During this amazing week in Seattle, that our mayor proclaimed as Champions of Global Poverty Week, I was part of many of Stand Up events throughout our region. Here are a few notes from two of my favorites.

Seattle City Club

The Seattle City Club presents forums and events that allow members to interact with Seattle Leadership. This week, four prominent leaders of NGO’s in our region held a luncheon and forum which included a Stand Up of 150 at the event: Peter Blomquist of MercyCorps, Bill Clapp of Global Partnerships, Tim Hanstad of the Rural Development Institute, which is a form of microcredit for land-ownership in highly-indebted poor countries, and Professor Joel Migdal from UW’s Jackson School of International Studies.

With half the world’s population living on less than two dollars a day and more than one billion people living on less than one dollar a day, over the past few years, local civic leaders have developed new initiatives for global development to support sustainable economic development for the world’s poor.

World Vision at the Green Bean

Come evening many of us gathered again, in spite of in climate weather and storm warnings. The Green Bean Coffee House is a fair-trade, street-front, bohemian gathering place which hosts ONE monthly meetings on the north end of Seattle. We met there for an evening of information and action, networking and fair trade coffee, tea, and organic food. It was like a party of many of my dearest activists and heroes and their friends and families. The networking that took place in the room was priceless.

Following the Stand Up, World Vision’s Steve Reynolds shared how one person can make a difference in the large war on poverty. He and his “feeding village”, unwittingly and even without enthusiasm, became a focal point in the call for justice and legislation on behalf of Africa’s poorest people. In early 1984, he and a few other journalists met up with a BBC correspondent and released footage to the world of one of the worst famines in history. That was the report Bob Geldof and his wife observed and which became the reason so many preachers, televangelists, NGO’s, and yes, celebrities were flying in for a few hours for him to tour around. So for him to be notified that not only was an up and coming rock star on the way, but he was bringing his wife, and it was to be done quietly. Moreover, this rock star wanted to stay and work (yeah, right), well, you can imagine.

But stay they did; for a month in the fall of 1985, and on the quiet: no media, not even the benefit of publicity. They worked constantly, on the ground, with children, with shovels, with music and drama, with broken hearted and broken people. In one sound bite a child by his side is constantly coughing. No not croup, not whooping cough, could be TB or pneumonia. The battles for global health we still lobby for today, yet the price tag for attacking this and other pandemics has grown exponentially while our governments and World Bank and the IMF tarry. We can be very grateful for the likes of The Global Fund, the Gates and Clinton Foundations, many of the ONE partners who are working to stop the bleeding, yet our world leaders need to hear from us all.

Action

The presentation was followed by a letter-writing workshop by RESULTS member Dr. Larry Donahue, and I gathered correspondence and plates for Jubilee Drop the Debt, and will deliver the ones turned into me by hand to the congressional and senatorial offices in our region this week, with a thank you note for support of our various legislations. While the week in our region brings matters of extreme poverty and hunger to the front burner, we will bring these items of correspondence and phone calls right to them.

It’s a great week for the ONE campaign and our partners in many of our cities, bringing a diversity of people and NGO’s and issues together, and we here still have a few days to go. I’m proud in events like this seeing our partners networking, exchanging contact cards and information, planning on meeting again. This is priceless. In the war on poverty, nobody wins unless everyone wins . . .

Stay close,

Sammi in Seattle =)