Global Call to Action Against Poverty
The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) is a growing worldwide alliance consisting of national coalitions (or platforms) of campaigns to end poverty.
It is involved with some 38 million people in actions in 2005 in over 75 countries and 23 million people in 2006 in over 85 countries.
GCAP was initially a worldwide alliance committed to making world leaders live up to their promises and to making a breakthrough on poverty during 2005. However due to the success of the campaign during 2005, the 170 members of the campaign’s International Facilitation Group (IFG) met in Beirut in early 2006 and unanimously agreed to continue the campaign up to December 31, 2007. At a global assembly in Montevideo, Uruguay in May 2007 the national coalitions and other constituencies voted to extend the campaigning alliance until at least 2015.
The campaign was founded at a conference in Johannesburg, South Africa in late 2004 and officially launched at the World Social Forum in Brazil on the January 1, 2005. It rapidly grew to earn its status as the largest anti-poverty campaign in the world by building on existing networks, and their strategies and activities. Currently it boasts of more than one thousand member organisations and millions of supporters worldwide.
We could easily have missed it! Yes, I mean the text for our reflection this Sunday (14th Sunday, Year C). The 1st reading is that of Isaiah 66:10-14. The book of the prophet Isaiah has exactly 66 chapters and the last one has 24 verses in all. So our reference for this Sunday comes… very late in the book and someone who has gone through all the previous contents could be forgiven to ‘forget’ the very last section. But then, that person would miss… a jewel!
Reading the gospel text for this Sunday (Lk.9:51-62, 13th Sunday, Year C) someone could explain with a touch of humour: “This is a mixed bag!” Indeed, we find in those few verses all kinds of ideas. More than one theme is presented to our reflection:
Worldwide, thousands of people suffer or die waiting for an organ. While the majority of the population favors organ donation and transplantation, for a variety of reasons the potential of organ donation is still underexploited.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a specific disorder that involves the death of neurons that control voluntary muscles. In a number of countries, the term motor neurone disease (MND) is commonly used, while others use that term for a group of five conditions of which ALS is the most common. ALS is characterized by stiff muscles, muscle twitching, and gradually worsening weakness due to muscles decreasing in size. This results in difficulty speaking, swallowing, and eventually breathing.
petition will be delivered to UN headquarters in New York ahead of the UN High Level Meeting on Refugees and Migrants, scheduled for the 19th September. The petition asks governments to:
Patients living with sickle cell disease live with many challenges. The presence of sickle hemoglobin leads to sickling of the red blood cells and activation of white blood cells which together block the microcapillaries that bring oxygen to tissues producing bouts of pain, sometimes requiring hospitalization, and damaging many tissues in the body. There is a tremendous unmet medical need facing those whose lives are impacted by this devastating disease.
world leaders made land degradation neutrality one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. » UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
