UOW Oxfam Club to host 'Pork Against Want'

Sep 13, 2004

Give to the Pig.

That's the concept for the upcoming University of Wollongong Oxfam Community Aid Abroad Club's annual fundraiser event, taking place this Wednesday (September 15) from 12.30 - 1.30pm on the Duckpond Lawn at UOW.

The event will involve bringing a pig onto campus and asking people to donate money for photos, badges, shirts and notepads, all centered on the 'pig' theme.

While the theme of the event is fun, spirited and humorous, the event is for a serious charitable cause - 'Pork Against Want'.

As the website suggests, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is the Australian affiliate of Oxfam International: group of organisations around the world that work together to reduce poverty and injustice by supporting international self-help development projects, aiding in emergency situations, and campaigning for a more just world.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad's vision is of a fair world in which people control their own lives, their basic rights are achieved and the environment is sustained. Oxfam aims to increase the number of people who have a sustainable livelihood, access to social services, an effective voice in decisions, safety from conflict and disaster, and equal rights and status.

The UOW Oxfam Community Aid Abroad Club was formed to raise funds and local awareness about this vision and about the problems that Oxfam address worldwide.

Club secretaries, Danielle and Nicole Berger, want people to be motivated and excited about parting with their cash, and think the 'Give to the Pig' theme will do just that. They say that the aim of the day is to make people laugh; to get into people's hip pockets via their funny bone.

So, why the pig?

"To us, a pig is something funny, cute, loveable.a bit of a novelty. But to someone in a developing nation, a pig means an income and a source of food. Two hundred dollars can train a whole village in Laos to pig farm. I think we can raise enough to teach many villages," said Nicole.

For further information: contact Club President Meagan Palmer on 4227 3368 or 0418 242 056

Visit the website: UOW Oxfam Club

-RP

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128