Browse Sections

• Education
• Special reports

March to end poverty

Faye Adams
30/ 6/2005

GLOSSOP protestor Joan Callaghan will be answering Bob Geldof's plea to descend on Edinburgh.

The retired physiotherapist will be making the journey up to the Scottish capital to show her support for the Make Poverty History campaign.

Joan and husband Harry, a retired priest, have been campaigning for the cancellation of third world debt for a number of years.

They have been involved in several protests including travelling to Cologne, Germany in 1999 where world leaders were meeting.

"I think it's important to go this weekend as now we might be finally getting somewhere and they might actually be doing something," said Joan, of Manor Park View.

"If enough people are there they are not going to be able to ignore it, so we need to get the country behind us."

She added: "If this was happening in Britain or the US something would be done straight away, there would be a riot.

"If so many children had died in Birmingham, for example, can you imagine what the reaction would be?

"But because it's on the other side of the world people are thinking it's nothing to do with me."

Also off to Edinburgh are members of Glossopdale Methodist Church, led by the Rev Simon Topping. They are among a group of protestors walking from Birmingham (the site of the last G8 conference) to the Scottish capital.