Edinburgh student charities join forces

A number of Edinburgh student charities have come together this week to create the ‘Edinburgh Campaigns Group’ in a bid to consolidate efforts and share tactics.

The group currently consists of Water Aid, Stop AIDS, Medsin, STAR, Skip, University of Edinburgh Amnesty International, People and Planet, and READ International.

One of the group’s organisers, Maxine Carr of Water Aid, told The Journal: “This is a crucial way of coming together and sharing resources.”

Currently, their main project is supporting the 'Robin Hood Tax' campaign, a movement which brings together diverse groups including UK organisations, green groups, faith groups and international development agencies.

The group hopes to help put pressure on governments to institute a 0.05 percent tax on global financial transactions, which could raise approximately $400 billion a year globally.

The global campaign plans to split the money in three, with 50 percent of the money going to domestic issues, 25 percent towards funding the fight against climate change, and 25 percent towards the Millennium Development Goals.

Supporters say that the tax will be invaluable in the fight against poverty, climate change, and in the safeguarding of public service.

The campaign has gained high profile support from actor Bill Nighy and film maker Richard Curtis, amongst others.

Maxine Carr said: “We’re going to try and promote the Robin Hood Tax as a group, and we’re also hoping to do something for the elections as well, including the Edinburgh University Students' Association elections in March, and also try and get some MPs down to see if we can get them on board.

“We all have a lot of separate campaigns going on alongside our group work; Water Aid are running ‘Tap Into Water Aid’ - if someone asks for tap water in a café they have the option to donate a small sum of money to Water Aid.

“Stop AIDS are doing education programs in schools which will help them break out of the student bracket and have a wider impact.

“Between all of us we have a great number of members, and hopefully we can be quite powerful.”