PORTSMOUTH shoppers will be given a chance to cast their votes early this Saturday (April 9) - four weeks ahead of the general election.

Bishop Kenneth wears the white wristband that is the symbol of the Make Poverty History campaign

Campaigners will set up the council’s voting booths and ballot boxes – ones that will be used for the election on May 5 - in Commercial Road from 10am. They will ask passers-by to vote in favour of world leaders tackling global poverty by changing the rules governing international trade. The ‘Vote for Trade Justice’ event will mark the start of a series of local events taking place as part of a Global Week of Action for trade justice.

The votes collected there will be among one million that campaigners aim to gather before presenting them to world leaders at the G8 summit hosted by Tony Blair at Gleneagles this July.

The Global Week (April 10-17) will be a truly global event, with millions of campaigners taking the initiative to raise awareness about trade justice in more than 80 countries. In Ghana, campaigners will send chickens to Parliament to protest at cheap food imports from the EU. And in Belgium, they will hold a funeral procession to show how free trade is killing livelihoods in developing countries.

On Monday (April 11), there will be a global fast, to show solidarity with the 850 million people worldwide who go to bed hungry each night. Church members are being encouraged to fast and pray together in their own congregations.

St Simon’s Church in Southsea will host a prayer event that evening from 7pm and 10pm. There will be prayer installations on the theme of trade justice and a worship activity on the hour, as well as the chance to vote for trade justice. Contact the church office on 023-9282 9440 for more details.

And the climax of the week in the UK will come next Friday (April 15) night in London. Thousands of campaigners will conduct an all-night vigil on the prime minister’s doorstep from 10pm on Friday to 8am the next morning. The programme of events for ‘Wake Up to Trade Justice’ includes a rally in Westminster Abbey featuring pop stars Ronan Keating and Beverley Knight, Casualty actor Kwame Kwei Armah and film star Pete Postlethwaite. Overnight, there will also be a free comedy event with Rob Newman and Marcus Brigstocke, and a club night at The Marquee featuring DJs Nitin Sawhney and Bobby Friction.

At 4am, there will be a spectacular protest as campaigners light up Whitehall with 10,000 candles. There will be time to eat breakfast and make banners before a procession past Downing Street at 7am. Our Christian Aid regional office is organising transport to London. Contact Amy Allen on 023-8022 0819 for more details.

Campaigners on the Isle of Wight hope to organise their own vigil outside St Thomas’s Church in Newport on the same night. The idea is to create a 140-metre Make Poverty History banner to go around the church, and for activists to spend the night in St Thomas’s Square. Contact Christian Aid co-ordinator Jim Curtis on 01983- 526574 for details.

There will also be an all-night vigil at Portsmouth’s RC Cathedral from 7pm on April 15 to 7am on April 16. Contact Joe McGannan on 023-9269 2080 for details.

The idea of a Global Week of Action came when trade activists from across the world met at an international conference in 2003. They wanted to challenge the myth that free trade was the answer to world poverty by organising the biggest global mobilisation on trade justice the world had seen.

The Global Week is the first nationwide event of the Make Poverty History campaign, the year-long focus on poverty during 2005. It has brought together the Trade Justice Movement, Band Aid 20, Comic Relief, the Church of England and a host of other agencies and organisations. They want the UK government to use its influence to tackle poverty in the year when it will host the G8 summit in July and preside over the EU between July and December.

It was launched with a special episode of The Vicar of Dibley on New Year’s Day and was backed by Nelson Mandela in a rally in Trafalgar Square. Campaigners have been wearing white wristbands to highlight their support.

The aims of the Make Poverty History campaign - which include more and better international aid and the cancelling of unpayable debt, as well as trade justice - were supported by Tony Blair’s Africa Commission, which reported last month. In July, campaigners will be urged to go to Edinburgh to make their voices heard ahead of the G8 summit hosted by Mr Blair in Gleneagles.

Bishop Kenneth said: “I’m excited that this year could be a watershed moment in the battle to eradicate world poverty. I hope we will all be getting involved in these campaigns in whatever way we can.”