations are not looser or can be ignored all together. Poor countries also have more resources that are local and therefore cheaper to use.

This investment is also seen as a good thing - yay! this or that community gets a new place to work with thousands of jobs becoming available, and this investment will bring development to the local area. Sadly it doesn't and moreover, as soon as somewhere cheaper become available, these countries are more than willing to pull out of one country and go somewhere else, leaving the countries in a worse state than before.

Companies will always put profits over people - it's the way capitalism works.

So what follows is an incomplete (and growing) list of companies that you might well purchase from. This list provides links to 'feedback forms' where you can send your thoughts to those companies. If you purchase from these companies you support them. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, as we can use this constructively. If you purchase from these companies then why not tell them that, as a customer, you want to see them concerned about their practices and want to see them change.

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Example letter:
Dear Sir/Madam,

As a customer I give you money in exchange for goods. I am, however, concerned about how where this money goes. I appreciate that profits are a natural course of business, but I want to voice my concern that profits should not be taken at the expense of the lives of your employees, especially those in less developed countries.

In 2005 these is a growing voice to make poverty history across the world. As a multinational company you are critical to this becoming a reality. As a customer I ask that you consider your approach to business across the world and begin to adopt fair trade initiatives to provide your lowest employees with an improving standard of living.

Please help make poverty history this year from the bottom up.

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