A few weeks ago I blogged about my trip to Mali and how clean water projects are positively impacting the lives of people in the region. I also shared some of the beautiful music I heard while there. Mali is considered the birthplace of the blues, and this soulful West African nation has produced many artists whose enchanting music has achieved international popularity.

The fabled city of Tombouctou lies at the edge of the Sahara desert in the largest region of Mali, also called Tombouctou. Originally founded over 900 years ago around a reliable clean well, Tombouctou was historically a major center of desert trade and the peaceful meeting place of many different cultures. The Niger river winds its way north into the Sahara and passes within a few miles of the city. Straddling the Sahara desert and the Niger river, Tombouctou has long been known as where “the camel meets the canoe.”

On my last night in the mysterious city of Tombouctou I had the pleasure of listening to the music of Troupe de Khalia. These musicians were so gracious to let me record their performance to share with ONE members. For this week’s podcast, please enjoy this new song from Mali to you.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2007.

Yesterday I learned that ONE is naming Yahoo! C.E.O. Dan Rosensweig and Republican strategist Jack Oliver as our two new co-chairs. Extensive experience in management, development, innovation, and political strategy between them, we look toward 2007 with strength.

“With the election of Jack Oliver and Dan Rosensweig as co-chairs, the appointment of Susan McCue as president and CEO, and the addition of Joe Cerrell of the Gates Foundation to the Board, ONE is positioned to move to the next level. I’m excited that people of their energy and talent are ready to give their all to mobilizing the political will of Americans to end extreme poverty.”
- Peter Bell, retiring Chairman of ONE’s Board of Directors

For those of you who may have missed the original airing of the Oprah RED episode, it is being replayed this afternoon.

(Link to local listings.)

As our movement continues the fight against the most devastating diseases the world faces, progress, toward greater understanding and attention, is being made.

But more still needs to be done.

Here’s what we learned last week:

• 
  At the White House Summit on Malaria, President Bush declared malaria a disease we can beat, and added eight countries to the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), an effort to work with the faith-based organizations and the private sector to halve the number of malaria deaths in Africa.

  
  “Defeating malaria, President Bush said, “is not going to require a miracle. It just requires a smart, sustained, focused effort.”
  -President George W. Bush, 12/14/06

• In a paper published in the journal Science, researchers found that AIDS and malaria interact and exasperate the effects of each other. “One important lesson of the study is that protecting HIV-positive people from malaria would also limit the spread of AIDS.”

“You gotta trust your vision of visibility if you wanna make poverty history – Keep on rockin’ in the free world”

And with that, in Honolulu, U2 ended a tour of more than 130 shows. Initially it seemed strange to suddenly be back at a U2 show nearly a year after our last date in December 2005, but we quickly fell back into place. At this last show alone, we signed up more than 1,800 new ONE members in person and more than 4,000 more by text. Judging by the amount of people I saw wearing white ONE bands on the island after the last date of the show, I could tell that our reach was pretty massive!

If anything really stood out, it was all the RED, EDUN and ONE shirts in the crowd. There were countless fans sporting the new RED product tees, the ONE EDUN tees (Bono himself was wearing the EDUN ONE shirt most of the night) and the black ONE tee. It’s hard for me to believe that, in March 2005 when the tour began, there were only 50 or so ONE shirts in existence (for my staff and our volunteers), and now tens of thousands of fans are helping to fight poverty with their fashion choices! All in all, it’s been an amazing journey watching this campaign expand and really make an impact over the past two years.

Getting to go to Hawaii was of course a nice perk, but even more fun was talking to so many fans from across the country and around the world who had come to Honolulu for this special show. As always, we had a stellar crew of volunteers to join us in making the night a big success. Among those volunteers were Beth and Susan, sisters from southern California. Susan is currently a nurse who now lives in Hawaii. Beth had to wake up three hours after the show ended to run in the AIDS marathon Sunday morning! Rounding out the crew were Sheri and her sister (L.A. volunteers), Sean and Shari (ONE Hawaii members), Linsey and Laura (with the local Salvation Army), Riley (a Hawaii native), and Lori (a tried-and-true San Francisco volunteer). It was especially great to see Lori. She was among the very first ONE volunteers we ever got to work with, when she joined us at a U2 show in San Jose back in April 2005.

It’s always bittersweet to have something as amazing as the U2 tour come to an end, but it’s good to know that more than 100,000 fans joined ONE in that time and that we were able to take great strides in spreading the word about ONE. A special thanks to all of those volunteers that have joined us on the Vertigo tour, and to the Vertigo crew for their endless support of ONE!

