Will you be a #66Cities champion?

It’s been four weeks since the launch of our #66Cities campaign and, with what felt like quite a tough first round, we seem to be making waves and collecting some city champions along the way.

We’ve been training our champions quite rigorously over the last month.

They’ve been writing blogs, emailing their MPs and signing petitions (over 6,000 actions so far!) – even braving the winter weather to take part in our #66Cities photo stunt.

What is #66Cities?

This year, food prices alone may have put the lives of up to 400, 000 children around the world at risk.

Campaigners throughout the UK have been representing their cities, calling on the UK government to take a leadership role and sign the Charter to End Extreme Hunger.

We’ve already had responses from the government because of our campaigners contacting their MPs and really driving the campaign forward.

Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development recently announced that the government ‘fully support’ the Charter and Madeleine Moon MP for Bridgend tabled a question in parliament receiving another nod from Mitchell stating “I will take appropriate opportunities to express publicly my support for the charter’s aims.”

This is great but we want more!

Great, but not good enough

The Charter to End Extreme Hunger is about ensuring preventative measures are put in place to avoid a crisis like East Africa happening again.

Whether you live in, or near a city, you can get involved in #66Cities and help make this a reality.

We’ve got campaigners signed up from over half the cities in the UK (there are 66 in total). But we need some more champions for following cities:

• England: Chichester, Manchester, Exeter, Bradford, Hereford, Kingston Upon Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Litchfield, Lincoln, Peterborough, Plymouth, Preston, Ripon, Salford, Salisbury, Stoke-on-Trent, Truro, Wolverhampton, Worcester, York
• Wales: Bangor
• Scotland: Dundee, Inverness, Stirling
• Northern Ireland: Armagh, Belfast, Lisburn, Londonderry, Newry

Inspiring champions

St Albans’ #66Cities champion signed up last week and has already managed to get her blog posted on the Huffington Post website and has since written to her MP to request a meeting.

Canterbury #66Cities Champion has this to say about the crisis calling on others to get involved.

Oxford #66Cities Champion has sent a call out to all mummy bloggers to get involved and even tasked bloggers with some actions of her own.

How to sign up to be a champion?

1. Sign up here to be a #66Cities champion

2. If you have:

1 minute: Tweet or use your facebook status to share the Charter to End Extreme Hunger with your friends. Use the hashtag #66cities and this link to our petition bit.ly/savehungerwb

2 minutes: If you haven’t already, sign our petition asking David Cameron to sign the Charter now.

5 minutes: Write a blog post, a facebook post or an email to your friends about our campaign to End Extreme Hunger and ask them to sign the petition.

Help us ensure that a crisis like East Africa never happens again.

Keep up to date

Follow us on hashtag #66Cities @savechildrenuk and our news feed @savechildrenpr which features news and updates from our staff on the ground around the world.

Get in touch with r.phillips@savethechildren.org.uk if you have any questions.