Worldwide call for action against poverty rings loud and clear
18 October 2007
The results are in! The numbers have been added up and heads have been counted and now it's official! Yesterday, on the 17 October, people in every corner of the planet came together for Whiteband Day to smash, obliterate and annihilate last years World Record and set a new grand total of 38.7 million (it is now 43.7 million as of 24/10/2007 ED) people standing up and saying a big fat "no to poverty and injustice"!
In Scotland a delegation of campaigners met UK Secretary of State for International Development and asked him to go further on fighting poverty.
In Wales, campaigners got 29 out of 60 members of the Welsh Assembly to stand up against poverty.
In England, London's City Hall was wrapped in a giant white band - the worldwide symbol of anti-poverty campaigning.
Across the globe people came together to stand up and speak out and show that they refuse to stay silent or seated in the face of poverty.
In the Philippines 7 million people stood up. In Pakistan 2.5 million people stood up and 30,000 helped unveil a 10km long white banner with 1.2 million signatures on it. In Nigeria 3 million people stood up and a concert in Bangladesh attracted 25,000 people.
So much went on that we could probably spend the next 6 months ranting about it. You can visit the Stand Up and Speak Out Against Poverty blog to see more of the exciting stories of what happened across the world and read some of the stories of the people who took part on the BBC news website.
And things aren't quite over yet. In the UK campaigners will be continuing to put pressure on Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, before he heads to crucial meeting on 19 October. You can join the call for him to take action by signing our online petition now.
