Famine at American University

Feb 28th, 2007 1:00 PM UTC
By Alan Boswell, ONE Online Organizer

Thirty enthusiastic American University students showed up on campus this
past Friday to learn how to become better advocates for the poor and
suffering around the world. ONE Regional Field Organizer Ranna Lanagan spoke
to the group, most of who were participating in an event on campus called
“30 Hour Famine.” After she finished explaining ONE and its issues,
students were given tips on being ONE advocates on campus. Afterwards, we
wrote letters to our congressmen to let them know about our support for
ONE’s fight for more and better aid towards the poorest countries in the
world.

Organizing a speaker on a college campus for a Friday night is typically not
an advised method of attracting event attendees, but neither is fasting for
30 hours the most popular weekend activity among college students. “30 Hour
Famine” is an event sponsored by World Vision, one of ONE’s founding partner
organizations. Youth all across the world participate in the fast in order
to better empathize with world hunger. While fasting, participants raise
awareness on world poverty and organize local service projects. We had over
twice as many participants as last year, making this the most successful
Famine on campus ever.

All-in-all around 20 students did the entire fast, and near the end we
discussed how the experience spoke to us personally. One common theme was
how the fast brought the global hunger crisis home in a way that our
academic studies on the issue could not. A couple students specifically
mentioned how they were excited to get more involved with ONE. With an AU
ONE Facebook group of over 550 members and a core group of excited students,
the AU ONE community is looking forward to even larger events in the future.

Join ONE’s global facebook group