BMJ  2005;331 (2 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7507.0-g

Editor's choice

Find your voice and use it

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

An African child pulls herself slowly to her feet. With blank face and infinite care born of exhaustion, she unwraps one swollen leg and then the other from among the rags she is lying in and pushes herself up. She sways under the weight of her distended belly. It's not clear where she is going or why, but the world watches, stunned for a moment into a silence of grief and guilt. And then the tears flow, and the money.

That was Live Aid 1985, the video that shocked millions out of their musical "feel good" and into opening their purses. Twenty years on, what has changed? Africa's children are still starving and dying in their millions, two thirds of them from preventable disease, but it's no longer about charity—it's about politics. Money is still urgently needed in the form of aid and debt relief, but more importantly we need . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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