Pick up the phone and call your senator NOW

Mar 15th, 2011 11:51 AM UTC
By Malaka Gharib

Almost 125,000 ONE members from across the United States have signed our petition, but now it’s time to get aggressive and take things to the next level: call your senator.

We just launched a big action that we want you to do right now: pick up the phone, call your senator and tell them to say no to budget cuts for the world’s poor. The Senate is currently weighing huge cuts to programs that fight HIV/AIDS, hunger and preventable disease in this year’s budget. These cuts will not solve America’s fiscal crisis, and they will cost lives.

For some of you, this call action may seem intimidating. For others, it may be your first time. But cast those feelings aside — the world’s poorest people are on the line, and remember, they don’t have a voice. You do.

So, why should you call? Because your senators need to know that their constituents care about our poverty-fighting programs. If they don’t hear from you, then they assume that perhaps you don’t really care. Which isn’t true.

Remember, cuts to our budget could kill. There have been proposals to bring down the bill that funds US diplomacy and assistance to poor countries by 17 percent from FY2010 amounts, including a 30 percent cut to development assistance from last year’s amount, a $450 million cut to the Global Fund and a 41 percent cut to humanitarian aid for disaster relief.

Let me translate these figures into human lives for you. If the Global Fund loses its funding, up to 58,286 HIV-positive pregnant women will not receive treatments to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. About 6 million treatments for malaria will not be administered. 372,000 testing and treatments for tuberculosis will be halted. And 414,000 people living with HIV/AIDS will not be provided the antiretroviral medication they need to survive. As you can see, this is truly a matter of life and death.

It’s easy to call your senator. We’ll tell you how to find your senator’s phone number, what to say to the staff member who answers and how to report your call. All you have to say is that you want your senator to oppose efforts to cut funding for key programs that will fight HIV/AIDS, hunger and childhood vaccines in the 2011 budget. If you’re feeling gutsy, you can even move on to additional talking points on vaccines, agriculture and HIV/AIDS.

So, don’t wait. CALL YOUR SENATOR NOW!

Still nervous about making the call? Matthew Bartlett and Steve Wilson from ONE show you how it’s done in this handy YouTube video.

TAGS: FY2011 US budget, ONE