50,000 people died of poverty on Tuesday. It's a beautiful day. It's a beautiful place. The place where you can see nature in all its glory. It's the land of deserts, tropical evergreen forests and sand-covered beaches. It's home to the largest wildlife and breeding ground for the world's largest flora. A thousand ships found its coasts and brought with them merchants and colonisers. A thousand ships left its shores, years later, with everything that the land had to offer. Now these very shores serve as a source of entertainment to the living village kids and a source of income to an odd fisherman. Welcome to Africa!
50,000 people died of poverty on Wednesday. A baby lay within the protection provided by its mother against the harsh climate. He wore no clothes. There were flies all over him. I don't think what could be see on him was skin. He was hungry. Not even the liquid-protein stuff that passed as food was left. So, he bawled. Everyone in the vicinity was below 25 years. If the infants were lucky they'd live to see their 16th birthday. And then they'd die of either AIDS, an epidemic, malnutrition, or poverty. Did I say lucky?? The place where you see nature in its most cruel form. A gold mine, now suffering from poverty. Welcome to Africa!
50,000 people died of poverty on Thursday and Friday.
You could go on thinking
That there was nothing wrong
Whatever happened to those values of humanity
When a child is now born into this world
With no sense of skin on his bones.
50,000 people died of poverty on Saturday.
And it will never happen again.
Because there was a concert going on across 4 continents, a 50-100 cities, with more than 30 bands/ individuals performing, at least a million people as live audience and a billion watching world over. It's the second largest concert to be seen after the Woodstock in 1969. With an audience that could easily be mistaken as the entire city, artists put their hearts into the mission and performed. Something was being done about it. People really do care.
8 world leaders, gathered in Scotland for the G8 summit, will be presented with a workable plan to double aid, drop the debt and make the trade laws fair. If these 8 men agree, then we will become the generation that made poverty history.
But they'll only do it if enough people tell them to. ' We don't want your charity, we want YOU.' Sign the Live8 list now... Log on to http://www.live8live.com
This week poverty can be beaten. The concert is/was going on live at Tokyo,Rome, Canada, Berlin, Russia, Italy, Germany, Philadelphia, London, Paris, Cornwall, Las Vegas, Toronto... And you've got Madonna, Bon Jovi, Mcfly, Will Smith, Muse, Destiny's Child, Celiene Dion, Elton John, REM, Robbie Williams, U2, Pet Shop Boys, Scissor sisters,Faith Hill, Pink Floyd, The Who, George Michael, Gilmore, Bryan Adams, Velvet Revolver and Slash, Sir Paul Mcartney,Ms.Dynamite,David Hallyday,Shakira, Alicia Keys,Craig David,Liking Park, Green Day, Sting... And still counting!!! It beats going around the world in 80 days. I've been moving across continents every 15 minutes!
Hopefully, the Africans will now be provided with basic education, shelter, food and medical facilities. Hopefully, no more people will die of AIDS because they weren't aware. Hopefully, their babies will now have skin. Hopefully, they'll have the strength to fight the flies. Hopefully, they'll have clean water to drink and clothes to wear. Their prayers have been answered. People did care. Somebody up there, was watching them.
Light up. Light up.
Even if you can't hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you dear,
I swear in the days left,
We'll walk in fields of gold together.
On Sunday, no more people died of poverty anywhere on the globe.
First of all, I get the feeling you didn't write that.
Secondly, what makes you so sure that the money being generated from these concerts are going to the people who need it? It could possibly go to some corrupt governmental body, or could stay in the artistes' and organisers' pockets. People coming to these concerts care more about being entertained than having their money sent to some child in Africa.
Remember the Tsunami? Remember how many people were affected? Remember how many fundraiser shows there were? Where did all that money go? The volunteer work did help, but what about all the money generated from these events? It had to go somewhere, and we all know where it didn't go.
It's sad but true. There are always people making money out of or in the name of other people's misery. The world's far from perfect.
check out http://apologeticapoplectic.blogspot.com
Kaushik
Kaushik read my blog......you're gonna get your ass rightfully kicked
Kaushik i wrote every word. if its bad then say it is.
Secondly, it's not a money generation concert. The reason was awarness. The issues gnna be discussed by the 8 delegates from different countries include
1. Change in trade laws so that the poor countries benefit.
2. Double the funds sent to these countries.
3. Discuss the debts the countries are in.
The concert wasn't about making money and using it as charity. They wanted your name amongst the 2 billion people who signed up in support of the cause, the cause being, GETTING THESE PRESIDENTS AND VICE- PRESIDENTS to KNOW that we are in favor of what they want to do...
No money, No charity. Just your name. Because no one should starve in the 21st century.
well written preetika.....Kaushik sure isn't usually an ignorant sort of person but I guess we kind of cornered him here.....
thanx for the compliment... i'm sure he only meant well..!
*where's that tongue showing smiley* ???
...unless your talking about the verses Kaushik?... i didn't write those.. lyrics from a song i was listening to...
nice blog preetika. it really did make A LOTTA sense to me and sure to all of us and hopefully kaushik too will get this right. And this was a really ENLIGHTENING blog not that we wernt aware of those facts mentioned it was really nice to know tht people actualllly CARED
I was just talking for the other side of the argument. I'm not against Live 8.
On http://apologeticapoplectic.blogspot.com,
I've argued for the Live 8 concerts.
Hey, all is not lost! We still have a chance, a chance to survive in this I, me, and myself world! Just hearing U talk about this Live 8 Concert, Preetika, swelled my heart with a feeling of pride for this breed of homosapiens who find it difficult to look beyond their myopic eyesight! Hopefully no such events will be needed in the future, cos I am sure this collective effort would have done its trick by then!
..u mean the part about me writing well and her feeling pride right???? :D
I'm in disagreement with most of you, Dhruva would know best, but it's too long a debate to carry out in a comments column.
Kaushik
...only he knows...
though we did fight/ discuss.. and know he sees my point of veiw..
..and he called me psycho!!
Well written Blog. The fact is that a lot of poor countries have been exploited by the rich in the name of helping them. Hope this effort doesn't end up with awakening only - it SHOULD result in a revolution to wipe out poverty.
That's the hope dad, that's the hope.
Thanks for dropping by,
All my love.