2005 has provided a new way for us to take local action and have an impact on global health. Every day 30,000 children die because they are living in extreme poverty. The only way to save these children is to Make Poverty History!

Make Poverty History is a coalition of over 450 organisations in the UK who have got together to campaign for Fair Trade, Drop the Debt and More and Better Aid. We must stop the rules that force poor countries to stay poor because they cannot get a fair price for their products. Debt is crippling the efforts of many countries to improve the situation in their country, there have been many promises but the debt has still not been dropped. There have also been many promises regarding aid and a target of 0.7% of national income was set but very few countries have achieved this. If these three issues are addressed poverty really could be history.

2005 is a crucial year, especially for the UK, because it has the presidency of the EU, hosts the G8 and has a general election. Also, only 10 years remain until the Millennium Development Goals should be achieved and currently it looks very unlikely that we will meet them.

Medsin-UK joined the Make Poverty History campaign in February 2005. The first thing we did was to bring the message to the IFMSA-GA in Turkey. The UK cannot do this alone, we need all the countries in the world to join together and make the politicians listen. They have said that it's only when they hear the message coming from more diverse places and more countries that they can and will act. Medsin-UK wanted to involve all its friends in IFMSA in this campaign so in Turkey we sold our white bands, showed videos and had a Fair Trade stall. Many other IFMSA NMOs then took on the campaign and have since achieved amazing things. IFMSA-Norway set up a national coalition and got their pop-idols to wear white bands!

Medsin-UK has been raising awareness back at home too. Various events have taken place across the country with awareness evenings, hunger buffets, parties and several thousand white bands sold. We are now concentrating our efforts on the rally which is taking place on 2nd July in Edinburgh prior to the G8 meeting in Gleneagles. Hundreds of Medsin-UK members will come together dressed in their scrubs with Make Poverty History bands and tape to join the rally. Over 100,000 people are expected to make a white band around the city in a clear message to the G8 leaders that they must take action! Many of us will then be staying in Edinburgh for the week long festival which is being organised by People and Planet for students.

To get involved in the campaign wherever you are in the world please take a look at www.whiteband.org and find out what's going on in your country. If you have any questions please email Medsin-UK on mph@medsin.org and come join us on July 2nd for the biggest event of its kind in years!

Claire Procter (UK), President MedSIN-UK, president@medsin.org