Micah Challenge UK - Campaigns

Campaigns

In June 2007 thousands of Christians made a deafening demand for justice by blowing whistles in a call to G8 leaders to keep their promises to the poor. The Blow the Whistle campaign focused on calling on the Government to honour its commitments set in the Millennium Development Goals, aimed to halve global poverty by 2015. The summer of 2007 marked the halfway point, so Micah Challenge made a point to assess the halftime scores.

Around 850 people took part in a worship service held at Methodist Central Hall including representatives of some of the world’s poorest nations. The worshippers then joined The World Can’t Wait rally where people with placards lined both sides of the banks of the Thames as whistles were blown, car horns were honked and alarms went off to make a deafening signal to the government that the world can’t wait to end poverty. As a result of the campaign almost 25,000 Blow the Whistle postcards reached the UK Prime Minister’s desk.

In 2010, Micah Challenge UK led the What's Your Promise campign, where thousands of Christians in Churches across the UK made promises to live lives that remember the poor. They did this by writing on handprints, which symbolised a commitment and, like the promises made, they are unique. These promises were then delivered to local MPs who were asked to make a promise themselves. Over 11,000 promises were made, and 35 MPs were presented with handprints. Half of these MPs were inspired to make a promise of their own. A number of people said that making their promise helped change their way of thinking and their actions in the world.