Author: Rosanne White

People on the street stopped and stared as Robin Hood and his band of merry (wo)men rode into the Dorset town of Dorchester last week.

Their plan? To spread the word about the Robin Hood Tax across the town and to encourage local people to record a message to Oliver Letwin MP, asking him to support the campaign. Following the great success of the video message to David Cameron made by his constituents in Witney last month, Robin and his gang set about their task with enthusiasm, collars turned up and hats pulled down against the freezing Dorset wind.

While some people stared in shock at the sight of a group of adults dancing about in the cold wearing neon masks and waving leaflets and others hurried on by, many people stopped to find out more about the campaign and to make their contribution to the video message.

In the current climate, the word ‘tax’ can generate a range of different, and quite often aggressive, reactions. But once people realised that the proposed tax is tiny, won’t affect the consumer and can generate a huge amount to fight global poverty, they were surprised, pleased and ready to go and shout about it to everyone else they know.

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is gaining momentum across the South West and throughout the UK. 70,146 people have voted in favour of the Robin Hood Tax on the website while journalist Polly Toynbee and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, are the latest public figures to come out in support of the campaign.

But Robin Hood still needs you! To show your support for the campaign, vote ‘yes’ on the Robin Hood Tax website, spread the word on Twitter and Facebook and tell everyone you know! If you fancy dressing up as Robin Hood and organising a flashmob, visiting your MP or writing a letter to your local paper, let us know as we love to hear about your campaigning exploits!

Watch the Dorchester video message to Oliver Letwin

Robin Hood-getting ready for action!

here.

Email Fiona Remnant: [email protected] for any support and advice on how to get your campaigning message out there!

Oxfam volunteer campaigner Rosanne White explains how Oxfam supporters – online and off – are getting behind a great campaign to turn a tiny tax into a huge help for the world’s poorest people.

Robin Hood and his ever-increasing band of merry (wo)men are celebrating victories both in Parliament and online this week.

Robin on his way to parliament. Credit: Oxfam

Since the campaign launched on 10th February, a phenomenal 120,000 people have become fans on Facebook with more than 3000 joining every day. That’s nearly four times as many fans as the three main political parties put together! 61,000 people have voted in favour of the Robin Hood Tax on the website while ‘The Banker’, a film starring Bill Nighy and written by Richard Curtis, has been viewed 330,000 times on Youtube and will be appearing soon at a cinema near you…

And that’s not all. An outstanding 80 MPs attended the official launch of the campaign in Westminster yesterday, thanks in no small part to the two thousand supporters who emailed their local MPs or shot virtual arrows at them on Twitter. Thanks to all of you who did!

All parties were represented across the board, indicating that there is widespread political support for the campaign. So now we need to keep up the pressure to turn what has been described as an ‘unprecedented’ turnout of MPs at the launch into real action. Find out more about what happened when Robin Hood went to parliament.

So, as more and more people don feathered caps and green tights in support of Robin Hood and his world-changing tax, why is this campaign so important and how can you get involved?

Basically, it’s a simple way to raise huge amounts of money to fight poverty, here in the UK and in developing countries too. We could end the UK benefits poverty trap and get every child in the world in school, among other good things! Get more detail on the big idea behind it.

Robin Hood needs YOU to join his merry band! To find out how you could get involved, check out the, quite frankly, brilliant ideas about taking action from the merry folk on Facebook. We need to keep up those ‘Yes’ votes so make sure you vote at www.robinhoodtax.org.uk.

Spread the word via Twitter, doing your own blog or simply by just telling everyone you know!

More information about the Robin Hood Tax

more from the Oxfam South West blog.

Most people just looked at me oddly when I asked them if they wanted to come to an afternoon tea party and listen to a human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize nominee talking about her work empowering women in Pakistan. I guess at first sight, the two don’t obviously seem to go together…

But go together they did, as Oxfam South West and the UK Friends of Khwendo Kor (FROK) organised a tea party on Saturday in honour of Maryam Bibi, the founder of Khwendo Kor (‘Sisters’ Home’ in Pashto), a woman’s charity in the tribal areas of Pakistan supported by Oxfam GB and Oxfam Novib. The agency aims to empower women through education, access to better healthcare and by helping them set up small businesses. This work is challenging and can be dangerous, plagued with kidnappings and violence enacted by groups of extremists who oppose women’s rights.

Maryam’s talk was moving and inspirational, really captivating her audience, many of whom were not familiar with the issues. Working across rural areas of Waziristan, Khwendo Kor’s work with women benefits not only them but the whole family; children have improved health and education levels and the family’s income is increased. Maryam spoke of the difficulty of working to increase women’s role in the family as it goes against cultural tradition in many villages – she is often pitted against very resistant husbands. However, once the benefits percolate down to the whole family the husbands can sometimes be convinced it’s a good thing!

Globally over 72 million children still don’t attend school and every day 1,400 women die needlessly in pregnancy and childbirth. Today it has been announced that aid targets set five years ago at Gleneagles won’t be met, which is, quite frankly, scandalous. The missing money could ensure that every child in the world could get an education. Every child, not just the lucky few. Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we take Maryam Bibi’s lead and take a stand on health and education for all by making sure our leaders keep the promises they made five years ago.

Which is where you come in. Whether it’s a fun promise to cook your friends a slap-up meal or a more serious pledge to cut your carbon emissions or lobby your local MP about health and education for all, log on to Oxfam’s Big Promise and show world leaders how it’s done.

Maryam has shown what one woman can do. Imagine what we can achieve if we put our minds (and our promises!) to it…