A few of us were able to attend a rally with Bill Clinton on Monday. Angela Tomasello and Matt Higginson joined me for the event with our ONE signs and T-shirts.
During his stump speech President Clinton looked over to us and addressed ONE’s issues directly - citing the need to fight extreme global poverty and the fact that 1 billion people live on less than $1/day and over half the world’s population lives on less than $2/day.
President Clinton also talked about how his Clinton Global Initiative has teamed up with other NGOs such as ONE to supply inexpensive HIV/AIDS vaccines to Africa and the developing world.
We were able to snap a photo with him after the event to which he proclaimed, “I love the ONE Campaign!”
January 17th, 2008 at 10:51 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
Barack Obama came to Las Vegas on Friday and held a rally at Del Sol High School. The line to get in was so long that it wrapped around the high school parking lot, but we were fortunate enough to get in. Apparently about 2000 people were not so lucky, including a few of our ONE volunteers. Before Senator Obama came inside to the rally he held an impromptu rally in the parking lot with those who didn’t make it in.
When we got inside, my wife and I were asked by an Obama staffer to sit on the stage behind the Senator in our ONE T-shirts. It was a unique perspective for the rally but we weren’t able to ask a question during the Q & A. We were, however, able to get those ONE T-shirts on all the local news stations coverage of the rally.
During his speech, Obama spoke about the need to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the importance of providing proper education to children in parts of the world where they are taught hatred of America rather than reading, writing and arithmetic.
Ambassadors Jenna Morton and Cisco Aguilar were on hand Tuesday night to spin their way through the post-debate analysis. ONE Vote ‘08 was an official co-sponsor of the debate and the logo could be seen every time Chris Mathews did a live shot of spin alley.
ONE Vote ‘08 volunteers fired up the crowd outside and passed out wristbands to debate watchers. Check out the awesome video ONE’s Matt Higginson put together from footage outside the debate.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:33 pm | posted by annisa.wanat
ONE volunteers aren’t the only people letting the next president know which foreign policy issues are priorities to them - former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s new book, Memo to the President Elect, outlines her vision also. Last week, I was lucky enough to get a chance to thank Dr. Albright for including “addressing the negative effects of globalization” as one of her top five foreign policy priorities for the next president and hand her information about ONE. She accepted it with a smile and said she already knew us though. Riding home on the L, I flipped directly to the relevant chapter in her new book, and was pleased to read this (page 137):
“Reducing poverty should be a central theme of your administration. This is smart politically, right morally, and makes sense economically…. Take advantage of the global antipoverty movement, which includes rock starts, billionaires, evangelists, students, and the producers of American Idol; don’t underestimate the power of enthusiasm – some jobs can best be done by people too inexperienced to know exactly how hard the jobs are.”
I’m proud to be counted in the “inexperienced” and will keep working to grow the antipoverty movement. I hope the next president joins us in the fight against extreme poverty and makes me unemployed.
-Annisa Wanat, ONE Regional Field Organizer, Chicago
January 16th, 2008 at 5:27 pm | posted by Amy Quinn, ONE Volunteer, Los Angeles, CA.
On Sunday ONE LA and ONE Santa Monica co-hosted a team meeting at the Church in Ocean Park in Santa Monica. Rachel Andres, of Jewish World Watch, was our guest speaker and spoke to us about the Solar Cooker Project.
Right now, women and girls in refugee camps in Chad risk rape and other forms of gender-based violence when leaving the relative safety of the camps to collect firewood – which is essential for cooking the basic food supplies provided by relief agencies.
Solar Cookers are devises that cook food using electricity from the sun’s rays and the Solar Cooker Project aims to improve the safety and survival of women in refugee camps in Chad.
Rachel gave an emotional presentation about this wonderful project and her very recent visit to two refugee camps in Chad where the project has been put to work. (more…)
January 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
At the end of last week, I posted excepts from a BBC News article about the high percentage of African doctors moving to more-developed countries. The piece cited a new study by Michael Clemons of the Center for Global Development (CGD).
A couple days ago, Dr. Clemons wrote a comment on the post, saying that he thinks the mainstream media misinterpreted the results of his study.
“Conventional wisdom says that, because low-income countries need skilled professionals to develop, their migration to better-paying countries is unequivocally bad… So the recent surge in the international mass migration of highly skilled workers has many worrying: will the loss of skilled professionals stymie development?
In this new working paper, CGD research fellow Michael Clemens uses new data on African health worker migration to test whether decreases in emigration raise the number of domestic health professionals, increase the mass availability of basic primary care, or improve a range of public health outcomes.
The results suggest that Africa’s generally low staffing levels and poor public health conditions are the result of factors entirely unrelated to international movements of health professionals, and that the option to emigrate has positively affected Africans’ decisions to enter the health field.
Bottom line: impeding the migration of skilled health professionals, by sending and receiving countries, does little to improve health systems or heath outcomes in Africa.”
I whole heartily thank Dr. Clemons for leaving his comment on the 14th, and hope he may accept my invitation to post on the ONE Blog in the future? We’d love to have your insights.
As stated in the piece - in all of Zimbabwe, only 24% of those HIV positive receive the AIDS drugs they need. In sub-Sahara Africa, the average is 28%.
And according to a World Health Organization April report - only 6% of children in Zimbabwe receive the treatment they need.
Some excerpts:
“Zimbabwe’s financial crisis has seen the near collapse of its health system. Hit by foreign currency shortages and hyperinflation, the government stopped taking new AIDS patients in October 2006. Many people die of AIDS complications without ever getting antiretroviral medicine….
As access to government treatment has become impossible for most, the private market is out of reach, too. A December report by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, an international advocacy group, said the number of private HIV/AIDS patients dropped from 10,000 in July to 6,000 because government policies and inflation had caused the cost of treatment to soar.
Ahmed Leher, 52, cannot bear to call his illness by its name. To him it’s “this thing” or “this rubbish.”
His weight has dropped 50 pounds in a few months. He feels angry knowing that there’s a medicine out there that could save him, yet the hospital system won’t give it to him.
“I don’t want to die young,” he said, his face anguished. “I know there’s still life. I know that with ARVs I can live for years”
We are bird-dogging every candidate and campaign event as is humanly possible—this weekend it was Obama and Hillary in Las Vegas and Bill Clinton in Reno.
Congresswoman Shelley Berkley was caught with her ONE wristband on at the Hillary Clinton event in Vegas. Cong. Berkley serves as an honorary chair for ONE Nevada. Way to spread the word congresswoman!
The College of Charleston hosted Barack Obama on Thursday - at the event where Senator John Kerry endorsed by former Democratic presidential nominee.
More than 80 new members joined ONE at the event - and I could see ONE shirts throughout the crowd of thousands, including among those seated on stage with Senator Obama.
January 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
Yesterday and today McCain talked about ONE during town halls in Michigan. The one on Saturday was live on C-Span, today’s was live on CNN. Watch the clips below.
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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.
A few of us were able to attend a rally with Bill Clinton on Monday. Angela Tomasello and Matt Higginson joined me for the event with our ONE signs and T-shirts.
