He's on a mission to eradicate extreme global poverty. And he's doing it by hosting one of the biggest music festivals on earth.
Meet Global Citizen Festival's founder, Hugh Evans.
Meet Global Citizen Festival's founder, Hugh Evans.
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00:00If you want to see an end to extreme poverty by 2030,
00:03join with me in making the global citizen zero together.
00:09We need all of your voice.
00:13Thank you guys, our Global Citizen Foundation.
00:21Global Citizen is about people who identify with the world as their country
00:26as much as their own individual country.
00:30Global Citizen is about people who identify with the world as their country
00:34as much as their own individual country.
00:44And there was one night in the Philippines that changed my life forever,
00:47where we were taken to a slum in the center of Manila called Smoky Mountain.
00:51It's a community built on top of a rubbish dump
00:53where the whole infrastructure revolves around scavenging.
00:57And so the children run after the garbage trucks
00:59and they try to get bits of scrap metal,
01:01a piece of food and things that they can recycle.
01:04And that night I was placed in the care of a kid my own age named Sunny Boy.
01:08And when it came time to go to sleep,
01:10we lay down on this concrete slab the size of half my bedroom
01:13with myself and Sunny Boy and the rest of his family,
01:16seven of us in this line.
01:19And I'll never forget that night because I didn't sleep at all,
01:22I just lay awake thinking to myself,
01:25it really is pure chance that I was born where I was born
01:28and he was born there.
01:42There was this tipping point moment.
01:45Oak Tree was already a few years old and I think I was 21 at the time.
01:52And the G20 world leaders were coming through my hometown of Melbourne.
01:56And me and my mate Dan, we had this idea to run this small concert
02:00called the Make Poverty History Concert
02:02because we were inspired by what Bono and Bob Geldof had done before us.
02:06And we thought it was going to be a really small concert
02:09on the eve of the G20.
02:11But one day it suddenly took off when I got a phone call from Bono
02:14and he said in his thick Irish accent,
02:16hey boys, I'm coming to Melbourne and I'd like to perform at your concert
02:20and I'd like to perform with Pearl Jam.
02:22And we thought it was a prank call at the time,
02:24but sure enough, it was real.
02:34The following day we got a phone call from the United Nations in New York
02:38who asked us if we could take this movement all around the world
02:41and that's when Global Citizen was born.
02:50Global Citizen
03:00We have 11.5 million members around the world now taking action
03:04and the way you can even come to a Global Citizen festival
03:08is through your actions.
03:10Your actions are your currency.
03:12You can't buy a ticket to Global Citizen,
03:15you have to earn it through calling on world leaders
03:20and advocating for change.
03:22Whether you take a petition, a phone call, a tweet,
03:25all of your actions earn you points
03:28and you use those points to come to Global Citizen for free.
03:31And that's really the engine of our movement,
03:34the actions of citizens.
03:44We're more connected than ever.
03:46What happens here when it comes to things like global warming,
03:50when it comes to things like fighting poverty,
03:52when it comes to all kinds of issues,
03:54what happens here affects people all around the world.
03:56And so with that in mind,
03:58I think it would be great for all of us
04:00to think of ourselves as Global Citizens.
04:02I believe every movement has waves
04:04and this is one of the biggest waves tonight.
04:06We want to encourage him to tweet Obama over the next few days
04:09and encourage him to put global poverty on the international agenda.
04:13We're also going to encourage people
04:15to sign the petition on globalcitizen.org
04:19for the eradication of polio.
04:24We never thought it was going to become an annual event
04:27and grow globally
04:29until the day after
04:31when Stevie Wonder's agent and manager
04:34called and said, you know, Stevie wants to headline year two
04:37and we said, you know, there is no year two
04:40and he said, there is now, there is now, guys.
04:43And then a few years later,
04:45Chris Martin of Coldplay
04:48called us and said, you know, I want to be part of this
04:50and I want to help you take this all around the world
04:52and so that year,
04:54he helped us take it with Jay-Z
04:56to India for the first ever huge event
04:58focused on the issue of water
05:00and sanitation access in India
05:02and then the following year to the G20
05:04in Hamburg, Germany
05:06with Shakira
05:08and with Pharrell
05:10and then a year after that, a few years after that
05:12we went with Beyonce and Jay-Z
05:14to South Africa
05:17for Nelson Mandela's 100th anniversary
05:19and the most extraordinary artist
05:21showed up and it was an amazing
05:23campaign focused on
05:25the issues of
05:27you know, something as important
05:29as access to sanitary pads
05:31and napkins for girls in schools
05:33through to investment
05:35in health and education
05:37through to water and sanitation
05:39global health, these were the issues
05:41we were championing and that's how the movement
05:43has grown very organically.
05:47A film by
05:50A film by Jay-Z
05:53Jay-Z
05:55Jay-Z
05:57Jay-Z
05:59Jay-Z
06:01Jay-Z
06:03Jay-Z
06:05Jay-Z
06:07Jay-Z
06:09Jay-Z
06:11Jay-Z
06:13We must look beyond ourselves
06:16with empathy and compassion
06:18for those we know
06:20and those we don't
06:22We need to lift up all of humanity
06:24and make sure that no person
06:26or community is left behind
06:28We can't let up now
06:30The vaccines are safe and we're working
06:32with leaders around the world to share more
06:34vaccines and boost production
06:36to make sure every country has
06:38the vaccines they need
06:40I think we see it during a pandemic
06:42more than ever that a disease that originated
06:44on one side of the earth ends up on the other side
06:46of the earth overnight
06:48and so we can't act as though
06:50any man or woman
06:52is an island unto themselves
06:54but we're all living
06:56on this planet together
06:58and therefore even if we don't care
07:00altruistically
07:02about what happens to other citizens
07:04on the other side of the earth
07:06we should care from an enlightened self-interest
07:08because the destiny of those
07:10on the other side of the planet really does
07:12impact you and I every single day