Fall ToolKit

As a ONE Field Coordinator, one of the most common questions I hear is “What can I do to help?”

It’s a tough one to answer because the opportunities are really endless. Since ONE is a grassroots campaign, volunteers can most effectively contribute to the Campaign by using their skills, interest, and knowledge of their community. But I know this doesn’t help answer the question.

So, now we have launched the Fall Toolkit (currently located online in the ONE Voter Center), which has all the tools you’ll need to engage in the ONE Campaign over the new few months.

The kit includes tools to:

• Plan an event or house party on October 15th - the Day of Action to Stand Up against Global Poverty;
• Get your friends and family to sign the ONE Voter Pledge; and
• Help raise global poverty’s profile.

This is a great resource for all ONE supporters, particularly during this important time before elections.

So check out the toolkit. I hope that you’ll find great ideas about how to get involved. And I hope ONE supporters all across the country will be involved in our October 15 Day of Action. I’ll be using resources from the toolkit at an event in Chicago that day. Check back to the ONE Blog to see how it goes.

Interns on Assignment

On Saturday, September 23, ONE Campaign headquarters sent interns Katy and I to help the Campaign’s concert team at the Virgin Festival, hosted by Virgin Mobile at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, MD.

The Festival featured more than 20 acts (from THE WHO to The Killers) on multiple stages and allowed non-profits, like ONE, to do outreach at the event by setting up booths and walking the grounds. By the end of the day, with four of us working the event, we collected 1,000 new ONE Declaration signatures.

ONE concert experts,
Brande and Aaron, staffed our table, handing out materials and information about the Campaign. People visited our booth to buy wristbands, ask how they could get more involved or just to see what all the fuss was about. A lot of fans were eager to ask questions since they had already heard about ONE from last year’s Live8 concerts.

As Katy and I wandered the field, trying to avoid stepping on garbage and holding drinks for people as they signed our clipboards, I was especially overwhelmed by one thing: there were still so many people we hadn’t talked to.

Here we were, just two people armed with black ONE T-shirts and smiles, in a sea of forty thousand people who were mostly concerned with… well, themselves. At times it felt pointless. What were 1,000 signatures when there were 39,000 more people who we hadn’t talked to? I kept telling myself that we could have done so much more with more volunteers, and more time, and less Gnarls Barkley breaks.

And yet… that’s how advocacy goes sometimes. You have to throw yourself, body and soul, into a cause, spread the word to as many people as possible, and then sit back and take some time for yourself. You just have to trust that one or two of the people you talked to will talk to their friends… and those friends will tell more friends… and a new ONE group will be born in an area that had previously been completely unfamiliar with poverty issues.

That’s the great thing about ONE. None of us, not even the biggest celebrity in the world, is going to eradicate poverty on his or her own. No matter how many office hours you work - no matter how many wristbands you give to your friends at school. What a funny conundrum: we need to depend on each other in order to help each other. One person, one voice, one vote at a time…

Count Orange County In

When I decided to start a ONE group in Orange County, California, I had my doubts. Orange County (OC), an extremely affluent and aesthetically beautiful community, is for the most part devoid of any sign of poverty or hunger. I wondered if residents here cared enough, beyond their expensive tract homes and their top rated schools, to want to get involved with issues that seem a million miles away. Boy, was I surprised.

I began with a meeting at my home to introduce my family and friends to the Campaign and the issues. Only 14 of the over 50 friends I invited came, but the energy was encouraging. Next, I posted the group on the ONE website and immediately began hearing from my fellow OC citizens. People here are aware and interested after all. We held our first official meeting this month. High school and college students and people in their 20s, 30s and 40s all showed up to get involved and to get this group underway.

The OC ONE group is excited, energetic, full of great ideas and steadily growing. We are holding meetings in October and November and new members are always welcome. You can join our group by going to ONE.org homepage.

ONE Music: The Hamiltons

For this week’s installment of the ONE Music series, The Hamiltons have generously donated their song “Song of Summer.”

Click here to listen to “Song of Summer” on the ONE Podcast page.

“It’s beautiful to see people organized and ready to lend a hand in changing this world for the better.”

- Ezra Hamilton

http://www.thehamiltonsband.net

AIDS Walk

Around the country, ONE members are getting involved in their local AIDS Walks.

I have attended my local AIDS Walk since 1995 and have always been inspired to see so many people coming together to support those living with HIV/AIDS and in memory for those we have lost.

As well as showing support for your local HIV/AIDS organizations - by wearing ONE shirts, telling other walk attendees about ONE and by signing up new members with ONE Declaration sheets - these walks are also opportunities to increase the visibility of ONE in your community.

Last year, DC ONE formed a team of 14 volunteers for the Washington AIDS Walk. This year’s DC walk is on October 7 and Yvette Castro, a DC ONE volunteer, is returning as the team’s captain. She said: “Last year’s walk was so much fun. We got to meet other local ONE volunteers and the walk led to lots of new opportunities and events for ONE volunteer.”

If you live in the DC area you can join by going to: www.aidswalkwashington.org and registering for the “DC ONE Campaign” team.

If you are not in DC, check to see if your community is hosting an AIDS Walk. In many cities, you can join a team that ONE volunteers have already formed. If your city doesn’t have a ONE team yet, consider hosting one and inviting your family and friends to join you.

