Around the world, AIDS has a child’s face. Some 15 million children
under 17 have lost one or both parents to the disease, the vast
majority in sub-Saharan Africa. These children, especially the girls,
must often leave school to earn money to care for their siblings and
the sick. They usually lack access to basic health care and are at
serious risk for exploitation, poverty and discrimination.
In Ethiopia, teens who have volunteered to become “advocates of hope”
are demonstrating what World AIDS Day really means by making a
difference in their communities. Fourteen teens were given digital
cameras for a week in August and asked to document their lives and ways
they were keeping the promise of fighting AIDS by caring for one
another, their families, their communities and themselves. Save the Children and ONE have teamed up to bring you a photobook from these children.
Today (November 18), Brad Pitt wrapped up a two day listening and
learning trip on AIDS, extreme poverty and trade with DATA (debt AIDS
trade Africa) in Washington, D.C. As an ambassador for the ONE campaign
(www.ONE.org), Pitt visited the nation’s capital to build upon his
experiences during two trips to Africa in the past year.
Pitt met with members of the NGO community, administration officials,
members of Congress from both parties and African farmers to discuss
life-saving programs that are making a real difference in Africa, what
more can be done and the ongoing international debate over reforming
trade rules to eliminate decades of oppressive trade subsidies that
have negatively impacted small African and American farmers alike.
Brad
Pitt with DATA (debt AIDS trade Africa) executive director Jamie
Drummond (left) and director of government relations Tom Hart (right)
during a two-day listening and learning trip on AIDS, extreme poverty
and trade in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy: J. Tayloe Emery, DATA)
This Sunday, Bono, lead singer of U2 and co-founder of DATA (debt
AIDS trade Africa) speaks with Ed Bradley on 60 minutes about U2 and
his efforts in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty.
If you use MySpace add ONE as your friend – www.myspace.com/onetomakepovertyhistory. Join ONE on MySpace – where you can get updates, see the ONE spot and chat with fellow ONE activists.
Take a look at this article in the San Francisco Chronicle with Bono
talking about the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty and how
we are working, as ONE, together and making real progress. You can also
tune into their three part podacst about their meeting at www.sfgate.com/blogs/podcasts
U2′s Bono makes fiery case for rocking the world with ambitious mission to eradicate global misery
“Wearing pink-tinted, wraparound glasses beneath a beat-up, perfectly
molded straw cowboy hat, the U2 front man said that although the United
States has much work to do and more money to give to fight poverty and
AIDS, the Bush administration had gone from a “standing start” to
tripling its aid to Africa over the past four years. He singled out the
president’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has put a
quarter-million Africans on antiviral medication in the past year.
It is an amazing thing he’s pulled off,” Bono said. “Three years ago,
people would laugh openly, in your face, at the idea that we could work
with the administration on this stuff.
The firebrand rock star, in town for two sold-out shows earlier this
week at the Arena in Oakland, has been signing up audience members for
his One Campaign to Make Poverty History all along the “Vertigo” tour,
which has been playing to packed houses in America and Europe since
March. He hoped to get a million people; he got 2 million.”
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
