Media blog tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2006:/applications/blogs/media/38 2006-09-27T09:47:06Z Head of Media, Sam Barratt, reports on Oxfam's attempts to keep poverty on the news agenda this week Movable Type 3.2 A gruelling September tag:www.oxfam.org.uk,2006:/applications/blogs/media//38.170 2006-09-25T17:16:48Z 2006-09-27T09:47:06Z I have been in New York recruiting for Oxfam International's media officer for humanitarian crises, several new staff have joined us here in Oxford and there has been a fair amount of preparation for a raft of initiatives that are... Sam Barratt I have been in New York recruiting for Oxfam International's media officer for humanitarian crises, several new staff have joined us here in Oxford and there has been a fair amount of preparation for a raft of initiatives that are scheduled to launch in the coming days and weeks.


This week we are launching the Oxfam 365 Alliance, Oxfam's first significant corporate partnership which will see companies pledge anything between £500,000 and £1 million to support our emergency operation. This will go towards paying for our emergencies warehouse, 90 rapid response emergency staff and revolving catastrophe fund that enables Oxfam to respond to crises immediately. Vodafone and Aviva are the first two companies to give their support and we are hoping that a decent launch later this week will see others join in.


I remember the first meeting for this last year ago when the initiative was conceived. Since then it has been finessed and gathered momentum, particularly as a result of the tsunami when lots of companies wanted to funnel their support to help people effected by natural disasters but were struggling to know what to do other than just donate. This is more than that and we hope others will come in and support in the coming weeks and months.


Some of this support may well be put to use in Darfur. The coverage over the weekend on the humanitarian crisis, which has been grimly unfolding in west Darfur, has been extraordinary. Oxfam is continuing to support 600,000 people in the country but the long-term solutions to the current conflict seem to be placed on the "too difficult" pile for the world to address. Hopefully a corner may be about to be turned.


Heads of Media from other Oxfam's will be meeting this week to discuss how we are going to be taking forward our media work. With the world changing quickly and the media even faster, we are looking at how we need to adjust which is likely to include moving more energy into online media and moving resources into key southern countries of India (astonished to see the piece in Guardian Unlimited about sales of newspapers in India, while decline continues in the UK), Brazil, South Africa and possibly China. None of this will happen overnight but we can't be complacent and may need to make some difficult decisions.


On top of this, there has been some good work in Singapore around the World Bank Annual meetings around the need for greater investment in education and health. We have been working to support the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (this shows the photo-stunt that was organised over the weekend). The countdown for the Control Arms campaign begins in the middle of the week as officials begin meeting at the UN to decide whether they will begin to work on an Arms Trade Treaty. When I first joined Oxfam six years ago I worked on this campaign and travelled to Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya as well as Acton in West London, where we door-stepped a gunrunner that had been shipping arms to war zones all over the world. We all hope that finally something is done to clean up this bloody trade.

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