Jubilee debt Campaign

Yesterday I attended the Jubilee Debt campaign conference which was held here in Birmingham. It was a truly inspirational day for many reasons. Firstly the conference was aimed at bringing different faith groups together to talk about their responses to global poverty. We heard key notes speakers from the Micha Challenge, Islamic Relief and a leader of the Sikh community. What i found striking from this was the similar goals that everyone brought to the event and the commitment they had to the cause which was solidified and spurred on by the social action side to their respective religions.

Following these impressive speakers we were split into smaller workshops to discuss our personal experiences with debt relief. This to me was the most inspiring section of the day. I heard from speakers of many faiths with varying levels of knowledge and experience and really got a feel of peoples motivations, experiences and aspirations for the future. Some of the people in the workshop had been with the campaign since its start and gave an interesting insight into the journey that the campaign had gone through. I was genuinely moved by what i heard yesterday and hope to carry on working to help the drop the debt campaign in any way i can.

How can you help??

well there is scheduled to be a multi-faith walk in September to raise funds for the campaign and there are many other smaller projects going on in Birmingham run by local community members. But the main thing I took away from the conference is that the first thing to do is to educate yourself, so first things first, check out the website, http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/

If you fancy doing something small how about going more Fairtrade? http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Or maybe if you're more adventurous a summer holiday to a developing country to educate yourself as to how debt is really affecting people on the ground

Personally I know there's a lot I will be taking from the day.