While you wouldn’t normally expect these two to cross paths, today on the Make Poverty History Roadtrip Gaga and footy have been combined seamlessly.
The Make Poverty History Roadtrip first embraced the Gaga fever yesterday when the Victorian trips launched in the Melbourne CBD to a flashmob choreographed to Paparazzi. The Oaktree Foundation’s CEO Tom O’Connor sent us off with the reminder that there is no paparazzi for extreme poverty - and this can have devastating results.
On Day 2, Gaga made a comeback. As we made our way into Skilled Stadium to talk to Geelong and Swans fans before the game, we started things off with our Poker Face ’inspired chant (I’ll leave that lyrical genius to your imagination). In half an hour, we had over 130 people sign their support for The Act to End Poverty.
We left the stadium with mixed feelings. Although we’d got over a hundred people to sign their name to the Act, we’d lost some of our initial zeal. We’d discovered how hard it is to get the attention of complete strangers (particularly when carrying clipboards). While we were passionate enough about extreme poverty to give up a whole week from our school, university and work diaries - it was hard to transfer that passion to strangers. Standing with clipboard in hand - people avoid you. We’ve all been there - even crossed the street just to avoid that conversation.
But now knowing first hand the difficulty of talking to strangers on the street - makes me realise the importance of those conversations in your own community.
Today, I spoke to two lovely Geelong fans about Make Poverty History and The Act. While we chatted, their two friends (who had minutes earlier told me they didn’t have time to talk) came over and joined the conversation. They actually knew about Make Poverty History, and supported our call for the government to increase foreign aid, but until their friends showed an interest in talking to me, they weren’t interested in why I was there.
To me, this really highlighted the power that we each have in our community to create positive change. Raising issues such as extreme poverty with your friends - even something as simple as the fact that you’ve just taken part in a campaign that you think is really important - can be really powerful.
This week we’re working really hard to create national awareness about our opportunity to halve extreme poverty by 2015 - we hope you’ll help us out by taking the Act to End Poverty into your community.
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