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ERG/AOP Donate £2000 To Generous Hearts Charity

21 June 2022
ERG/AOP Donate £2000 To Generous Hearts Charity
The ERG/AOP has donated £2000 to the Generous Hearts Charity as part of their #PROUDTOSTANDUPFORTHEPOOR initiative. 
 
A statement from AOP/ERG follows below:
 
Poverty isn’t going away just because government decides any given year to celebrate Pride.
 
GGR/ERG fought for all the rights that those celebrating Pride this week will enjoy. Our years-long campaigns made it eventually possible for the politicians. They’re here because we were there twenty-two years ago. We’re under no illusions, whatsoever, however. We know what it takes to do justice across the whole community, not just for limited sectors. That’s what makes us a broad human and civil rights organisation.

Meantime, in the past three years, and against all the hard evidence, the Administration has acted as if real hardship and poverty in Gibraltar were an invention of AOP. Now Mr. Picardo has an opportunity to demonstrate his real level of concern for the vulnerable and economically marginalised in this community: the Budget he’s about to soon announce will tell us whether he’s capable of addressing a deep problem which is already an issue for and in Gibraltar, or whether he’ll offer more patches on the way to the next elections. And, what’s worse with a background of all economic forecasts internationally indicating poverty will become more and more complicated. Mr. Picardo can nip it in the bud if he wants to. But does he?

Because now the administration will also need to start facing the hardship and poverty of the in-work-poor as salaries and wages are unable to match the cost of living crisis. The unions will not remain indifferent even if the Administration does.

 
That’s why it’s crucial the Picardo administration gets a grip on this question in our community now, not later. We can build all the fancy buildings we like, but if they’re standing on top of endemic and increasingly wobbly foundations, we’re growing a real problem. A problem that other administrations and generations will inherit.
 
In that respect, we have yet to hear the voices of the other two parliamentary groups: the GSD, whose loud muteness on the subject resounds after what we acknowledged to be some clear Manifesto commitments at the last elections. But nothing since. And of course the absence of Together Gibraltar, which with the exception of some fuzzy and evasive words, has never made any clear commitment whatsoever to reform in the fight to address poverty and hardship in our community. We intend to monitor both Parties very closely.

Pride arose in the early 1970s from the spontaneous concerns of a wide spectrum of individuals yearning for justice. They followed no fixed or ordained patterns but responded in their actions to their needs.

This week, ERG/AOP are proud to mark Pride by contributing directly to the work of two excellent humanitarian organisations out of many that labour, day in and day out, and year long in favour of the economically and socially vulnerable in our society. And we wish all those respectful towards the rights of people, and in particular, of marginalised individuals of all categories, a happy Pride as we recall the struggles that have led us here.

So, in line with our demands for the vulnerable, the elderly and those in hardship to be justly treated, our first donation of £2,000 was presented by committee members to the ‘Generous Hearts’ Charity as part of ERG/AOP's #PROUDTOSTANDUPFORTHEPOOR initiative. 

Generous Hearts’ does amazing, on-going work keeping afloat families and singles experiencing all-too-real poverty. Their work is 100% altruistic. They are also hard at work cooking meals to feed people every day. They themselves are in need of storage premises. If anyone can help they'd be grateful.

'These wonderful people do tireless work. Without them and others like them Gibraltar’s neglected and invisible poor (whose very existence some shamelessly deny) would be lost.

In closing, the NGO called on ‘people of conscience’ to also celebrate in the real spirit of Pride by donating directly to 'Generous Hearts' which can be found on Facebook.

 

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