When I saw the useful conversation happening in the comment section of Thursday’s UNH blog post, I wasn’t surprised at all. I’ve been working with the University of New Hampshire crew for months and already know they’re amazing.

I wanted to drop a quick line in here – to let you know about the great work they’re doing to prepare for World AIDS Day too.

ONE at UNH is working to transform an entire wall at the University’s student center into an AIDS memorial and action center, they’ll host speakers, hold an interfaith service, and organize many more activities to spread the word about ONE.

We want everyone to know that AIDS is an everyday holocaust, but more than that, we want people to know that we can help stop it.

We get a lot of questions about the relationships between DATA, ONE, EDUN and RED. A feature article in today’s New York Times highlights the inspirations and connections between the four. You can even clip and save their handy graphic for easy reference.

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Last weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Philadelphia, PA, to promote ONE at the Revolve Tour. Revolve is a national tour put on by Women of Faith each year and is a weekend of great music and inspiring stories for young women in grades 6-12.

ONE had a booth at the Philadelphia show and with the help of our great volunteers, Dave, Lindsay, Casey, Phil, Taryn, and Schaunel, we were able to get over 1200 young women and their mothers to join the Campaign! It was exhilarating to be part of a group that was able to get so many people signed up for ONE in such a short time.

The coolest part for me was the look on so many of the girls’ faces as we explained how they, as American teenagers, can help fight extreme poverty and AIDS around the world. The statistics can be staggering – every three seconds someone in the developing world dies of poverty and over a billion people around the world live on less than a dollar a day – and it can be easy for us to tune the information out. However there is hope and explaining to the girls how ONE person really can make a difference in the fight against the global AIDS pandemic and extreme poverty was exciting.

Our youth are the future, not only for America, but for the developing world as well, and they get it – they know they can end extreme poverty in their generation and are willing to use their voices and their time to make sure it happens.

Yesterday, the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency published a piece on the global clean water crisis. With over a billion people living without safe drinking water, it is one of the world’s most pressing public health problems today.

In the article, United Nations Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis, says “The word ‘crisis’ is sometimes overused in development. But when it comes to water…there is a growing recognition that the world faces a crisis that, if left unchecked, will derail progress towards the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and hold back human development.”

Read the full November 9, 2006 IPS article here.

After learning about the ONE Campaign, we immediately started taking action on the University of New Hampshire campus. We set up a table to collect ONE Declaration signatures at our student center (the MUB), we got the College Democrats and College Republicans to write a united endorsements of ONE in our student paper (The New Hampshire), and our marketing-major members helped us put on a hugely successful “ONEfest” with music, dance and information about the Campaign.

When a friend told us yesterday that a professor asked a question in one of her classes – and almost everyone who rose their hands was wearing a ONE white wrist band – we figured we were making some strides.

We realize our school plays an important role in a global community and we are going to make sure that our voices are heard from the University of New Hampshire campus to the halls of Congress.

- Sara Sohm, Alexandra Barrell, and Maria Gonzalez, The ONE Campaign at the University of New Hampshire

Last week, we asked ONE members to raise the profile of global poverty before the election by writing letters to their local papers. I’m posting excerpts from some of the printed pieces below. If yours gets printed, shoot an email to giveyourtime(at)one(dot)org.

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  “On Election Day, like every other day, there will be over one billion people around the world living on less than $1 a day.”
  - Kathy Schmitz in the Concordia, Kansas paper “The Concordia Blade-Empire”
  

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  “Fighting global AIDS and extreme poverty is something we can reach across party lines to do together.”
  - Melinda Taylor in the Princeton, West Virginia paper “The Bluefield Daily Telegraph”
  

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  “For the first time in history, we have the resources and know-how to end extreme poverty. All we need now is the political will to make it happen and that means voting and holding our leaders accountable.”
  - Vickie Crum in the Jackson, Mississippi paper “The Clarion-Ledger”

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  “I encourage my fellow voters to contact candidates and ask them what actions they’ll take to help fight global AIDS and extreme poverty.”
  - Dawn Wright in the Corvallis, Oregon paper “The Corvallis Gazette-Times”
  

It’s been said that this generation is the first in history with the
resources and know-how to end extreme poverty. We come back to work
today to continue the fight, welcoming back our old leaders and new
leaders alike with high hopes.

Today, I cast my ONE vote for the over 1 billion people living in extreme poverty around the world.

Tomorrow, I continue to educate those around me about global poverty, so that every year, more and more Americans will vote with ONE’s issues in mind.

The Sunshine State isn’t so sunny this morning, but that didn’t stop thousands of Floridians from grabbing their umbrellas and making it to the polls. I went early to beat the crowd.

If you haven’t voted yet, you still have plenty of time! Today is our day to make a difference!

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The indie-rock band Cake is showing their support for ONE and fight against world poverty and AIDS by donating their song “It’s Coming Down” to ONE members this week.

(We were pretty psyched when we found out too.)

Listen to “It’s Coming Down” on the ONE Podcast Page

“It makes perfect sense that finding solutions to global poverty would and should occur at this time in history. A greater understanding and budding kinship is happening now between the Western world and places like the continent of Africa. Because the distance between cultures and places has been virtually shortened, the problems of disease and poverty cannot be ignored.

This fortunate time of unprecedented opportunity would be absolutely tragic to squander. The far away idea of Africa is no longer far away, and that continent has become a neighbor. Greater well-being among the disadvantaged will surely create more harmony among all cohabitants of the planet.

Educating ourselves on solutions to combat world AIDS and poverty is of great importance. We also need to think carefully when electing politicians to represent us, choosing civil servants who understand we are all in this together.”

Cake
http://www.cakemusic.com