Immigration, Environment and Development Aid...
Well well well - the long Easter holidays (5 weeks my friends!) seem to be coming scarily close to the final end. What follows? My exams. Wonderful stuff. Have had plenty to think about, especially as I'm currently doing an internship with a large international refugee organisation. ('Promoting self-reliance for displaced people') My work is not too exciting if we're honest-I'm researching into how to get donations through legacies in wills. So if you're thinking of writing a will, do not hesitate to consult me, and I can give you the name of a very good charity who one can inherit some money to. YIPEE! However, I do have the opportunity to sneak into interesting meetings and talk to my local MP etc...today some people reported back from this AIDS/HIV awareness/intervention campaign they have in Sudan. It's dreadful to hear the stories of how widespread the disease is and how terrible the consequences are, the difficulties in campaigning on such a sensitive issue, especially when faced against very strong religious leaders.
Anyway on to other things, I have been randomly selected by a weekly British magazine, the New Statesman, to write my own personal views on the upcoming general elections-well which issues are of interest to me particularly and apparently they will also be published- I have to send a photo too! So I thought to spam you all with my ideas, here we go:
For me there are three key issues that mean a lot to me and of which I will continue to be very aware of in the upcoming election. These are immigration, the environment and development aid.
There are great myths surrounding Asylum seekers and refugees and in my opinion the British government is not doing enough to help them. Some might find it surprising that asylum applications have more than halved during the last two years-they were 49,370 asylum applications in 2003 in comparison to the 300,000 foreign students and 100,000 people who were here on work permits (Source: Home Office figures for 2003). The UK is home to less than 2% of the world's refugees, around 250,000 people out of nearly 10 million worldwide (Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) .
Global Warming is probably the biggest problems my generation will have to face. There is no point in signing agreements like the Kyoto Agreement if they are not implemented and there is not enough international pressure to get all states to sign them. I wrote a letter to Tony Blair a few years ago voicing my concern- for example in 2020- by the time his son Leo will be 20 it has been estimated oil will start running out. In 2002 the British Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre reported that climate change was happening 50% faster than originally believed. By 2040 they predict most forests will begin to die. Needless to say Blair did not reply.
The Government needs to reconsider their foreign policy, especially regarding foreign aid. Aid should not be used as a political tool by only giving aid to those countries that sign up for western economic policies. It is an atrocity that 30,000 children are still dying every single day. Indeed it does not take a genius to work out that poverty is a key root to terrorism.
All issues come down to how valuable human life is to our politicians. The people in government have immense power-I urge them to use it to do something good for the human race.
Congratulations! You actually read this far! Anyway, I'm off to feed my PG tips addiction....tara!
