The voices of 18 million young people speaking in unison would be a political force to be reckoned with. That's how many followers One Direction can reach through Twitter alone, and now the boy band are calling on their fans to help end the suffering of the world's poor. One Direction, Jessie J and Bastille are among the pop stars backing a new plan to urge youngsters to join the fight against global poverty.
Nevertheless, the chart-topping stars have joined up with some of the UK's most popular festivals to give away tickets to their shows in exchange for fans' actions on social issues. They join more than 100 well-known names who are already backing the Global Citizen Tickets initiative, including Katy Perry and Kings Of Leon.
Music fans who register with the scheme win points by signing petitions, sharing content on social networks and contacting politicians about issues involving food, hunger and education. Collecting enough points will give them the chance to win tickets to shows and events featuring their favourite artists. The 1D boys said: 'We are absolutely proud to join so many amazing artists to inspire people to take action to end extreme poverty.'
The Global Citizen tickets scheme is launching in the UK after proving popular in the US, Australia and New Zealand with nearly 1.7 million 'actions' having already taken place worldwide.
The efforts of those volunteers have helped to increase funding of polio eradication programmes and secured pleges of more than £600,000 to pay of community health workers in sub-Saharan Africa. About a fifth of the world's population are estimated to be suffering extreme poverty. All Saints, Ed Sheeran, Franz Ferdinand, Russell Brand, John Newman and Chvrches are among the 100 artists already signed up.
