November 19th, 2007 at 3:16 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
ONE stars Matthew Bartlett and Michael Castaldo passed along our “On The Record” petitions by hand to staff people from Senator John McCain’s and Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s campaigns this weekend.
More than 53,000 people have already signed the petition urging every presidential candidate to go on record with their plans for extreme poverty and global disease. If you haven’t yet, sign on now and add this “On The Record” widget to your website or blog.
Last night I went to Rindge, NH, with some ONE members wearing ONE shirts and ONE bands to help represent the world’s poorest people during a town hall meeting with Sen. McCain.
I raised my hand to ask a question about malaria but when Sen. McCain saw my shirt, he asked me to talk about the ONE Campaign!
After talking about the 2.4 million member movement that ONE is, I thanked Sen. McCain for his support of the FRESH Act that would help reform the wasteful government payments in the Farm Bill that end up devastating small local farms and African farmers. I then spoke about US efforts to fight malaria, something that Bill Gates himself urged all the candidates to support and expand. Sen. McCain said he would support those efforts, and then went on to ask me to talk about the importance of clean water in the developing world.
November 19th, 2007 at 12:09 pm | posted by anne.batchelder
When I started working for the ONE Campaign in 2005 I had just come back from a year in Ghana, working on small-scale economic community development projects. Working for ONE, and advocating for ONE’s core issues, it was very real to me that we were working to help families support themselves through life-saving medicines, important clean water and hygiene programs, and through creating economic opportunities by making trade more fair - the kinds of things that people in Ghana desperately needed.
Now, I am back in Africa - Nigeria, this time, and again working on a community development project - the Gwaimen Center, a community-based sustainability center to support widows and orphans in Kwoi, Nigeria. Now that things have come full circle, I am now seeing the fruits of ONE’s arduous labors.
During my first week here, we stopped at a clinic in Kagoro to visit a friend. One of the first things that I noticed was this sign. “USAID had been here - from the American people.”
I suddenly had the clearest image of members of ONE’s amazing dedicated staff (whom I miss greatly!), ONE volunteers from around the country, and the 2.4 million ONE supporters, calling their leaders and asking them to support important initiatives like this. ONE is on the front lines - fighting for things that make a difference in the lives of people in other countries - from the American people.
I’ve only been here two weeks, so will continue to send stories from the ground!
-Anne Batchelder, ONE member, former ONE Deputy Field Director, and founder of the Gwaimen Center in Kwoi, Nigeria
On Friday, I traveled waaaay north in New Hampshire, and through a surprise snowstorm, to see and hear President Bill Clinton campaign for Hillary…and make sure that he heard from ONE Vote ‘08 while he was in the Granite State.
Before the principal of White Mountains Regional High School introduced President Clinton, he told a quick story about President Clinton’s and President Bush’s speech at the 2007 UNH Graduation Ceremony. He said that one of the biggest things that struck him during President Clinton’s speech was when he spoke about a rural tribe in Africa. In that tribe, when someone greets another person, they respond in their native language with what is translated in English to mean, “I see you” - a recognition of a person’s humanity and an affirmation of each other. I thought this was also a fitting notion for our work with the ONE Campaign, as we use our collective voices for those that do not have such a voice in the global community.
After a brief speech, President Clinton made his way through the crowd and I was able to speak with him and remind him that Bretton Woods, NH, was just down the road, the place where the free world gathered in 1944 and the roots of the Marshall Plan were created. I told him that it was important to renew that Bretton Woods promise by fighting AIDS, Malaria and TB in Africa today, and we discussed his own efforts in the most desperate places on Earth.
From the snowy mountains here in New Hampshire, all the way to sub-Saharan Africa, people are realizing that we can save lives and beat extreme poverty, when we come together as ONE.
Sen. McCain campaigned in New Hampshire over the weekend and many ONE members were able to catch up with him on the campaign trail to make sure he knows that saving lives in Africa is not only possible, but it is a priority!
New Hampshire native Emerson Lennon was able to attend a town hall meeting with Sen. McCain at Dartmouth College in Hanover. He passed out ONE Vote ‘08 literature and even got a chance to speak with Sen. McCain after the event. Emerson told me that Sen. McCain told him how good it was to see ONE again and how much he supports our efforts. He even snapped a quick photo for the blog!
The ONE Campaign, Habitat for Humanity, Opportunity International, and Women’s Edge Coalition came together to create a briefing for Hill staff at the Capitol Building today about the GROWTH Act. (S. 2069) Senators Durbin and Hutchison hosted the event, which we called: “Fighting Poverty with Common Sense: Investing in Women’s Economic Opportunity.”
