Besides helping set a Guinness World Record for “Stand Up, Speak Out” this year, the two-minute pledge was a first for the National University of Singapore community.

The 170 NUS student pledge-takers joined 43.7 million people around the world pledging to stand up against poverty and demand a more urgent political response to poverty from world leaders. 

The new record of 43.7 million broke last year’s Guinness World Record of 23.5 million by almost double (http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2007/10/071023.aspx), and created the largest mobilisation of people in 24 hours. 

The campaign is part of the United Nation campaign to promote the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by the year 2015 and completely eradicating it by 2025. 

Ahmed added this year is symbolic as it marks the halfway point to the 2015 deadline to achieving the MDG. 

“It is important to remind political leaders to honour their promises and act to end poverty and inequality at this point of time,” she said. 

Zhang Meng Qi, one of student organisers, said she was glad they were part of the action as it was in sync with their team’s objectives. Their team, “Walk the Talk”, is a voluntary organisation which sends donations to people in South East Asian countries. 

“We feel that it is an extremely worthy cause,” said Zhang Meng Qi, one of the NUS organisers. “And, as part of the purpose of our organization is to raise awareness of poverty, we thought ‘Stand Up, Speak Out’ is pretty much in sync with this theme.”

Michael Switow, local representative for Stand Up, Speak up (http://www.standagainstpoverty.org/) and co-founder of One Singapore (http://www.onesingapore.org/), said he was impressed by Walk the Talk’s enthusiasm in organizing the event for the NUS community. 

“I think it’s fantastic. The students in NUS showed great initiative to end poverty,” said Switow. “They really showed dedication towards this global call.” 

He added that it is important students are aware of such issues, because “within 20 years, these students are going to be our leaders.” 

“It’s very important for Singapore youths to basically be exposed and to open their eyes to what’s going on in the world around them, and to develop compassion … for those in our neighboring countries and around the world who really are struggling,” he said. 

However, some pledge-takers at the event questioned its effectiveness in pressuring governments to take action. 

“I think that giving pressure is one thing, but it’s another to really induce action,” said Abdul Rahman, a second-year communications and new media major. 

“It will take more than just a bunch of people saying pledges to eradicate poverty. I think there really needs to be some form of action to substantiate it.” 

Switow disagreed. He said, “Standing up is a symbolic action, but when you have 30 to 50 million people around the world standing up on the same day … that carries an extremely powerful message.”

“And, it’s a message that we hope is heard in governments around the world and at international institutions like the World Bank and the IMF that have the power to change policies to make a difference in people’s lives.” 

Switow said there were concrete examples of the impact such events had. An example was the G8 summit in 2005. 

According to the BBC, the debt of the 18 poorest nations in Africa was cancelled by countries in the G8 summit, and they agreed to boost aid for developing countries by US$50billion.

“The debt write-offs freed resources that provided for free vaccination for children in Africa and aided in subsidies for education,” Switow added.