By Amanda Giglio
Over 25 million people in poor, developing countries are without access to toilets. About 58 million children around the world still do not have access to sound education, while about the same number do not have access to proper vaccinations for life-threatening diseases. These facts, plus many more, were shared with me and 60 thousand other people this past Saturday at the third annual Global Citizen’s Festival, a free concert to end extreme poverty.
Global Citizen is an organization that works to inform people about the 1.2 billion people deprived of basic rights and opportunities. A Global Citizen is anyone willing to stand against the great injustices of the world, especially extreme poverty, and this festival brings together tens of thousands of Global Citizens to fight for an end to extreme poverty. To earn tickets to this event, you had to take action to becoming a Global Citizen. The ticket process included reading articles and answering question about food and hunger, education, women’s rights, water and sanitation, health, sustainability and innovation.
By becoming informed, you are then able to take action through social media by posting one of the resources to Facebook or Twitter in order to spread the word about extreme poverty. Your name is then entered into a raffle based on how many points you earn through your actions. Following these simple steps, everyone who participated officially became a Global Citizen.
Now, the festival itself was a whole other experience. Even though I waited in lines that seemed never-ending, when I finally rounded the corner and saw the giant red circle stage, I immediately got excited. Celebrity guest stars, including Olivia Wilde, Diana Agron, Jessica Alba and Hugh Jackman, came on stage and spoke about their fight to end poverty and how we, too, could help.
Political leaders from all over the world came and gave speeches about what their countries are doing to contribute to the cause. Denmark increased its annual contribution to the Global Partnership for Education to $70 million per year. Norway’s Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, committed to give Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, $215 million.
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, announced an additional commitment of 500,000 euro to the Global Fund for 2014. Organizations such as the H&M Conscious Foundation, Sesame Street and the World Bank Group all donated huge sums of money to help with sanitation and water development in countries without clean water and sanitation systems. Being a part of this wonderful community of people dedicated to serving the poor of the world was a great experience that made it easier to see how I can help in the future.
As an added bonus to the fundraising, there were amazing performances from some of today’s hottest musicians. Headliners included Tiesto, fun., The Roots, Carrie Underwood, No Doubt and JayZ. There was also a special performance by Alicia Keys and several international singers.
Gwen Stefani and No Doubt killed it on stage with crowd favorites like “Don’t Speak” and “Hey Baby.” A surprise appearance by Sting set the crowd in a frenzy as he sang “Message in a Bottle” with No Doubt. The crowd was on its feet during Jay-Z’s performance, throwing their diamonds in the air and rapping along with him. But the biggest shock was what came next… Beyonce! JayZ brought her out on stage as she sang the refrains to “Holy Grail” and “Young Forever.”
All in all, the concert experience was unforgettable making the Global Citizen’s Festival fantastic. Everyone who attended was connected by the same energy and dedication to ending extreme poverty in the world by 2030.
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Amanda Giglio is the Assistant Culture Editor for The Fordham Ram.
