General Synod: Intervention in the debate on Trade Justice

Monday 12th July 2004

Thank you Mr Chairman. As you might expect, I would want to support this motion wholeheartedly and thank all those involved in producing the literature that's come out but I do want to note e) in the motion and say a word or two about the advocacy strategy that we're being urged to develop.

We've heard reference in this debate already to Jubilee 2000 and there are references made in the papers we've received. Part of the force and the strength and the popular appeal of Jubilee 2000 was that it came across as what you might call a bit of 'single clause legislation'. There was a single issue that was fairly clearly explicable to people with a date towards which people would be working. There were little postcards you could send with very simple things on them. Now in the Trade Justice document from Christian Aid there is a little section on 'how to communicate this report to your parish or synod' with ten key points to make and in appendix b) of the covering paper you'll see the manifesto from the Trade Justice Movement with nine paragraphs, quite substantial paragraphs, and what they stand for. And it's all good stuff, but I would like in the context of asking about an advocacy strategy to ask how we boil this down to the kind of immediate, readily communicable appeal that the Jubilee 2000 campaign had.

Thank you.

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