Live Aid
Live Aid: Key Stage 4 lesson plans (PDF, 89kb)
- 'Live Aid' OHT (PDF, 46kb)
This topic can be linked with the recent Live8 concerts, making comparisons both in what the technology makes possible and the issues around which it has arisen. How much have things changed since 1985?
The Live Aid DVD, which contains all material needed for this unit, is widely available. Money raised from the sale of this DVD goes towards the work of the Band Aid Trust in Africa.
The DVD contains:
- The whole concert;
- Michael Buerk's BBC TV news report;
- The videos of Band Aid and USA for Africa;
- The documentary Food and Trucks and Rock and Roll
- Plus other extras.
Some of the information below has been taken from the insert of the DVD, more information is available from the Live Aid website.
In 1984, news reporter Michael Buerk reported on a famine in Sudan, which was shown on the six o'clock news. He reported from a relief camp in Koran where thousands were starving to death including seven thousand babies. One in three children were extremely malnourished and a child or adult died every twenty minutes. In sub-Saharan Africa, 30 million people were suffering from famine.
The reaction to this news report was enormous, with the Red Cross, Christian Aid, Save the Children and Oxfam immediately sending aid, but it was unlikely to be enough. One person that saw that report and was profoundly affected by it, was Bob Geldof, insert image - Bob Geldof - Live Aid - see email singer in the punk band, The Boomtown Rats. With Midge Ure, lead singer of then top band, Ultravox, he pulled together a large group of pop musicians and singers to release a Christmas single, Feed the World, to raise money. The pop stars all gave their time voluntarily to perform on the record.
It went straight in at number 1 in the charts and was a hit in twelve other countries. On the day of its release it was played on all radio channels at once. Over £8 million pounds was raised vastly exceeding the expected amount of £75,000. Shops that didn't normally sell records, even butchers, stocked it, and there were stories of people buying 50 copies and giving 49 back. This single was matched in America with 'We are the World' which sold eight million copies.
Performers Freddie Mercury and David Bowie with other musicians
Geldof and his supporters raised so much money that a trust was formed to manage it all, The Band Aid Trust. The trustees gave their time voluntarily. Aid agencies could send shopping lists of things that they needed to the Trust. A ship was purchased to carry cargo to Africa, which other organisations could use free of charge. Before then a significant amount of their money had been used to pay inflated prices for the shipping of cargo.
In May 1985 there was another big famine in the Sudan, because food could not get in by rail as railway lines had been washed away by floods. To make matters worse, a transport cartel in the Sudan stopped food from getting through to the people who were starving. Band Aid bought trucks to reduce the cost of transporting food and enable aid agencies to move more freely around in the country.
In Ethiopia people were also not getting food. There was enough food in the country but agencies could not get it to the people because of problems crossing the Sudan border. The US and Sudan had 'ideological differences' and the US made transportation difficult. However, Band Aid arranged with US agencies to allow a 300-truck fleet to travel to Tigre and Eritrea under the UN flag.
Live Aid - July 13, 1985
Prince Charles and Princess Diana attend Live Aid
After the success of the Band Aid single, Bob Geldof organised the biggest ever concert and charity event. It was the first all-day live multi-artist concert broadcast to the world and 1.5 billion people watched it. At 12 noon in London on July 13 th 1985 (Wembley Stadium) Live Aid began with the Coldstream Guards playing 'God Save the Queen' followed by Status Quo playing 'Rocking All Over the World'. The event was given Royal approval by the attendance of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Crowds pack into Wembley Stadium for the Live Aid concert
In 1985 there were no mobile phones or Internet, and relatively few computers or fax machines. The standard form of written international communication was the telex. Despite this, the simultaneous concerts on two continents were co-ordinated. Some commentators have suggested it was the 'first inkling that we now live in a globalised world'. In a recent poll, Live Aid was named as the single most important public event in the lives of two generations. The concert raised $80 million, the most that had ever been collected for charity by one event.
(All quotes are from Feed the World DVD Insert or documentary Food and Trucks and Rock and Roll.)
Background to the problem
In the 1970s, African countries were encouraged to borrow huge amounts of money and to replace food crops with cash crops, such as cotton. This meant they have to rely more on imported food, and are more vulnerable to the possibility of market instability. For example, when the cotton market suddenly fell in value by 50% in the 1970s, countries growing cotton started to accrue massive debt and had to pay rising interest payments. One country had its interest payments increase from $5 billion to $19 billion. Effectively, every person in the Sudan owes $545 and in Ethiopia every person owes $62 to Western banks. For every $1 sent in aid, $10 is expected back in debt repayment.
This situation led to the first major famine in 1973, another in 1980 and the one that led to the Buerk report in 1984. Some African countries have become dependent on food aid, and the Band Aid Trust, along with other agencies, are seeking long-term solutions for this problem. The preferred solution is for people to grow their own food. Between 1985 and November 2004, the Band Aid Trust and Live Aid Foundation have spent over $144 million on supporting local projects such as irrigation and planting etc in Sudan, Niger, Mali, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Chad and Burkina Faso.
For example, in 1985 at the Famine Relief Camp Mekele, Ethiopia, people returned to their villages with seeds and tools to grow their own food. Each family was given:
- a bar of soap
- a blanket
- 9lb of dried milk
- a gallon of cooking oil
- a hoe or pickaxe
- a sheet of plastic
- 66lb of seed
- 100lb of grain
- a packet of biscuits
- cooking utensils
- a ration card for future aid.
During this period most governments ignored the suffering. For example, in 1985, the EEC (the European Economic Community) spent £265 million destroying two million tons of vegetables and fruit, while millions were starving in Africa.
Twenty years later, at the end of 2004, top pop stars got together once again to produce a new version of Feed the World and Bob Geldof announced Live8 - simultaneous concerts in four European cities and in Philadelphia in the US, which took place in the summer of 2005.
Further information on third world debt and poverty can be found on the following websites:
