Notre Dame students Stand up!

Promoting a pledge against poverty was the objective of students from The University of Notre Dame Australia’s Fremantle Campus, taking part in the worldwide Stand Up campaign. Stand Up, a global event in support of poverty eradication and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals campaign, encourages people around the world to stand up over the same period of time to show their commitment to achieving the Goals. A pathway to reach poverty reduction targets by 2015 was established in 2000 by the Millennium Development Goals involving 191 heads of government. Students gathered on Wednesday 14 October, to show their support for the campaign and to encourage other students to take part in the pledge. “By doing a Stand Up event at the University we were hoping to raise awareness about the Millennium Development Goals and show the government our commitment,” said Miss Olszewski. “Poverty is caused by the actions of humans and therefore can be stopped by the actions of humans; the time to act is now!” she said. Politics and International Relations lecturer, Mr Martin Drum, said that the pledge was all about raising awareness of poverty and our responsibility to do something about it. “I was pleased that so many people present stood up in solidarity when we read out the pledge today,” he said. “Making more of us aware of the extent of the problem will then allow us to consider what we can do about it,” said Mr Drum. From November 23 to December 6 a group of students will be travelling to Malawi with Caritas as part of the unit, Experience the World. “The idea of the trip is to travel to Malawi to observe first-hand the projects and work that Caritas Australia is doing in this country,” said Miss Olszewski. “We hope to gain valuable experience seeing how an organisation works at ground level and learning from the people of Malawi.” Media contact: Rebecca Cassidy 08 9433 0611, 0408 959 13