The Year So Far

GCAP in the United Arab Emirates, Make Poverty History-Emirates, celebrated its biggest year yet. During the year the number of member organizations in the coalition grew. Support for the campaign grew incredibly with over 30 thousand supporters across the country.

The campaign hosted a number of awareness campaigns throughout the country, along with periodical national radio shows to keep the campaign in the spotlight. These radio shows with prominent DJs featured campaign representatives Mr. Jaser Faruq (Event Coordinator) and Mr. Anish Kattukaran (National Coordinator) on topics like HIV/AIDS, human rights, extreme poverty & hunger etc.

The campaign continued to make constant updates to its website and media portal. A dedicated Internet team, directed by Ms Sana Syed, was set up and immediately introduced a monthly e-Newsletter and a weekly ‘Action Alert’. 2006 also saw the launch of the MPH-Emirates Blog. The campaigns’ website www.makepovertyhistory.ae also picked up two ‘Best Website’ awards: Gold at the Pan Arab Awards and Silver at the UAE Web Awards

As part of the campaign’s ‘Outreach Program,’ we teamed up with a number of established events through the country. Campaign volunteers would then use these events to spread awareness about the campaign and its demands. ‘Fusion 2006’ was one such event, attended by thousands. 30 campaign volunteers were present to talk to attendees throughout the event’s 3-day duration. The campaign jointly celebrated ‘World Children’s Day’ as well as part of the program at an event with about a thousand children in The Gardens in Dubai.

The national coalition’s key Mobilization date was 15^th & 16^th October: White Band Day 4 (marking the end of the Month of Mobilization) and the campaign adopted the ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ theme. MPH-Emirates coordinated an unprecedented 20 simultaneous events to mark the occasion.Over 20,000 UAE residents from over 90 nationalities came out in full force to support the eradication of poverty. National press coverage was at its highest with the campaign and the Stand Up events appearing in every one of the national newspapers, radio stations and even some of the TV stations.

The campaign closed the year on a high note, signing one of the three biggest Media & Advertising firms, Saatchi & Saatchi, to design its advertising/awareness campaign. This will be launched through 2007 along with the number of events and programs that have already been planned. We look forwards to your continued support.

Hala Coussa;
Administration

Sana Syed;
eCommunications Director

Make your Christmas Wish Change the World

Our good friends at Flip Media (the guys who helped us put together our awesome website) have created really great Christmas 'wishing' website.

For every wish that you make on that website they will donate a sum of money to the Medecins Sans Frontieres and we all know what great work they do to alleviate suffering.

So head over to www.flipcorp.com/wish and make your wish count towards making poverty history. (and make sure you tell as many people as possible)

Im sure it will give you a lot of plus points on Santa's list.

--

Anish Kattukaran,

National Coordinator