Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Thousands of Indonesians gathered here Sunday to join a worldwide campaign against poverty meant to remind world leaders of their promises to achieve the 2000 Millennium Development Goals.
The 24-hour-long "STAND UP Campaign: STAND UP Against Poverty, STAND UP for Millennium Development Goals", sought to be registered in the World Guinness Book of Records for the most people standing for the same cause in different locations within 24 hours.
It coincided with the Global Call for Action Against Poverty's month of mobilizations for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which falls on Tuesday.
The STAND UP campaign was held in cities across the world, including New York, London, New Delhi, Johannesburg and Manila. Details of the campaign are available at standupagainstpoverty.org.
In Indonesia, a series of activities were held in Jakarta, Bandung in West Java, Yogyakarta, Banda Aceh in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Medan in North Sumatra, Jayapura in Papua, Bali, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, Semarang in Central Java, Surabaya in East Java and Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan.
Kicking off at 5 p.m. Jakarta time, the activities included music concerts, poetry and prose readings, as well as several art performances.
In Jakarta, the main venue was the National Monument park in Central Jakarta, where an estimated 4,000 people turned up to watch musical performances.
Other venues were the Istiqlal and Al-Azhar mosques and the Martin Luther church, where religious services and sermons were held.
Campaigners counted down from 10 before standing up as a group and being counted. Jakarta's events will end Monday with a ceremony at the United Nations main offices on Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta and will feature and exhibition of UN publications and projects.
Erna Witoelar, the UN Special Ambassador for Millennium Development Goals in the Asia Pacific, received Sunday an official statement from the Indonesian Record Museum that the campaign was the first such gathering to be held in Indonesia.
Erna said the campaign was meant to remind Indonesian leaders that country had signed the Millennium Development Goals declaration and to urge it be more innovative in eradicating poverty.
The Central Statistics Agency reported last month that nearly 40 million Indonesians are extremely poor, up from 35 million last year.
The rise in the poverty rate was blamed on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration's failure to control the prices of basic food stuffs and the impacts of the two oil price hikes in 2005.
Under the Millennium Development Goals declaration, 189 state signatories agreed to meet eight targets related to creating sustainable development by the year 2015, including halving extreme poverty, curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education.
Other targets include ensuring basic health services, environmentally-conscious development and halving the child mortality rate.