The impressive turn-out led to a great joke by Susy Cheston, Senior Vice President for Policy at Opportunity International: After observing the standing -room-only crowd that had gathered in the back of the room, she remarked, “You should all receive a sticker that says, ‘I stood up for Women today!’”
Along with Susy Cheston were four other speakers, all with extensive knowledge and advice about empowering women to lift themselves, and their families, out of poverty. They were Nora O’Connell, Vice President for Global Development Policy at that Women’s Edge Coalition; Donne Cameron, Senior Director for International Programs for Habitat for Humanity; Shade Bembatoum-Young, Founder and Executive Director of African Sustainable Small Enterprise Export Development Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria; and S.K. Guha, Senior Program Specialist at UNIFEM.
The panelists discussed first-hand experiences, insight, and policy objectives relating to the GROWTH Act. The Act focuses U.S. international assistance on proven strategies to enable women to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. If passed, (more…)
November 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm | posted by Josh Lozman
The Daily Trust newspaper in Abuja, Nigeria reported on Wednesday that over 110 million Nigerians have malaria. This shockingly high burden of disease is costing the country about $7 billion per year in treatment for the disease and the country is losing another $1 billion per year in lost productivity because employee absenteeism and subsidized malaria treatment.
About 90% of all malaria deaths globally occur in Africa, where a child dies of the disease every 30 seconds. More than 350 million people become severely ill each year. This is a preventable and treatable disease. Though the news from Nigeria is tragic, there is also good news in the progress against malaria. Kenya reduced childhood deaths by 44% in two years with a rapid expansion of malaria control programs. ACTs costing roughly $2 per dose could treat the men, women and children who fall victim to this disease and dramatically reduce the number of deaths from malaria.
The good news here makes it all the more tragic that so many people are dying primarily because they got bitten by a mosquito and don’t have access to even basic medical care. It is our hope that the next president of the United States will continue to ramp up our nation’s spending on malaria. If you are at a campaign event with a candidate, please ask them what he or she will do if elected president to stop malaria!
Rudy Giuliani came to speak to Iowa State students on campus last week and was greeted by a crowd of over 400 – including several ONE supporters. Mr. Giuliani spoke for a while and then took questions from the audience. When I asked him what a Giuliani Administration would do to support the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, he said, “I would work very hard to continue the programs that President Bush has supported and increasing them.” Seeing my ONE T-shirt, he added, “You do great work!”
After the event, I got the chance to shake Mr. Giuliani’s hand and offered him a ONE wristband which he wore as he posed for a photo and continued to shake hands with the crowd!
November 15th, 2007 at 1:42 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
As Steve Radelet reported here on the ONE Blog on Monday, after a 18 month delay, the IMF is finally moving ahead with debt relief for Liberia!
Yesterday, the director of the IMF’s External Relations Department issued a statement::
“We have received a large volume of emails on this topic, so this letter is being posted because it is impossible to respond to each message individually….Their strong support to the cause of debt relief contributed to the broad donor support that made this financing possible.”
Jubilee, DATA, the Center for Global Development, Foreign Policy In Focus, and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did incredible work keeping up the pressure, and ONE members sent tens of thousands of emails pushing the IMF for this action.
It’s not a bad day - when we get proof that our voices are being heard, and that our actions are truly making a difference for the poorest people in this world.
Last Sunday, our local “ONEBoca” Volunteer Group and the First United Methodist Church of Boca Raton, FL, hosted “An Opportunity and An Adventure,” an event to highlight the ONE Campaign.
To help raise awareness, we invited members of our FUMC congregation, along with numerous other area faith (10 churches) and social interest groups. Including our almost 30 volunteers, over 140 people attended!
During the event, we enjoyed live music by Roger Petersen (with members of our Praise Team band,) a live dance performance by “The Garment of Praise Dance Ministry,” and a the organization “Taste of Africa” gave out Kenyan coffee and African cakes, cookies and sugar-roasted peanuts!
During the event, we provided exibits space for NothingButNets (www.nothingbutnets.net ), the SaveDarfur Coalition of South Palm Beach County and BeadforLife (www.beadforlife.org ).
It was the first time our group hosted an event like this and it was a great learning experience. “ONEBoca” is a fairly small group thus far, but we hope to grow through good word-of-mouth and be off to a great start in 2008!
-Nancy Parker, Shari MacFarlane, Emily Cann, Roxanne Scarlata and Rose Sunbury, The ONEBoca Volunteer Group
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, volunteers, members and coalition partners.
The content of each post and each comment represent the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ONE Campaign or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any posts expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
