If you’re at Senator Obama’s acceptance speech or watching it from home, keep your eyes peeled for one of us sitting up front during the speech. Megan Kline, long time ONE member, has been selected out of the 70,000 people in attendance to sit in the “donut” in front of the podium. They’re moving people around but as of the last report, she’s sitting in the front row.
And like any proud ONE member, she’s wearing her ONE shirt!
So, keep an eye out for her and post a comment here if you see her.
Thanks Megan for making sure ONE is seen and thanks to all ONE members for making sure our issues are heard by so many in Washington and across the country.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended the National Democratic Institute’s global poverty panel at the DNCC. It was moderated by Gayle Smith, who’s a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
The speakers were:
Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and NDI chairman Ben Affleck, actor, director, and advocate Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development John J. Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Account Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader and Co-Chair of ONE Vote ’08 Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, vice president of the Africa Region of the World Bank Donald Payne, U.S. representative Tim Wirth, former U.S. senator, and CEO of the United Nations Foundation James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.
Josh Lozman of our policy staff is going to be sending in a post about the panel a little later.
I also took a small camera with me and shot some simple video, so I’ll post a couple clips here to give you a sense of what it was like to be in the room. The 1st is of Senator Tom Daschle answering a question about his recent trip with ONE through Rwanda.
This second one is of Ben Affleck talking about his new perspective after having visited Africa- and what he thinks that new perspective means for how we should message effectively. After, President of the Center for Global Development Nancy Birdsall talks about the incredible progress we’ve seen.
Last week a mix of water and sanitation experts gathered for World Water Weekin Stockholm, Sweden to mull over the world’s biggest public health crisis. The problem is that not enough people paid attention.
Each year over 2 million deaths could be prevented with improvements related to access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene. To put that in perspective, we have it within our grasp to prevent the equivalent deaths of 10 Asian tsunamis or 1,000 Hurricane Katrinas. Yet a major effort—like those that have been launched to address HIV/AIDS and malaria—to tackle the global drinking water and sanitation crisis remains elusive. The scope of this disconnect is baffling; water- and sanitation-related diseases (like relatively-easy-to-prevent diarrhea) kill more children each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.
One reason why there hasn’t been a Herculean effort to address this global scourge is that we in the water and sanitation sector are not doing enough to influence how this issue is understood by others. We have not been proactive or coordinated enough to frame the issue to the media and the wider development community in an action-oriented “this-can-be-done” tone.
This Monday the 25th, volunteer Dan Donmoyer and I continued our August “crunch” to meet with our respective Congressman and Senators while they are in recess. Many members use the August congressional recess to host town halls and forums in their communities – so check out their websites for a schedule to meet up with yours. If you can go, wear a ONE T-shirt and use your voice for the world’s poorest people. These events are free and open to the public so it is a great opportunity to let your representatives in Congress know that you care about fighting extreme poverty and global disease.
Our third town hall meeting of this August’s recess was with Senator Arlen Specter. About 40-50 of his constituents came and spoke directly with the Senator about issues that are important to them.
During the meeting volunteer Dan Donmoyer made sure to thank Senator Specter for his support of the AIDS, TB and Malaria funding bill PEPFAR and asked him to do everything in his power to ensure that Congress exercises its oversight responsibilities with respect to PEPFAR, thoroughly and regularly. Senator Specter agreed that PEPFAR will “save millions of lives” and that he felt we as a country need a re-evaluation of these priorities which he said he would commit to if he becomes Chairman of Appropriations in 2010. According to Specter this process has never taken place over the course of his 28 year tenure.
All in all, this was a great experience and fantastic exposure for ONE as the meeting is being aired on PCN television.
On a recent Saturday night at the Echo in Los Angeles, Par Avion Band played in conjunction with a fashion show to help promote awareness of ONE’s ongoing campaign to fight poverty and preventable disease.
The fashion show, held by Beckie Lynn Productions, featured a number of upcoming Los Angeles models showcasing the work of local designers, and was hosted by Scarlett Cassanova, of L.A. club Hang the DJs.
The objective of the combined fashion /music event was to increase awareness of the ONE Campaign among L.A.’s immense audience of music enthusiasts. Paul Avion wore the ONE shirt on stage, and interested music-lovers from the Los Angeles area signed up to receive more information on ONE. The ONE portion of the event was coordinated by ONE’s SoCal Field Organizer Betsy Avila and ONE volunteers Nare Ovespian and Kyle McNeal.
Due to the success of the event, more fashion-music events in L.A. are in the works for fall!
Tonight at the DNCC the RIAA is hosting an event to celebrate ONE.
Kanye West will be playing and we’re expecting some very famous and influential people to attend.
ONE has been seeing a lot of national press because of the party and we’re hoping the event will help bring the issue of global poverty to the forefront of this convention.
A little over a week ago, I went with a team of ONE volunteers and ONE staff member Brian Sweeney to meet with Congressman Tim Holden. He was very receptive and graciously listened as we introduce ourselves, talked about our passion for fighting for the world’s poorest people, and talked about ONE’s work in the presidential election. During the meeting, we made sure to thank him for his support of PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief).
At the end, Congressman Holden signed the ONE Declaration and expressed an interest in becoming a PA ONE Honorary Ambassador. All in all, it was a very encouraging meeting.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
