Tayloe Emery of DATA continues to send us updates on his travels in Timbuktu during the taping of Running The Sahara.

“It’s 2am here in Timbuktu and I can’t sleep. I’ve just walked out a ways from our camp into the sand of the Sahara. The stars above are magnificent and radiate throughout the valley, shooting across the sky and seemingly falling into the big muddy Niger River not 10 km away.

Mali may be the 3rd poorest country in the world but it is the wealthiest too. Its treasure are its people and they are bound to you through a mutual fascination of cultures. A fabric of ancient mysticism clothes and warms its masses. I think about Omar and Mohammed my new friends here in Timbuktu and the nomadic lives they lead wandering through the desert with their families stopping from time to time in this city to conduct trade and seek out fresh water for their animals.

Could my new friends have any concept of my life in the United States? Probably not. Though film and TV are occasionally watched here it only takes a second to realize that the concept of make-believe is a stretch to most people here. I was asked repeatedly today if I knew Jack Bauer (24), and if he was as good a man as he appears to be on the TV, and did I think he was America’s greatest hero.

I drank tea at sunset with my new Tuareg friends and thought about my new baby son at home with his mother in North Carolina preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving. A turkey from Food Lion seems like the last thing I want right now. Instead, I wish my wife and son were here to witness this great culture, this enticing land and to feel like I do – a stranger in a strange land surrounded by new friends and experiences.

Africa is probably not what most Americans will think about this Thanksgiving as they heap on the mashed potatoes and yams, but maybe someone out there will read this and think about me out here in the Sahara Desert: happy, sad, alone and engrossed by a civilization that has changed very little in thousands of years and continues to shine like the bright Tuareg star that leads north to the salt mines and then home again. Home. What a concept.

JTE”

As promised in Matt Damon’s email to ONE members last week, ONE and DATA have sent a small team to Mali to catch up with three incredible men who are running the entire length of the Sahara desert to raise awareness for clean water.

Below is our first update (provided by Tayloe Emery of DATA via a series of text messages.)

“We arrived in Timbuktu today by plane after spending the night in Bamako. It’s a beautiful city full of Tuareg tribesmen and centuries old mosques, I love it here already.

The runners are still in Mauritania but heading toward the Mali border. Everywhere they go people ask them about the white bands they are wearing and they proudly tell them that they are supporters of ONE. You can see some new photos of them with the white bands at the runningthesahara.com website.

After the runners enter Mali they will head toward Timbuktu and we will tour an Africare’s water irrigation project that is providing food and water to more than 30k people!

The sun is setting and in the distance I can see a caravan of camels returning from the salt mines from the north following the same tracks they have cut in the sand for thousands of years. Timbuktu is a city of wonder and mystery. I’m glad I’m here and wish everyone could experience the joy I’m feeling.”

Selah! JTE”

(photo by Don Holtz)

The DC-based indie band Army of Me is showing its support for ONE and the fight to end extreme poverty by donating their song, “Rise” to ONE members this week.

Listen to “Rise” on the ONE Podcast Page

“We are honored and humbled to be involved in this campaign. I grew up in the United States, where I have always had the food, shelter, and medicine that I needed. I have been fortunate; I’m like a man who is
born into a wealthy family and living in a great castle. But there’s another man, just like me, and he’s living right outside my gate. This man is extremely poor and he is dying. He’s dying because he is sick and has no medicine. He’s dying because he’s thirsty and has no clean water. He’s dying because he’s hungry and has no food, and no way of obtaining it. This man is my neighbor.

Through the ONE Campaign, I have the ability and the means to TAKE ACTION, to leave my comfortable castle and go down to the street and to LOVE my neighbor. Love requires action, and the biggest obstacle to love is my own inertia. Let us all RISE to this occasion, to this wonderful opportunity to be involved in ending extreme poverty in Africa.”

-Vince Scheuerman of Army of Me
http://www.armyofmeonline.com/

Last week I traveled through Kentucky with Jubilee USA’s 2006 Global Connections Tour and learned how, one year after the 2005 G8 Summit, debt cancellation is helping fight poverty around the world.

On the tour, Charity Musamba (National Coordinator for the Debt Cancellation and Trade Justice Project of Jubilee Zambia) told us that Zambia has been able to spend money that used to go to debt on education and healthcare. Now Zambia has hired 4,500 new teachers and abolished rural health care fees.

For me this is an exciting update! I was one of a million people who attended the LIVE 8 concert in Philadelphia in July 2005 where we sent President Bush to the G8 Summit on a wave of support to do more to fight AIDS and extreme poverty.

At the Summit, the G8 leaders reached an unprecedented agreement:

• $50 billion more in effective international assistance per year by 2010, half of which goes to Africa;
• Near universal access to AIDS drugs to all those who need it, and care for AIDS orphans;
• Primary schools for ALL children by 2015;
• A commitment to reduce the impact of malaria by 85% and help save the lives of 600,000 children every year;
• And 100% debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries.

These promises are a historic opportunity to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty and save millions of lives. If kept, the G8 promises are life-saving, powerful enough to save at least 4 million lives a year. While we still have much work to do to ensure that the 2005 G8 Summit agreements are kept, it is exciting to hear how the debt cancellation deal is being used to help fight poverty in Zambia right now.

