make poverty history

What am I really doing to make poverty history? I’m ashamed to say: not much, I guess…
OK well I donate to Oxfam but I don’t really feel that’s a huge contribution to making poverty history. It’s certainly not an active contribution.
Maybe I could start by buying more fairtrade stuff?

[I had typed all this before I saw Compassionist’s entry. In the Dutch media there has been no attention at all, so it’s good to see other countries do pay attention.]

Last week I saw BBC’s Newsnight which talked about Vulture Funds and a court case which involved a vulture fund sueing Zambia, and this made me really mad! People who are actually making money from poor countries, it’s totally wrong!
In short, this is what a vulture fund does: Poor country has debt, say 15 million, with rich country. Rich country says: pay me 3 million and then we cancel the rest of the debt. Vulture fund comes in and says: I’ll pay 4 million, so I buy off the poor country’s debt. Ten years later, vulture fund says to poor country: you owe me 40 million, as I paid off your 15 million debt and I’m adding interest and other costs. (I guess it’s better to check wikipedia for more info.)
Ridiculous, but unfortunately there is no (international) law stopping these vulture funds! And thus, all these debt cancellation programs work their ass of for nothing! Instead of giving the poor country a chance to start clean, and give them an opportunity to invest in health and education, these vulture funds take all their money and more!
So I realized that I could use my power as someone working in the media and actually get someone on my radioshow this Monday to let people know these things are going on in the world!

Erm, it might be a goal that’s a bit too far-fetched to reach on my own… Oh well. I did sign a petition on www.one.org, so that’s a start to my contribution to making poverty history!