'k, so do we go about fixing africa?

[Gemby!]

im gonna buy one of those white bands.

wont save africa but it makes me look good

* one day africa will beat the hell out of the world's elite or so i hope ...*

[JPaul]

This concert / event / campaign was not about raising funds for Africa, it was about raising public awareness, of the scale of the problems. It was about influencing the World leaders, thro' the power of the electorate.

Sorry if this offends anyone, but I really hate the position "I'm not supporting this because a lot of the money goes to the wrong place". With that attitude we help no-one. I am willing for some of the money to go to the wrong place in order that some lives are changed / saved. I don't like it but I know I have to accept it.

I also know that decisions are already made. However they were made knowing that this was going to happen and it influenced the decisions, when they were made.

You cannot change the World, but you can change yourself. You can change your attitude towards the Worlds problems.

[lynx]

Sorry if this offends anyone, but I really hate the position "I'm not supporting this because a lot of the money goes to the wrong place". With that attitude we help no-one. I am willing for some of the money to go to the wrong place in order that some lives are changed / saved. I don't like it but I know I have to accept it.

I hear what you are saying, and by and large agree with it.

However, when diverted aid is used to build up arms which in turn suppress the people and make it unsafe for aid agencies to operate, then something has to be done about the aid going to the wrong place otherwise the rest is a waste of time.

In some situations aid has been provided in the form of food. You may think that it would be difficult to divert that from the intended destination. Not so, all that happens is that it ends up in warehouses and is sold off to the population, or rather the few who can afford it, at inflated prices. The dictators/warlords get even richer than if they had been given cash directly, and the potential opposition have to squander what funds they have simply in order to survive. So providing aid while doing nothing about the corruption is actually making the problem worse in some cases.

[JPaul]

Sorry if this offends anyone, but I really hate the position "I'm not supporting this because a lot of the money goes to the wrong place". With that attitude we help no-one. I am willing for some of the money to go to the wrong place in order that some lives are changed / saved. I don't like it but I know I have to accept it.

I hear what you are saying, and by and large agree with it.

However, when diverted aid is used to build up arms which in turn suppress the people and make it unsafe for aid agencies to operate, then something has to be done about the aid going to the wrong place otherwise the rest is a waste of time.

In some situations aid has been provided in the form of food. You may think that it would be difficult to divert that from the intended destination. Not so, all that happens is that it ends up in warehouses and is sold off to the population, or rather the few who can afford it, at inflated prices. The dictators/warlords get even richer than if they had been given cash directly, and the potential opposition have to squander what funds they have simply in order to survive. So providing aid while doing nothing about the corruption is actually making the problem worse in some cases.

I agree, my post was badly worded.

What I meant was, let's not stop the aid because of the corruption. Let's not take the position, it's not worth doing anything at all.

Let's kep the aid going and do something about making sure it gets to the right places. Surely that is part of the responsibility, to not only supply the cash, but to also ensure it gets to the people who need it.

[Gemby!]

i dont think live 8 caused any great significance in awareness about the state of the world, as i think (prob. wrong) that many know the state that the world is in. apparently 5 billion around the world watched or were there, but im sure the majority of those people didnt go just to be enlightened about what is going on in the world. it was a music concert after all ....

*shuts up*

[DarthInsinuate]

also BBC skipped out all the specially created messages that were supposed to tell us what the hell it was all about

[JPaul]

You know what it's about.

Do the click your fingers every three seconds thing and imagine that it's someone you know who dies.

Someone who should still be alive, because they did not actually have to die.

It's about us having so much that we squander it. Whilst large parts of the World's population are hungry all of the time. There's a good one, imagine the most hungry you have ever felt and think of that as being normal. Think of that as being normal for your son, or daughter or sister or brother.

It's about large numbers of the worlds population having diseases which we can cure with cheap, readily available drugs. Who die because we don't give them the drugs.

It's about despair, being born into a world with no food, no medicine and no prospects of it changing.

And we have so much more than we need that we could change it, but we don't.

You know what it's about, if you really have the courage to imagine these things and accept that it goes on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.