Vol 3/5
June
1998
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Southwark at the Summit
Claire Short, Overseas Development Minister, joins the party
It was billed as the biggest international event on poverty since Live Aid. More than 50,000 people gathered in Birmingham on May 16th to ensure that the Jubilee 2000 Campaign becomes what Martin Drury from Christian Aid hopes will prove to be 'one of the great campaigns in human history'.
He told the exuberant crowd gathered in the sunshine around St Philip's Cathedral that the Campaign would prove unstoppable in breaking up the coalitions of self-interest in the rich countries of the world.
People from parishes across Southwark Diocese travelled by coach and minibus to take their place in the eleven mile human chain that surrounded the centre of the city. Bishop Peter Price was among the bishops who walked among the crowds. "It has just been so impressive", he said, "to see thousands and thousands of people holding hands for a just world."
In characteristically campaigning mood, Gabrielle Grace, who chairs Southwark's World Mission and Development Group, said "The will of the people must be heard, and the will of the people is to break the chains of debt".
Claire Short MP was there to received the petition signed by people from sixty nine countries. As the Cathedral bells rang out, the crowd raised a shout with bells, hooters and whistles as loud as anything that the Archbishop of Canterbury heard at Wembley that afternoon.
Was anything achieved? The news on Sunday morning said that the G8 leaders had made little progress towards an agreement about debt relief. But, as Andrew Davey from General Synod's Board of Social Responsibility said at the end of the day, "It was a butterfly's wing. We helped start a ripple".
Christian Aid already has imaginative plans for maintaining the Campaign in the months leading up to the target date of 2000. Phone 0171 523 2248 for the Church Action Pack.
Bishop Peter with Jubilee2000 campaign coordinator Ann Pettifor
The full printed edition of the 'Bridge'
newspaper is available at all Southwark Parish Churches
Further copies can be obtained from wendy.s.robins@southwark.anglican.org
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