18th February 2015
The purpose of the event was to celebrate the relaunch of WDM as Global Justice Now, a name which has been chosen to reflect more accurately the aims and activities of the organisation. In particular it was felt important to move away from the word development which has been taken over by coal companies, banks and others. Some people even thought the World Development Movement was part of the World Bank.
In 1978 David Everett, Frankie Fischer, Ken Harris, Tim Bartlett and others founded the Milton Keynes local group of the World Development Movement. In 2011 Tim and Pauline Welch reformed the group. It is important to maintain a network of local groups. The organisation is run on democratic lines and these local groups feed opinions and vote at national level. An important and effective form of activism is lobbying through response cards and on-line petitions.
The relaunch is about more than a change of name. WDM was always an active organisation and Global Justice Now is increasing the campaigns and lobbying techniques. The amount of research done by the team in London is enormous and the information is used to support the campaigns. Nick Dearden who has been the Director for about 18 months is amazingly energetic and knowledgeable. Thanks to some recent legacies the organisation is relatively strong financially.
As part of our relaunch event in Milton Keynes we looked at short films made by the national organisation including ‘Banking while Borneo Burns.’ Search for Global Justice Now on YouTube to see all of these. I particularly like the one about Santa shutting down a branch of HSBC.
Alan Mawer
