Eils Nevitt, singer and presenter, discusses why freedom and equality are central to the Christian faith. - The story of Oludah Equiano, 18th century slave, Christian and abolitionist. - Modern forms of slavery: nuclear war, apartheid, poverty. - Christian Aid and Jubilee 2000 - the fight for a debt-free 21st century.
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	I'm Iles. I'm a singer and a presenter. When I can, I work with the charity Christian Aid and recently made a film with them about the impact of international debt on Jamaica. I'm a Christian and, for me, if my faith means anything then it's about following the example of Jesus in treating other people as you like to be treated yourself. It's a basic belief that brings many Christians to see issues of freedom and equality as central to their faith. But one person that I find really inspiring is this man, Oloudah Equiano, someone who not only fought for the freedom of others but had to win his own freedom first. Equiano was born in West Africa in the middle of the eighteenth century but as a child he was kidnapped from his home, sold into slavery and shipped, in appalling conditions, across the Atlantic to the plantations of Virginia. There he was bought by a British naval officer and introduced not only to a life at sea but also to the teachings of Jesus. But Equiano was an industrious man and managed to buy his own freedom, settling in England and even marrying into society. Having been a victim of slavery himself, Equiano became a passionate abolitionist, travelling around the country, telling his story and campaigning for an end to the slave trade. But his greatest contribution came when he published this account of his life - an eighteenth century best seller. Telling the story of one man's road to freedom, it didn't just raise awareness of the inhumanity of the slave trade, it made its readers realize that the Africans involved were people just like themselves. Olopudah Equiano died in March 1797, just ten years before slavery was abolished in Britain. Since then, lots of other causes have been embraced by Christians. In the nineteenth century, the terrible conditions of women's prisons led Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker, to campaign for reform. And in the twentieth, the threat of nuclear war, the horrors of apartheid and the plight of the world's poorest, all moved Christians to take a stand. One way I got involved is to work through Christian Aid with Jubilee 2000, a campaign that sees the unpayable debt of the developing nations as a modern form of slavery. Jubilee 2000 is fighting for a debt-free start to the millennium for a billion of the world's poorest people. To me, our generation now has a real chance to learn from the past and to create a fairer global community by putting Christian principles into practice. Or as Equiano once wrote, "May the time come when people gratefully commemorate the auspicious era of extensive freedom."