Kenyan school children Friday presented 313,873 signatures to acting British High Commissioner to Kenya Ray Kyles, urging the world's powerful leaders meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland to help eradicate poverty in Africa.

"We, as children, request the Group of Eight (G8) leaders to support Africa through debt cancellation, introduction of fair trade, help us fight HIV/AIDS, introduce free education, among other things," a representative of Kenyan primary and secondary school children said at a ceremony in Nairobi.

The signatures presented were all signed by school children. According to them, the collection exercise was still going on until September and their target was to collect one million signatures from Kenya alone.

The presentation is being coordinated by the Coalition of African Organization on Food Security and Sustainable Development (COASAD), the African Medical Research Foundation, Action Aid and United Nations' Human Settlements Program director Anna Tibaijuka, one of the 17 members of the Commission for Africa.

Francis Mwaura, the chairman of the COASAD said at the ceremony that poverty in Africa must be addressed as a first step in the war against global terrorism.

"Poverty in Africa is fueling drug trafficking and international crimes. African children drop out of school due to the lack of school fees and are often recruited into the global terror networks, that is why we deserve debt cancellation," Mwaura said.

Ray Kyles said his government will help African countries access European Union markets to eliminate rampant poverty.

"We as the G8 are looking at ways of encouraging production of goods for exports to the European markets to help fight poverty in Africa," Kyles said.

The Commission for Africa, constituted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was expected to present a report to the G8 summit this week in a fresh bid for change on the continent.

The campaign against poverty in Africa and the fight against global warming tops the agenda of the summit of the G8 industrialized countries in Gleneagles, Scotland from Wednesday to Friday.

School children in African countries like Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania have been collecting signatures in a campaign calling on the G8 countries to make poverty history in Africa which has been described as a continent ravaged by conflicts, HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Source: Xinhua