Pre-Show: Boston, MA
23 August 2005
Oxfam America staffer Najat El Sayed is traveling with Make Trade Fair campaign volunteers on Coldplay's "Twisted Logic" concert tour.
August 2005 -- I have been in Boston for a week. Time has ticked by quickly since I packed my large Oxfam-green suitcase and wished my family in Texas good-bye.
When people hear about my assignment, their faces light up, and they smile from ear-to-ear, asking me, "Will you be touring with Coldplay?" The answer is yes and no. Yes, I will be touring with the band's crew, which I am told numbers 50 people plus. But on the bus with the actual band? Not likely.
Coldplay has supported the Make Trade Fair campaign as long as I can remember. I have seen first-hand the positive effects of those white t-shirts with green and red equal signs.
"Chris Martin got me researching about fair trade," says an Oxfam America student activist I encountered. "It was something that hit home, and now I am organizing at my campus, at church, everywhere I can."
This story has been echoed to me numerous times by so many others. I take notes of every account and think how amazing, exciting, and inspiring! I am thrilled to be a part of this team of volunteers.
Coming Together
Voices of all ages, genders, nationalities, and religions are joining together to seal the envelope closed on poverty. All the pieces are coming together; the team has spent most of the weekend and weeknights planning and organizing last minute items to make sure this tour will deliver that knock-out punch: Coldplay personally delivering 10 million signatures from the US tour to the WTO.
We will be that change. We will go above and beyond our goals. To date, 7.7 million people have joined the Big Noise, calling for an end to poverty by making trade fair. International trade has the potential to lift millions of hardworking people out of poverty, but the rules are rigged against the poor. It is truly an honor to be a part of this historical change.
I sit here late at night in my bed, and a storm is brewing outside. Lightning is turning night into day followed by thunder so loud, it shakes the room.
I sit and think of the world around us and the lives we all live--how much we can do with out hands, our voices, our hearts--and I am assured that we will be that hope and change we wish to see in the world.
I am equally excited to keep you posted on how many people sign onto the Big Noise through the tour. Wait--have you joined the Big Noise?
