Even though I see it in action every time I sit down at my work desk, sometimes I'm still genuinely surprised by the power that global citizens have to change the world. It's real, and I love it.

With the Commonwealth Heads of State Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta only months away, we asked global citizens to make some noise to ensure that polio eradication made it onto the meeting's agenda. The world is so close to ending polio, but the final pockets of this crippling disease are found in some of the world's hardest to reach places. It means that we can't finish the job without a concerted effort, and it's only with that effort that we'll be able to make polio only the second disease in human history to be eliminated.

That's why it needs to be on the meeting agenda... we need funding donor governments like Canada and Australia to be talking about polio with affected countries like Nigeria and Pakistan. The CHOGM meeting is an outstanding chance to have the conversation, and it comes at precisely the right time. It matters!

Once we put the call out to global citizens to get involved, the response was amazing. You sent over 36,000 emails to Commonwealth leaders, urging them to make it happen. And it wasn't for nothing. The Canadian Government responded swiftly, pledging their support and commitment to polio eradication.

And now, the UK

The UK Government has been a key supporter in the quest to end polio, committing £300 million in 2013 to vaccinate up to 360 million children by 2019. But the UK's actions alone aren't enough to win the fight, they also need to use their influence to bring other players to the table. In the wake of strong action by global citizens, that's exactly what the UK is doing.

Today, Baroness Verma (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the UK's Department for International Development) wrote to us, and announced that "We are keen to have polio raised in Malta and are considering options to help meet our objectives whether through Ministerial meetings or in the separate CHOGM forums". Government speak and people speak are two different things, and I can tell you that a quote like that is a really promising sign that they're going to really do this.

Here's the even better news: we can make the pressure even stronger. There's still time.

If you haven't yet written to the Commonwealth leaders to get polio on the CHOGM agenda, this would really really be a good time to do so. Take action on behalf of some of the world's poorest people, and help to end polio!