Brown urges children to think about Africa
Chancellor Gordon Brown has taken his campaign on Africa to a class of Scottish school children.
In an effort to highlight the gulf in experiences between children in Africa and those in the West, the chancellor made a keynote speech on justice for the continent.
Addressing pupils at the Inverkeithing high school in Mr Brown’s constituency of Fife he told the story of a 12-year-old orphan girl in Africa, suffering from Aids and tuberculosis, barefoot and in abject poverty.
“This poor girl’s eyes were completely desolate. She has lost hope in the future,” said the chancellor.
“Just think – there are millions of children in the position that poor girl was in. Millions of children who need help.”
He used the case study to underline his appeal to world leaders ahead of the G8 summit in Gleneagles that the world must act to make a brighter future for Africa’s 350 million children.
Mr Brown made an impassioned plea for the world to unite on the issue, saying: “If we come together, the world coming together, from this school to the whole of Britain and then to the whole of the world, then surely we can make a big difference.”
He labelled the problems of Africa “the greatest issue of all”, and added: “All of us are angry because throughout the course of this year, six million people will die avoidably from tuberculosis, Aids, or malaria, most of them on the continent of Africa.
“And we are outraged because today 105 million children are unable to go to school.”
