RESULTS - neglected social issues.

back to theLoser's index
This page is personal composition but mostly I have taken the material from the RESULTS group's own literature.

First I want to give an insight into the core problem:

Think for a second:
Poor people run their lives on a pitance. You would therefore think that it would cost a bit more of a pitance to give them the chance to get themselves above the bread-line and to keep themselves going.

Well, it does not cost any significant amount of money and will inderectly pay back much more. It's an investment!

Why should it matter?
Well, there is no excuse for poverty. If we let it exist on such a huge scale then that's bad. There are things that are seriously wrong with the way we are living ... very serious. To call a spade a spade - we have to be pushing the world into deep shit.

Now, on to some Results material:

What is Results

Results is an international network of grass-roots lobby groups involving volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds. It has ho affiliation with any political, religious or other interest groups.

Its operating principles are:

There are RESULTS groups in six countries - Australia, Canada, Cermany, Japan, UK and USA.

In Australia there are groups operating in Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney.

Our motive

The world has the resources to end hunger and poverty: all that is required is political will.

Each day 35 000 children die from hunger and related causes. Only 10% of these are due to famine - the rest are the result of chronic and persistent hunger and poverty which afflicts over 1 billion of the world's population. Famine victims require food aid, and the world had demonstrated its ability to meet this need. The majority of people do not need food aid. They require opportunities to end their own hunger and poverty - opportunities such as access to land, credit, tools, safe water, sanitaion, basic health care, basic education and family planning services.

Our activities

Results is solely devoted to lobbying on aid and development issues. It funds its own lobbying activities in Australia - it does not raise funds directly for aid projects. Issues on which Results has worked include policies of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Australia's overseas aid, spending on basic needs, the goals of the World Summit for Children, State of the World's Children Report and microcredit.
Well, now we have to return to my waffling because I can't find any material from RESULTS which fits well with my idea of the way this page should go.

Getting results

How do we do it?
(this is my own blurb again) Simple - ask a big-wig what he can do - but don't give him a hard time.

Fixing hunger and poverty is cheap and has no backlash. It's not a political "hot potato". And most politicians and bureacrats are human and want to do something good. They are snowed under with other issues and this poverty thing just never comes to their attention.

Another consequence of them being just human is that, just like us, they won't be very responsive if you follow the good old Australian way and get "stuck into them".

Mostly all it takes is to just write to a politician, informing him of the issue and give him some ideas as to how to start tackling the problem, and finally just asking him what he can do. The worst that can happen is that, god forbid, you will learn something.

Another way to bring the matter to light is writing a letter to the paper.

Now, that's all very fine for me to explain all that. What about doing it? Well, I'm human too, basically. I'll go off and keep forgetting to do what I've just expounded. I won't actually do anything unless someone is around from time to time, keeping my thoughts on the matter.

So, to address this sort of thing, we physically get together once a month and have a casual letter writing session.

back to theLoser's index
This page's URL: www.tassie.net.au/~timdougl/results.htm