National Tour Highlights Global Goals

National Tour Highlights Global Goals

Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Senator Jan McLucas, will launch the travelling exhibition Blueprint for a Better World: the Millennium Development Goals and You in Townsville today, as part of a national tour.

Senator McLucas said the exhibition highlighted the important collaboration between the Australian Government and NGOs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Australian Government did not believe it was acceptable that at least 640 million people in Asia and the Pacific lived on less than $1 a day and nearly two billion on $2 a day, Senator McLucas said.

"It's not in anyone's interest for this level of poverty to continue," she said. "This exhibition will raise awareness of the need to immediately reduce poverty globally and provide tangible options for how individuals and communities can take action."

AusAID, the Australian Government Agency for International Development and Caritas Australia have partnered to tour the Blueprint for a Better World: the Millennium Development Goals and You exhibition to 35 regions Australia-wide over the next 18 months.

The exhibition includes a number of creative and technological displays and objects with an interactive component as well as a series of photographs.

School children nationally will be encouraged to visit the exhibition and learn about the Millennium Development Goals and how they can take action.

"Many Australians may reduce extra-curricular activities during the global financial crisis," Senator McLucas said. "But for those who live in extreme poverty, it means living a precarious sort of life indeed."

Senator McLucas thanked the volunteers who contributed to the tours stop in Townsville, at the Riverway Arts Centre, in Thuringowa.

Blueprint for a Better World: the Millennium Development Goals and You will travel to Cairns, Rockhampton, Mackay and Toowoomba before touring Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and finally, the Australian Capital Territory.

For more information visit www.blueprintforabetterworld.org or www.ausaid.gov.au

Media contact:
Derek Tipper
0434 663 757

SOURCE: AusAID