APRIL WRITE 2013 – Day 16 – WHILST THE RICH GET RICHER, THE POOR DIE

Welcome to Day 16 of the April Write 2013: a new era begins

Guest Host: Zita Holbourne  

Zita is a poet & spoken word artist, a visual artist, a community, trade union and human rights activist and a mother. Zita is an award winning poet and artist and has directed poetry performance for theatre, performed on radio and tv and facilitated poetry writing and performance workshops.

Zita is elected to the National Executive Committee of the Public and Commercial Services Union, the Trades Union Congress Race Relations Committee and the National Executive Council of Action for Southern Africa (successor organisation to the Anti Apartheid Movement). She is the co-founder and national co-chair of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) uk, a campaign group set up to respond to the disproportionate impact of cuts on black workers, service users and communities and deprived communities.

Zita is a writer and guest contributor to a number of publications and regularly contributes as a writer to the Voice Newspaper, a national newspaper for the black community in the UK. In 2012 Zita beat thousands to win the Positive Role Model for Race Award at the National Diversity Awards.

Zita works for equality, freedom, justice and democracy through her work as a poet, artist, writer and activist.

The theme for today is ‘Whilst the rich grow richer, the poor die’

Zita wrote this poem and made the video to support the campaign for justice by South African gold miners who are seeking compensation for silicosis, a lung disease caused by working in the mines. When they are too ill too work their entire families suffer. She was struck by the increasing number of pawn shops and cash for gold initiatives growing in the UK – gold so sought after by many, rich and poor is now being exchanged for cash by the poorest in the UK who are being driven into deeper poverty every day through the Con-Dem coalition’s austerity measures whilst the country is run by a government Cabinet of millionaires. Whilst companies profit from melting down the gold through the misfortune and poverty suffered in the West no thought is spared for the miners and their families dying of poverty to mine the gold.

Please click on the link or the image below to watch and listen to the video entitled

‘Blood Stained Gold’  http://youtu.be/CJ3okfAz4mA

You are free to interpret the theme any way you want to – it doesn’t have to be on the topic of South African miners or on deepening poverty in the UK but you may wish to explore the theme of rich and poor divide and the effects of poverty. ~ Marina