[Pictured above: The 2005 DC ONE Campaign AIDS Walk team.]

An All Stars Update

A few weeks
ago, the band Sierra Leone’s
Refugee All Stars donated their song “Living Like a Refugee” to all ONE members. (For those
who missed our email and blog post, this remarkable band was formed by six refugees who escaped
from the ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone.)

Today, we want
to give you an update on the band’s whereabouts:

• Their CD, Living Like A Refugee, is coming out on Tuesday, September 26.
  You can pre-order a copy here.
  

• The band is currently touring the U.S. as part of their worldwide tour. Check out their tour dates. I plan to go to
  their October 26 performance at the 9:30 Club here in D.C.
• A critically acclaimed

  documentary
  about the band was released last year and is currently being screened at film festivals
  around the country and world. Click on this link for screening dates
  and locations.

• The band’s channel on
  You Tube is one of the most subscribed channels on the site this week. Check out it out for
  excerpts from their documentary, live concert footage and footage of the band’s life in refugee
  camps.

 

I posted one of
the band’s You Tube video clips above. If you visit and subscribe to their channel, you’ll be helping to
spread the word about the band. Check back to the ONE Blog for an update after the October 26 D.C.
show.

ONE Issue. ONE Vote.

The most important thing you can do this year to end extreme poverty is vote on November 7th.

Extreme poverty impacts almost every aspect of our nation’s foreign policy and contradicts our core values. Since ONE’s launch two years ago, over 2.4 million people and 100 of the world’s most respected humanitarian organizations have joined together in an unprecedented alliance to help the world’s poorest nations. This November is the first time that we, as ONE members, will cast ballots and add our voices to the electoral process.

Pledge to vote and talk about fighting global poverty in your community.

Sign the ONE Voter pledge - a pledge to educate yourself, your community, and to vote on Election Day. Together, we are building an organized constituency of Americans who are taking concrete steps to end extreme poverty. Over the next six weeks, ONE members will host events in their homes, places of worship, and cities, educating themselves about how America can do even more to fight AIDS and poverty around the world.

We’ll use the ONE Voter Pledge to reach out to people who want to learn how to get more involved. The pledge is a tool to raise global poverty awareness in communities across the country. Your one conversation or email might seem like a small contribution. But, in concert with millions of other ONE members, a pledge to vote and talk about global poverty is an important step toward enabling the world’s poorest nations to rise out of poverty.

Pledge to vote and talk about fighting global poverty in your community.

To win the fight against extreme poverty, we must make it a national priority. Please vote and make your voice and your priorities heard in the democratic process.

REVOLVE Tour

The REVOLVE tour - a weekend of music, stories and faith specifically designed for teenage women - was held this past weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Over the weekend, we heard from recording artists, like Natalie Grant, Christian pop band Zoe Girl, Hip Hop Artist KJ-52, Tammy Trent, and former Olympic champions and speakers, like Laura Wilkerson and Kimijo Soldati.

During the breaks, women filled the halls of the arena getting autographs from their favorite artists and visiting informational booths, such as the ONE Campaign’s and World Vision’s tables.

ONE volunteers, Michael, Daniel and Maika, joined me at the ONE table, and we were all overwhelmed with these young women’s knowledge of the world and compassion for those living in developing countries. Each seemed to have her own idea for how to make the world a better place.

Many REVOLVE attendees were familiar with the EDUN ONE T-shirts, so the one I was wearing, and the celebrity-filled articles about the shirts we had on our table, drew many young women to our booth.

Some were already involved with ONE and thanked us for our efforts. Others wanted information, signed the ONE Declaration and left inspired to start their own local ONE groups.

Events like this are important - because young people are the future of our country and world - and because no one is ever too young to get involved. After the REVOLVE tour, I am proud to say, there are 700 more girls wearing ONE wristbands in the state of Florida!

Clean Water: Powered By Play

First Lady Laura Bush announced a $16.4 million investment, by the U.S. government, the MCJ Foundation and the Case Foundation, to expand the number of PlayPump^TM water pumping systems installed in sub-Sahara Africa.

The PlayPump^TM system, literally a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank, will bring clean drinking water to millions of children and their families.

According to an article today on the U.S. Newswire, there are currently 700 PlayPump^TM water systems installed in southern Africa. Today’s announcement, plus other commitments from individuals, governments, foundations and companies worldwide, will more than double the number of active pumps installed throughout the region.

Read the full U.S. Newswire story here.

Airlines Taxes Fund AIDS Treatments

Brazil, Britain, Chile, France and Norway - joined by the William J. Clinton Foundation - announced a new plan yesterday to fund cheap drugs for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing nations by raising taxes on airline tickets.

The group will work through UNITAID - a new global purchasing body - to negotiate low prices with drug makers.

Yesterday in Reuters:

“None of this would be possible if it weren’t the ability UNITAID gives us … to go out to the people who provide medicine and other life saving equipment and material and say ‘You have a guaranteed stream of payment, you will be promptly paid, now give us a higher volume and a lower profit margin,” ‘Clinton told a news conference at U.N. headquarters…

Organizers said UNITAID next year hoped to be able to buy AIDS drugs for 200,000 children infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It also plans to treat 150,000 children afflicted by tuberculosis and more than 28 million suffering from malaria.

See the full Reuters article here.