Perhaps no one person in the United States holds more influence in deciding the fate of funding for the International Affairs Budget than 47 year veteran of the United States Congress, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. Senator Inouye is the Chairman of the powerful Committee on Appropriations, which appropriates the funds for all of ONE’s priorities including global health, child survival, basic education, debt relief, etc.

On Tuesday afternoon, on sunny Oahu Island, ONE Members Kimmie Palpallatoc, Linda Birn and Heidi Lum joined forces with ONE Legislative Director, Tom Hart, to meet with Senator Inouye’s District Legislative Assistant, Barbara Sakamoto, to ask that Senator Inouye uphold the Kerry-Lugar Amendment and support a 4 billion dollar increase to the Foreign Operations Bill.

The meeting was a resounding success. All three ONE Members related their stories of how they came to be passionate about fighting extreme global poverty and preventable disease. They talked about the need to do more to alleviate the effects of the current economic crisis on the world’s bottom billion that live on less than one dollar a day, and discussed how it is in America’s national security interest to lift people out of extreme poverty around the world.

Ms. Sakamoto expressed the Senator’s general support and confirmed how important it is for Senator Inouye to hear the voices of local Hawaiians on these important issues.

A big MAHALO to Kimmie, Linda and Heidi for being a voice for the world’s poorest people!

-Christopher Berg, ONE Field Coordinator