Candle Day is here (less than a month away)!

There are heaps of ways to get involved: run a stall, join with your friends to have a pizza night, organise a morning tea at your workplace, or if you have an idea simply fill out the registration form below and we will send you everything you need!

Candle Day 2010

Friday 7 May and the weekend following (8/9)

Candle Day is one of the largest fundraising and awareness raising events on the Amnesty International Australia Victoria calendar. Originating in the early 1990’s, it has evolved from individual street appeals to an activity that groups, schools, churches and workplaces can also get involved in.

Held on May 7 and the following weekend, the 8 and 9 May, Candle Day will see hundreds of supporters becoming involved in raising awareness of both the work of Amnesty International and the Demand Dignity campaign. Through the distribution of material, volunteers will assist in providing information to the general public about the work of Amnesty in defending human rights, and seek voluntary donations to ensure the continued support of AIA’s work.

The Demand Dignity campaign

Each year Candle Day focuses on a particular campaign. Previous years have focused on the Stop Violence Against Women Campaign, and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Candle Day 2010 will focus on Amnesty International’s Demand Dignity campaign.

Amnesty International is firm in its belief that poverty is a violation of human rights. The Demand Dignity campaign aims to hold leaders in Australia and overseas accountable for human rights violations that drive and deepen extreme poverty, while striving to defend every individual’s right to live with dignity.

The campaign emphasises that every person has a basic right to an adequate standard of living – the right to food, water housing, health and education, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Poverty is not only a lack of income, but encompasses a combination of deprivation, insecurity, exclusion and powerlessness. To break the cycle of extreme poverty, Amnesty International seeks to address the human rights violations that enable it.

Extreme poverty is not only an international concern; it is an issue that is present in Australia. As is true for indigenous populations worldwide, Australia’s own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are being denied the rights to, among many things, access the highest attainable standard of health, adequate housing and freedom from discrimination.

This year Candle Day hopes to bring light to the poverty experienced by so many.

‘Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.’ - Nelson Mandela

Get involved

If you would like to be involved please fill in this registration form (pdf 96kb) Also see the various volunteer positions that are currently available at: http://www.amnesty.org.au/vic/volunteer/

Thank you and hope to hear from you soon!