Speaking With ONE Voice
March 28th, 2008 at 10:42 am | posted by annisa.wanatOver the last year, I have been traveling throughout the Midwest, holding training sessions for ONE volunteers. From Minneapolis, MN, to Bloomington, IN, dedicated ONE members came together in large and small groups to learn how to speak with ONE voice and bring the fight against extreme poverty and global disease to their communities.
After all these trainings, I thought I would share the materials that the other field organizers and I developed for these trainings with everyone interested in raising awareness on global poverty.
Download this document to learn about ONE, the issues and learn what books you can read to get more information.
Then look at this document for ideas on bringing the fight to your community, ONE volunteer guidelines, ways to engage your elected officials and the media on behalf of the world’s poor, and much, much more!
(Pictured - Indiana University students practice tabling for ONE.)
-Annisa Wanat
March 28th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Is there an event scheduled for Indianapolis, IN in April? I would like to register for the event.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
You know, the answer is really simple, and it doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to figure it out. I work with Homeless Veterans, I understand because I too am a Veteran (22 yrs Army/Navy and Air Force) the answer is simple, and I’m not a selfish individual in this matter and I don’t seek any glory or any accolades for this, and I thought that maybe..just maybe when one of you “Geniuses” that has a Masters or a doctorates figure this out, maybe it might become a reality, or maybe if one of you celebrities who happen to have money hear this maybe one of you might want to try it instead of sitting in front of TV Camera and talking about it.
This is a process that is going to have to start out slow, if I was in a position to where I could do something like this I would start out with five people, you take 5 homeless individuals, You put them into a house, now the stipulation would be is that these individuals want to get out of that predicament, and contrary to popular belief, it is extremely hard, mainly because having been there myself I know it and it’s a revolving door.
Meaning the shelters do what they can, but they are understaffed, and have very little money to operate with, and have to rely on donations which at times are very slim, so therefore, the first thing that must happen is
1. you take 5 people that really want to get out of that predicament. and you put them into either a donated house or have them fix up an abandoned house, one or the other, you get a little seed money from somewhere (Where exactly I don’t really know)
2. Now the next thing is that you is that you find someone (assuming that you don’t want to have to be there 24/7) you find someone that is a little down on their luck, meaning they are having a hard time finding a Job…preferably a Veteran, someone who has worked with the VA and has a heart would be ideal!!! and you put him/her in charge of the house. his function would be to lay down the rules as well as look after all the administrative work there.
3. The next thing after that would be to lease a Van, the driver should come from one of those five people that are going to be there, being a driver will be his/her full time job, he/her will be on call 24/7 their major function would be to take the other four to Job interviews, Doctors appointments, to work…whatever that would be his/her function.
4. Now one of the major problems (having expericenced it first hand I might say) why Homeless people who really want to get out of that predicament have problems getting out is because they don’t have an address and phone number or e-mail and they don’t have a place to shave, shower and wear new clothes to an interview. they just live day to day.
5. What you want to do is to make them job ready first, in order to do that they have to or at least their chances of getting a decent job would be better if they had steady employment for at least two years, Now out of the remaining four, because out of five one already is a driver. someone could be taught to handle the maintainence around the house, (Heating, Cooling, fixing up here and there) that sort of thing.
6. Where could they get the training for this, there’s this thing called the Workforce investment act, that could do for starters, the whole concept in short is this, to provide these people with training as well as getting them job ready within a period of two years, in some cases it might take a little longer, but you don’t want to take too long!!!
to conclude, I have the whole concept written down and if anyone cares to act on it, I would be happy to share it with them, it would also for any of you Celebrity types be a thing to lobby congress for as well, I have it all planned, and if people actually acted on it…It could very well work!!!
Sincerely
Larry Ingram
Veteran Work Study Student
March 30th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
ok….
Thank you Anissa, for these materials, they are very helpful, and I especially like the reading list you provided. Have you passed them along to other field organizers (here on the West Coast)?
March 30th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Thanks Anissa for the updated materials. Is there a possibility of getting them in Word format?
Debra - an older version of these is in the files section of the SF yahoo group.
Thank you,
Lori Saltveit
ONE Volunteer Bay Area California