idea magazine

Helping those who help themselves

March / April 2007

Sir Bob Geldof and Chancellor Gordon Brown were awarded honorary doctorates from Newcastle University in January in recognition of the work they did for the Make Poverty History campaign two years ago.

There are however many people working hard without recognition to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals, to which the UK and other countries are committed, become a reality. Perhaps Sir Bob needs to meet Erika Izquierdo, one of the international army of ordinary people who are working hard to see the promises, for which he lobbied, be put into practice.

Izquierdo works for the global Christian campaign Micah Challenge, aiming to encourage people in both developed and developing nations to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which specifically target global injustice, hunger, gender equality, child mortality, diseases, development and sustainability. They would also lead to a halving of global poverty by 2015.

There are now 32 national Micah Challenge campaigns worldwide, and at the midpoint in the project this May, the campaigns - of which the Alliance is a part - will "blow the halftime whistle" to see how far we've come in hitting the Millennium Development Goals.

Izquierdo works in Peru and in 12 countries across Latin America. She fervently believes in "people power", informing and encouraging some of the poorest people in South America to help make the goals a reality. "You can be very poor, but there's always something to give," she says. "What you give can transform your situation in life."

The first step is education. Izquierdo has taken the message of Micah Challenge out into remote villages in rural Peru and into the poorest city slums, as well as to Church and state leaders. She's done this because she believes that the biggest change comes when ordinary people call for changes to be made in their own communities.

"The majority of the population here don't know that their governments pay more in international debt than in education in their countries," she says. "The population has the possibility to interfere in the government budget. Its citizens can call them to accountability."

Izquierdo says that the fight against poverty in the southern hemisphere doesn't just mean asking for help from the north. "We are talking about recovering solidarity among poor people and making changes that way. When we understand this, we can transform our communities," she says, adding that in her work she's seen "lots of experience of people's lives being changed."

One of the most marked changes came through the life of a 41-year-old hairdresser called Juan in Colombia. The Pentecostal church he attended worked in a poor neighbourhood in a slum outside Barranquilla. Juan chatted to the children, was moved by their simple existence and promised to return. And he kept his promise.

Juan gave up his job to help the children of the slum. Two years on, and with the help of Micah Challenge, he now runs a school for 300 children and feeds them all each day. His work has garnered the support of both the local government and the Catholic Church.

"It has not only affected the children positively, but also the parents," says Izquierdo. "The parents realise that this was not only a way of improving the children's lives, but also their own lives, and the life of the community. They asked for support from the government for Juan's work and received it. They recovered the will to improve their lives and self-esteem. Now they want to improve their living conditions."

Izquierdo continues, observing the "amazing transformation of the attitude of the poor people. Normally they are against each other because they have to survive. Now they are showing solidarity, helping each other. Everyone needs to work towards the Millennium Development Goals," she says, not just those of us living in the developed world. Everyone has a part to play. "This is what it means to make the kingdom of God a reality and it's time to do that."

Internationally, little progress has been made in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Some 820 million people in the developing world are still hungry, only 3 million fewer than in 1990-92, according to the UN.

In his last speech as UN Secretary General in December, Kofi Annan urged governments to commit to making the goals a reality. "It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalisation while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject poverty, or even thrown into it," he said. "Global solidarity is not only necessary but possible."

Erika and Juan are acting now to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in their communities, and they're doing it with the help of people who need help the most. www.micahchallenge.org.uk