Campaign blog

What's happening at the Big IF rally

When you arrive in Hyde Park, along with thousands of others, you will have the chance to plant a spinning flower as part of a breath-taking art installation that will be the size of a football field! This huge visual petition will represent the 2 million children’s lives lost each year due to hunger, sending the G8 leaders a message that they cannot ignore. You can make your personalised spinning flower on the day, or even better bring one that you have made at home. Download your instructions for making the spinning flowers. 

Hear inspiring speeches from humanitarian and wife of Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, philanthropist Bill Gates, former Archbishop of Canterbury and Chair of Christian Aid Rowan Williams, broadcaster Natasha Kaplinsky and Alvin Mosioma, Director of Tax Justice Network Africa. The event will be hosted by Gethin Jones and Myleene Klass and will also include exclusive appearances from a number of campaign supporters including Grammy Award winning singer Angelique Kidjo.

Then we will make a huge noise (feel free to bring pots to bang, whistles and vuvuzelas to blow, rattles to shake etc!) to demand change, making sure that G8 leaders go to Northern Ireland with our demands ringing in their ears. Because IF we make enough noise, they won’t be able to ignore us.

There will also be a children’s area, a blogger area, a youth area, a picnic area and much more.

And if all that hasn’t inspired you to come then read a message from Eddie Izzard asking you to be there. It is going to be an amazing day – see you there!

Join ActionAid in Hyde Park

Come and find us at the ActionAid stall where you can claim your free T-shirt to say thank you for all your amazing campaigning this year! 

We are on stall number 2 in the Campaigns Zone, next door to Oxfam. We’ll have some giant ActionAid flags and 5ft ActionAid balloons so you shouldn’t be able to miss us, either at the stall or in the crowd. You can also call our Campaign Officer Caroline Jones if you can’t find us, on 075 3344 7618. The nearest tube stations to the rally are Knightsbridge and South Kensington.

We’ll be ready to welcome you from 1.30pm to give you your free ActionAid/IF tshirt, placard and noisemaker for the rally. The Campaign Zone will be ready for to public to explore from 12pm, and to avoid the queues it’s best to arrive as early as possible to plant your flower as part of the mass visual petition. We’ll also be holding workshops where you can find out more about what we’re calling for and hear from Elly and Joy, ActionAid campaigners from Tanzania and Kenya.

Stewards will be on hand to help guide you from one area to the other.
 

Any questions email campaign@actionaid.org and register your place.

The secret’s out. Nearly half of all investment in developing countries goes through tax havens, making it easy for companies to avoid tax bills in the world’s poorest countries. Ridiculous, right?

Yesterday, ActionAid UK unearthed conclusive proof of the lunacy of tax havens. This website might seem unreal, but the facts and stories are shockingly true. See it and share it here >> www.taxheaven.org.uk

Putting up with this situation is crazy when developing countries are losing 3 times more to tax havens than they receive in aid each year. But we have a huge opportunity to make David Cameron bring an end to tax havens at the G8 summit.

Together thousands of us have taken action calling for tax justice, and the pressure is mounting. Last week, George Osborne declared tax avoidance would take centre stage, after our tweets and calls flooded his office.

Now, we have only a few weeks to act together to end to tax havens – and make sure poor countries see the benefits immediately. That means as many people as possible seeing the absurdity behind the tax haven scandal, and demanding change.

Take action today:  Please sign the petition on Tax Heaven and share the site with your friends and family, by Facebook, Twitter or email.

Just a few weeks to go! Together, we can put a stop to tax havens

Read more about tax havens and their effect on tax avoidance in developing countries in our report: How Tax Havens Plunder the Poor.

1. Be part of the movement:

The IF Campaign is a massive movement with over 200 organisations participating and over 100,000 people taking action, but now the campaign has reached its most important moment – the G8 summit. And so we need thousands of people to come to the Big IF London rally in Hyde Park on Saturday 8 June to demand that the G8 leaders make 2013 the beginning of the end of global hunger. This is incredibly important in a world where one in eight people go to bed hungry every day.  

2. Make the G8 clamp down on tax havens: 

Poor countries loose three times as much money to tax havens as they receive in aid each year. The G8 leaders have the opportunity to change this, but they won’t do it unless we push them. That’s why we need as many people as possible to be at the Big IF London rally, so that together we can make a noise loud enough that the G8 leaders can’t ignore us.

3. Be part of a massive visual petition:

At the Big IF rally we will together be building a mass visual petition made up by each of the attendees planting a ‘spinning flower.’ You can find out more about the spinning flowers here. This incredible art installation will be the size of a football field and will create a breath-taking visual image that will go down in history and send the G8 leaders a message they can’t ignore. As well as the huge visual petition, there will be exciting speakers, such as Bill Gates and Rowan Williams, interactive areas such as a children’s area and much more. 

But none of this can happen without you. We need you, and as many people as you can bring along, to make this day be a huge success and have a real impact on the lives of people in developing countries. Sign up for Big IF London here.

Hi! I’m Elly Ahimidiwe from Moshi, Tanzania.

I arrived yesterday in the UK after a one month Tour De Future bicycle tour in Denmark to raise awareness of the impact of biofuels along with Joy and 4 other Activistas from East Africa. In April, I joined Action Aid campaigners and supporters from across Europe to lobby MEPs in Brussels to reform European biofuels policy to stop it fuelling hunger. I’m excited about meeting you and sharing my experience of land rights and food production issues with you.

I’m a youth trainer and facilitator and set up the Activista network in Tanzania. I’ve been volunteering with Action Action Aid since 2011 in the Tanzania Office as a blogger and developing case studies. The issue of land grabs is really important to me as it is something my own community in Kilimanjaro have experienced and I have witnessed clashes between farmers and pastoralists fighting due to land shortages in the area.

In my work with Action Aid, I’ve worked with communities such as those in Kisarawe and Kilwa District, where a UK company took land the size of 11,000 football pitches to establish a jatropha plantation (a biofuels crop) leaving local people without land to feed their families.

Over the next few weeks I will be campaigning on Enough Food For Everyone IF and I’m really looking forward to meeting other young people who are making noise so that world leaders and policy makers hear us and act. I will be attending the Big IF rally in London on 8th June-Make sure you join me!

Looking forward to meeting you soon!
 

You can also meet Elly in: