Residents to 'Stand Up' against poverty and make a difference

Dubai: Residents will have the opportunity to take part in a world record this month while fighting world poverty and supporting the ‘Make Poverty History' campaign.

People in the UAE will get the chance to ‘Stand Up' against poverty in a Guinness World Record bid.

Coinciding with the International Day of Poverty Eradication and the White Band Day of the Global Call to Action against Poverty, an initiative is being launched to mobilise as many people as possible — enough to set a world record — to stand up and be counted to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals.

Guinness Book

Millions of people from over 100 countries will set the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people to ‘Stand Up Against Poverty' on October 15. An individual ‘Stand Up' event can comprise two or 2,000 people.

Every person counts and to take part residents can host their own ‘Stand Up' event, after registering with Make Poverty History-Emirates.

Participants have to sit or kneel and after a countdown from 10, stand up while the group leader reads out the ‘Stand up' pledge. The numbers from that particular event must then be counted and sent back to the campaign before the allotted time.

“The event is more about testing the public's will to stand up to beat global poverty. We haven't organised a main event because we want every single event to happen because people care enough to organise one,'' said Anish Kattukaran, National Coordinator, Make Poverty History-Emirates. “We have a couple of thousand events registered already. For the event to break a world record we need a minimum of 10,000 people globally .... In Times Square in New York 20,000 people are already planning to stand up.''

Monitored by Guinness World Records, the challenge will take place between 2pm on October 15 and noon October 16. For more information log on to www.makepovertyhistory.ae/stand-up-faq.html

Concern: 800m people go to bed hungry every day

— 24,000 people die from hunger every day
— 8,200 people die due to HIV/Aids every day
— More than 100 million children are denied the chance to go to school every day
— 800 million people go to bed hungry every day
— 1.1 billion people have to drink polluted water every day