With the 2006 elections over, ONE’s eyes are on making extreme poverty and global AIDS part of the conversation in the race for the White House.

And so I’m pleased to be able to post that two potential presidential candidates, one a republican and one a democrat, have decided to take public HIV/AIDS tests at a World AIDS Day Conference in California on December 1.

See below from the AP:

To reduce stigma around the test and publicize its value, “I’m happy to offer my body for science,” Brownback said in a telephone interview Friday. “People need to get the test,” he added.

Obama press secretary Tommy Vietor said, “If two United States senators can do it, then everyone else can too.” …

Obama and Brownback are featured speakers and will appear on a panel titled, “We must work together.”

“I think you are seeing the beginning of a great coming together on the left and right dealing with Africa,” said Brownback, alluding to the continent’s AIDS epidemic and social and economic problems.”

Read the full article here.

I just spent about two weeks on the road with the Indigo Girls. We are very excited to include them among the many artists currently supporting the ONE Campaign!

It’s always great to talk to so many supportive fans each night and to learn about the amazing things people are doing in their communities to make the ONE Campaign’s goals a reality.

One of my favorite conversations from the tour was with a woman named Helen, from Ventura, CA. Helen came up to our ONE table to thank us for our work and to tell us about her experiences working on civil rights campaigns during the 1960’s (during which time she met JFK!) She talked to us about the connections she sees between what they were doing then with what ONE is doing now.

A big thanks to the Indigo Girls for letting us tag along on their tour and for offering their support of ONE from the stage each night!

Remember, if you’d like to join us for these types of events, be sure to check out the ‘Take Action’ section at one.org!

Through my involvement with the ONE campaign, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the annual Oxfam Hunger Banquet at the University of Portland (Oregon) on Monday night. Melissa B., the student activities coordinator for UP, said that this year was the biggest turnout they’ve ever had for the banquet – 170 students signed up. I hope this is a sign of change; that more and more people are becoming concerned about those in poverty.

The Oxfam Hunger Banquet is a teaching tool to open the eyes of Americans to the inequitable distribution of food and resources in today’s world. As guests arrived, each received a number indicating which of three groups they will be put into for the evening. 15% of the guests were seated at tables with fine linen and served a 3-course meal. They represent the 15% of the world’s population who can afford 3 nutritious meals everyday. 25% of the guests stood in line to be served a bowl of rice and beans – they represent the segment of the world’s population who are getting by from day to day, but if one natural disaster, or major illness, or failed crop were to occur, they could be driven into poverty. The remaining 60% of the guests were told to stand in line to serve themselves from a communal rice bowl which they eat with their hands while they sit on the floor. They represent the millions of people around the world who suffer from chronic hunger. It certainly gets your attention.

Melissa G. and I were excited to staff the ONE table during the event. We shared information about the ONE Campaign and encouraged students and faculty to sign the declaration and to use their voices to advocate for the poorest of the poor.

Today, ONE founding partner Oxfam is putting on events called “Oxfam Hunger Banquets” all across the country. The events are designed to help people understand the scope of global hunger, relate to the problems faced in the world’s poorest countries, and inspire us to action.

Here’s a quick overview of how the Banquets work:

Those who attend are treated as if they represent the total population of the world. If 20 people come, three will dine on gourmet meals, five will be handed bowls of rice and beans, and the remaining 12 must wait in a line to receive a small portion of rice.

We set up a page on our web site with more information on Oxfam Hunger Banquets and how to share this idea with your friends and family.

The event reminds us that 850 people go to bed hungry every night, and how lucky we are to live in a time and place time when we have the knowledge and power to change it.

Combating misconceptions about how much our government spends on international anti-poverty programs, and on how effective those programs can be, remain one of our movement’s greatest challenges. Tina Rosenberg’s Op-Ed in today’s New York Times outlines a lot of what we’re up against and eight excellent reasons for hope.

Two excerpts below:

“When pollsters ask people in the United States to guess how much their government spends on foreign aid, the median response is 25 percent of the federal budget – and Americans think that it should be 10 percent. The real number is less than 1 percent. And only a tiny percentage of that goes to fight poverty…”

“If antipoverty efforts do not help as much as Americans would like, one reason is that their government is spending far less than they think it is. This is unfortunate because there are programs out there with a proven track record of working – of lifting poor people out of poverty, and keeping them out – some run by governments, some by charity groups, and a few by businesses.”

The remainder or the piece describes eight remarkably successful aid programs. Check back to the ONE Blog as we discuss some in the coming days.

The Graham Colton Band, dubbed “rock and roll for a new generation”, is showing its support for ONE by donating their song, “Don’t Give Up On Me” to ONE members this week.

Listen to “Don’t Give Up On Me” on the ONE Podcast Page

“When I learned my uncle, Jerry, was infected with HIV/ AIDS, I was far too young to understand its cause and effects. It’s a disease that can never be talked about enough especially among young people. In 1991, my family started the Oklahoma AIDS Care Fund which provides and contributes a variety or medical, legal, and practical services to a number of organizations helping to treat and cure this terrible disease.

With age, I have been educated and humbled by the selfless acts by my own family and want to do my part in branching outward with the ONE Campaign. I am honored to share my voice in support of this cause.”

Graham Colton

http://www.grahamcoltonband.com/