Millions of Christians promise to pray and act to end poverty

Over 100 million Christians are expected to take part in a day of prayer and action on behalf of the world’s poor today.

As part of Micah Challenge’s 10.10.10 day, Christians are being invited to make a promise to live in a way that remembers the world’s poor.

Some of the promises made by Christians so far include wasting less, shopping ethically, campaigning, giving more time and money, praying and reducing carbon footprints.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, promised to make a difference to the lives of poor people by setting up his new charity ACTS435, which will provide practical help.

10.10.10 will also see Christians hand over an estimated 10 million handprints to politicians to remind them that there are only five years remaining to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals they signed up to in 2000.

The MDGs are a set of eight goals to tackle the world's most urgent development needs, including women and children’s health, universal education, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Although some progress has been made, development agencies warn that governments must step up their commitment if the goals are to be met by the 2015 deadline.

Last month’s UN Summit on the MDGs ended with renewed commitments from governments but no clear strategy as to how they will be achieved.

Micah Challenge’s Felicity Cowley said poverty would not be eradicated unless the world moved beyond “selfish ambition”.

“We need our world leaders to do a lot more if they are to keep their promise to halve global poverty by 2015,” she said.

Cowley encouraged people to do what they could to help end global poverty.

She said: "If we, for a moment, allow ourselves to believe that change is possible, we might find that we also have the opportunity to become agents for that change ourselves."