Keep on the lookout for exciting volunteer opportunities to come in 2007!

Joan Faulkner, our Regional Field Organizer down in Florida, just got off the phone with Senator Nelson’s office. He’s going to sign onto the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign’s “150 Letter!”

The goal of the campaign is to show bipartisan Congressional support for an increase of the International Affairs Budget by getting 150 representatives and senators to sign the letter. As of today, 157 have signed. Go to the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign’s website for more information and the current list of political leaders who are taking a lead on this fight.

UPDATE: A note from Joan.

“Thanks to the Florida ONE members who have taken the time to write letters, make phone calls and attend lobby visits to our Senators’ offices this year. It’s because of you that our voices are heard and action will be taken on these important issues. Both Senators Nelson and Martinez have signed onto this letter bringing both sides together. Congratulations Florida!” Joan

Today, Bono met with Congressional leaders to make sure that the fight against AIDS, malaria and extreme poverty is a priority in 2007.

His Statement on today’s meetings:

“I’m alarmed we could not get a commitment from the Democratic
leadership to prevent the loss of $1 billion dollars in the continuing
resolution to fight AIDS, malaria and extreme poverty.

400,000 of the most vulnerable people on Earth have been taken hostage
by politics.

I don’t know who’s to blame. Democrats are blaming Republicans,
Republicans are blaming Democrats. But the million people who were
expecting bed nets don’t care who’s to blame. They just know that in
2007 a promise made by the United States to keep their families safe is
in danger of being broken.

It will take responsible leadership on both sides to make this right. We
are going to keep fighting. This isn’t over.

Afterwards, he stopped by our office to talk to the ONE team and remind us how important our work is. This news from today makes it hard for me to forget.

One of our allies, the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, is spearheading an effort to get President Bush to increase the amount of funding going to fight global poverty. Even though the President releases his budget the first Tuesday in February, many of the decisions about funding are being made now by his advisors.

The President requested a $3 billion increase in February 2006 but the House of Representatives and the Senate cut the President’s budget request by roughly $1 billion.

The U.S. Global Leadership Campaign is trying to demonstrate bipartisan Congressional support for the President’s budget by getting at least 150 members of Congress to send President Bush a “Dear Colleague” letter stating that they support an increase to the International Affairs Budget. (It’s also known as the 150 Account.) There are a lot of things in this budget, but by calling for the pie to be bigger, they are helping set a sound foundation for the campaign to fight global poverty in the 110th Congress.

As of this morning, 143 members of Congress have signed the letter, often because of calls from their constituents. We can help reach the goal of 150 signatures by calling our representatives and asking them to sign onto the 150 Letter.

(More resources)

Right now, I’m sitting in with the White House press corps at an incredible event, The White House Summit on Malaria.

The room is full of all kinds of people – the President of Benin, a group of children from KwaZulu Natal, South Africa orphaned by HIV/AIDS who just finished singing, Melinda Gates, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Dr. Feachem, Pastor Rick Warren, a pastor from Kigali, Rwanda, members of Congress and countless activists, business leaders, people from faith communities and Africans with incredible stories.

What could bring them all together in one room?

They’re all here today because in Africa, a child dies every 30 seconds from a mosquito bite – malaria – a highly treatable and preventable disease.

President Bush and the First Lady just arrived. He’s about to speak about the President’s Malaria Initiative, a five year, $1.2 billion effort that’s already reached six million Africans with bednets, spraying and drug therapy. It’s a great start, and together with the Global Fund, we can do even more to help save lives in the world’s poorest countries.

We’re all waiting for President Bush to speak, so an African woman has just taken over the podium and started singing a song about the power of Africa to overcome – and she’s now on the mike challenging Wolfowitz and other Administration officials to come up and dance with her! A couple people up front just got up to start dancing.

It’s not your usual Washington DC event.

More to come…

On Saturday, President Bush signed a “continuing resolution” or “C.R.” which extends the 2006 Federal budget until mid-February, and yesterday, incoming Senate leaders issued a statement in support of extending the C.R. throughout 2007. If this happens, federal funding would remain at 2006 levels for all of 2007, despite the fact that many programs, including critical anti-poverty efforts, would normally receive increases for a new fiscal year.

Between the President’s requested budget and Congress’ numbers, international poverty relief programs expected approximately a one billion dollars increase over 2006 funding. Losing this money means taking a step backwards in the global fight against diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and losing ground in efforts to provide desperately needed clean water, food and education in the poorest countries in the world.