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13 October 2006
Hundreds of Students in Thailand “STAND UP” Against Poverty: Event leads up to UN Millennium Campaign effort for Guinness World Record

13 October, Bangkok: Eight hundred students at the New International School of Thailand (NIST) today formed a human chain, spelling the words “STAND UP” outside their building, as part of a larger global advocacy campaign aimed at setting an official Guinness World Record for the greatest number of people to Stand Up Against Poverty. Groups around the world will come together to Stand Up and remind their governments that promises to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and help the billions living in extreme poverty, must be kept.

The official Stand Up challenge, launched by the UN Millennium Campaign, will start at 10am (GMT) on Sunday 15 October and finish at 10am (GMT) on Monday 16 October. Within that period, people on every continent will be organizing Stand Up events and registering them online to be part of the official Guinness World Record count. Trade unions, faith based groups, local governments, youth groups, Parliamentarians, sports clubs, media, and individuals will take part in Stand Up events.

They will physically and symbolically “STAND UP” to communicate their desire to fight poverty and to hold their governments and leaders accountable for promises to end extreme poverty by 2015. Elsewhere in Thailand, 500 prisoners at the Chaiyaphum Provincial Prison have registered online to Stand Up on 15 October, and staff at the United Nations in Thailand will hold their event on 16 October.

“We must stand up for these issues,” says Elizabeth Fong, Manager of the UN Development Programme Regional Centre in Bangkok. “Why should anyone have to go to bed hungry? Why should anyone be deprived of basic education? Why should anyone have to die of preventable diseases? Yet here in Asia, this region is not on track to achieve the eight Millennium Goals which could in fact help to end extreme poverty.”

Many of the Thai schools are closed on 16 October, when the actual Guinness World Record numbers will count, so the New International School of Thailand (NIST) decided to take part in the lead-up to the campaign because of the significance the school places on the message behind the advocacy effort.

“Development issues are an important part of our curriculum at the school,” says Adrian Watts, Secondary School Principal at the New International School of Thailand. “We feel it is essential that students understand their role as world citizens to keep poverty issues alive on the global agenda.”

In each Stand Up event, participants will stand and read a short pledge which includes, “We cannot stay seated when a child born in a poor country today will die 30 years earlier than a child born in a wealthy one: when tens of thousands of people die unnecessarily every day…We wish to set a record today of the number of people standing up to demand action on poverty – but the record we really want to break is the world’s record of breaking promises and just ignoring the poor.”

Elsewhere, events include:

• Times Square, New York City – UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will raise the famous New Years’ Ball on October 15 to support the STAND UP challenge
• Schools across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza  STAND UP
• Elementary schools in tsunami struck Aceh STAND UP
• US Churches STAND UP
• Islamic Clerics STAND UP in Indonesia

Launched globally by the UN Millennium Campaign (www.millenniumcampaign.org), Stand Up is a worldwide advocacy effort designed to coincide with a month of global initiatives around the International Day of Poverty Eradication and the White Band Day of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. For a full listing of events around the world, www.standagainstpoverty.org

For more information:

Please contact: Cherie Hart, cherie.hart@undp.org, +66 (81) 918 1564, +66 (2) 288 2133