Contact/Cyswllt: Sian Cliff
02920 898342 / sian.cliff@wales.gov.uk

Montgomeryshire AM Mick Bates joined Oxfam Cymru and the Wales TUC at the Senedd this week to Stand Up and Speak Out Against Global Poverty in solidarity with millions of campaigners around the world to mark World Poverty Day on October 17th.

President of the Wales TUC, Ruth Jones, and Acting Head of Oxfam Cymru, Steve Brooks joined Mick Bates at the Senedd to raise their voices in the fight against poverty.

Commenting on the event Mick Bates said:

“In the 21st Century, it is not acceptable that over 1 billion people are living on less than $1 a day and that every day 30,000 children die because they are poor. I know that people in Montgomeryshire want to see urgent action to end global poverty and that is why I’m speaking out with Oxfam Cymru and the Wales TUC today.”

Steve Brooks, Acting Head of Oxfam Cymru said:

"I am really pleased that Mick Bates joined Oxfam Cymru and the Wales TUC today to raise Wales’ voice against poverty. We know that the root causes of poverty are man-made and that it can be overcome and eradicated, but only if governments take urgent action. In 2005, over 100,000 people in Wales campaigned to Make Poverty History. Two years on, progress has been made, but we must remind rich country governments to deliver on their promise to end extreme poverty by 2015.”

In 2000 leaders of 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals, a global plan to halve poverty by 2015. But in 2007:-

• over 1 billion people, 70% of them women, still live on less than one dollar a day

• every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday

• 80 million children, two-thirds of them girls, are still denied access to education

People in over 100 countries all over the world took part in a day of action to put pressure on governments around the world to keep the promise they made at the UN in 2000 to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015.


End / Diwedd


For more information on global activities:
http://www.whiteband.org/media/press-info
http://www.standagainstpoverty.org/