While at studying at university I often felt strapped for cash. Despite receiving a student loan and doing sporadic shifts at a local restaurant, I struggled to make it to the end of the term in the black. After graduating, my perception of what it meant to be hard up changed completely; working a minimum wage job I regularly questioned that any person could live comfortably on what was clearly not a living wage. ...

It was a typically cold and grey Monday morning, as we strolled down the banks of the River Thames.  We were just passing the London Rowing Club Boathouse when two men appeared, dressed in suits and bowler hats, money stuffed in their pockets, while displaying a big red 'sold' sign.  They began by declaring the rowing club's stretch of the Thames had been sold to overseas investors and that any unsuspecting pedestrian who...

Imagine, for a second, being kicked out of your home.  There's no time to collect your possessions, no time to say goodbye to friends and family and you must give up everything you know and start again with nothing.  This is the reality for millions of communities and small-scale farmers living in developing countries.     Almost a month has now passed since we emerged from our Victoria office in London on...

I'm in the Cafédirect offices in East London to meet Alvaro Gomez, the general manager of a of a coffee growing cooperative in Costa Rica and one of the directors of Cafédirect.   The first ever Fair-trade registered coffee organisation, Cafédirect started with a few bags of coffee beans shipped over to the UK and sold by grassroots and church groups. In 1989, an international coffee agreement which had fixed global prices according...

Today on World Food Day, more than 1 in eight people will go to bed hungry. Living in the UK, a country where it's ok to throw food out if it's a day past its best before date and not eat yesterday's leftovers, surely this seems ridiculous. The facts are there and something needs to be done about it. A new report on hunger by the Food and Agriculture Organisations last week revealed that nearly 870 million - that's...

Over the next 3 weeks politicians and political party members will be gathering for their annual party conferences.  Party conferences are a fantastic opportunity to influence decision makers and have your voice heard on important issues.  This year we are inviting Oxfam activists and constituency campaigners to get involved in our campaigning at the three main UK party conferences.   The good news is that one of these...

Oxfam are looking for some people passionate about global justice to volunteer at the London Mela. One of London's biggest parties, the Mela will host stars such as Jaz Dhami and live band, DJs from the Asian Network and a BBC introducing stage curated by DJ Bobby Friction ...

With Oxfam's UK Poverty Program warning of a 'perfect storm' of welfare cuts and spiralling living costs and Oxfam campaigners taking to the streets to explain why one in seven people worldwide are going hungry, we desperately need some food solutions. I asked Rosa Fletcher from the UK charity FoodCycle how they are tackling the broken food system right on our doorstep. ...