The Italian job

Following her trip to Germany Dorothy Ngoma now writes about her experiences in Italy. Here she sees some of the preparations for the G8, before serenading a minister.

When I arrived in Italy, from the freezing cold of Germany, I didn't have a clue what to expect. The Vatican City and the St. Peters were quite an experience and I find it difficult to put into words what it was like to see such stunningly beautiful places. They're totally different to anything that I've seen before and I found them very moving. The city itself is just out of this world.

I feel really blessed to have been part of the buzz here as the team at Oxfam Italy work towards the G8 meeting, which will take place at La Maddalena in June. It's been great to see so many organisations working together with great enthusiasm and determination. This is what is needed if we are to win the battle against poverty and reach the G8 with one voice.

Later, I joined Italian activists for a bit of direct action. With a brass band we serenaded the Italian Minister of Finance, Giulio Tremonti. He recently cut aid for developing countries so we were asking him, on Valentine's Day, not to break our hearts and keep his promises to fight poverty.

Once again it was pretty cold as we stood on the street but we warmed ourselves up, and hopefully turned up the heat on the Italian government, by singing, dancing and making as much noise as possible. It was quite a picture and a lot of journalists came to interview and film us. The people who stumbled across this scene supported us and many of them congratulated us for the great work.

I then went for a photo-shoot with singer songwriter, Paola Turci, this was the climax of the visit. She supports our campaign in Italy. We had a great time, as she is a lot of fun. I tried to feel like a model but I guess I just wasn't born to be one. You'll have to wait until later on in the year to see the results but I came away very hopeful that this will go a long way towards lobbying the leadership of the G8.

If we can continue to put our energy into building a coalition of people determined to end poverty then I know that we can succeed. Being surrounded by such amazing historic buildings, built without great technology, has inspired me to believe, with effort, anything is possible.

Dorothy Ngoma