A Class Act

Some of you may remember the posts earlier this year describing the work of teacher Matt Cone at Rock Bridge High School. Well, Matt continues to do amazing work with his students and this week the seniors in his Contemporary Issues class had the unique experience of talking with the First Lady via video conference.

Many of the questions posed dealt with the President and Mrs. Bush’s recent trip to Africa, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the work that ONE and other NGOs are doing to help the world’s poor. As if talking to the First Lady was not cool enough, the students wore ONE shirts to emphasize their commitment to ending global poverty and disease.

Check out some of the student comments about the experience after the jump.

-Katie Andrews, Field Organizer (KS, OH, MI, MO, WV)

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Going Going Ghana

(Martin Edlund of Malaria No More joined President Bush’s on the Ghana portion of the president’s trip to Africa.)

It was a day of firsts for me. My first time meeting a sitting president. My first time racing through streets in a presidential motorcade. My first time seeing malaria education set to music.

President and Mrs. Bush made malaria a big focus of their stop in Ghana, where they were joined by American Idol Winner Jordin Sparks and Malaria No More. Sparks opened a noontime event at the U.S. Embassy with a Super Bowl-sized rendition of the national anthem that made the speakers whimper and moved patriotic listeners to tears.

President Bush took the mic to praise American Idol for raising $17 million for malaria during last year’s Idol Gives Back charity special and share some exciting news:

This spring, Fox and American Idol will once again appeal to viewers to help defeat malaria. On April 9th, the show will raise money to fight malaria in Africa and support other worthy causes in the second round of “Idol Gives Back.” Laura and I hope, and Jordin hopes, that America’s generosity will still pour forth, and we ask our fellow citizens to contribute to this worthy cause. (Applause.)

(Read the full transcript here, including the President’s shout out to Malaria No More.)

It was a short event – half hour all told - but plenty long for us to sweat through our suits in the soupy afternoon heat. “This reminds me of what it’s like to campaign in Texas in August,” quipped a glistening Commander in Chief. Still, he took the time to press the flesh with the hodge-podge audience of scruffy PeaceCorps volunteers, Ghanaian women in traditional dress, and Idol-loving tweens.

Lunch was served on the Embassy lawn flanked by mini-golf versions of the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument while the bar offered bottles of Schweppes tonic in a subtle (okay, probably unintended) homage to the days when the quinine in tonic was used to ward off malaria.

From there, we raced off to Maamobi Polyclinic on the outskirts of Accra where Jordin and Mrs. Bush were greeted by a traditional durbar—a Ghanaian community gathering complete with song, dance, and umbrella-wielding day-glo chiefs.

Jordin and Mrs. Bush did a bed net demonstration and kids sang a malaria song withwith mosquito-wing choreography. It’s what happens when well-intentioned public health professionals try their hand at pop song. Sample lyrics:

From home to home
From school to school
Children are saying
Give us treated bednets
To keep us protected
But if malaria attacks
For lack of protection
Give us early treatment
To save our lives

Somewhere Simon Cowell is scowling fiercely. For my part, I’ll stick with Jordin’s single “Tattoo” which I’m rocking on my (Product)Red iPod as I write this.

-Martin Edlund, Malaria No More

Taylor Reports from Kigali, Rwanda

This morning in Kigali, Rwanda, I attended two events: first, a roundtable discussion on education with First Lady Laura Bush, First Lady Jeannette Kagame and a group of Rwandan schoolgirls and second, a press conference with President Bush and President Kagame.
 
The schoolgirls at the roundtable were very nervous, but they each stood up and told Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Kagame their stories. Their ages ranged from 16 to 18 and they all came from families who could not afford to pay for their schooling. Each girl was a beneficiary of the African Education Initiative - in other words, your tax dollars and mine put these girls in school. And that was an amazing thing to see.
 
Education for girls in poor countries means that they are much more likely to earn decent wages as adults and much less likely to become infected with HIV. Mrs. Bush asked them if they all knew how to prevent AIDS: they all said they did.
 
One other thing that surprised me: more than half of the girls were heading to universities to study physics or chemisty.
 
The press conference with President Bush and President Kagame focused on Rwanda’s impressive economic growth since the terrible genocide here that ended in 1994. Rwanda is a country with little corruption and big plans to become a technology leader in Africa. Even though they grow amazing vegetables and fruits here, Rwandans know that their land-locked country must find an industry other than agriculture if their people are to work their way out of poverty.
 
Now I am back in the White House press corps filing center. It’s funny to listen to the TV and radio reporters filing their stories. Surely they have seen many interesting things on this trip so far - but all of them are talking about the bed net factory they visited yesterday. They are amazed that children die from malaria transmitted by mosquito bites, that something as simple as an insecticide treated bed net can save lives…and that the United States is not only saving lives by buying these bednets for families - we are also providing jobs to the workers in the factory and better lives for their families as well.

-Taylor Royle

President and First Lady Heading to Africa

We’ve gotten word that President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush will be traveling to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia on a trip to Africa from February 15 - 21. As a ONE member, I’m always encouraged when those leading U.S. foreign policy are able to see how that policy is playing out on the ground.

When the trip starts, I’ll do my best to pass along whatever we hear is happening each day, and our policy folks will help fill in some background information on some of the programs and countries that the president and first lady will be visiting.

-Virginia Simmons

Talking AIDS and Malaria Funding with the Bushes

During an interview aired on Saturday night, FOX News’ Bret Baier asks the Bushes about the administration’s $30 Billion package for AIDS and malaria programs in Africa.

The short conversation that ensues is about halfway through the clip below. (You’ll need Windows Media Player to watch it and it may take a minute to load.)

I also transcribed some excerpts from both Laura and George Bush.

First Lady Laura Bush:

“Economies depend on a … workforce, people who are in good health. If your workforce [is] sick with malaria half the time it’s very difficult. Or sick with AIDS. So… making people healthy is really helpful also for those African economies that are trying to build a better life for the people in their countries.”

President George W. Bush:

“I think government has a responsibility to protect the American people. It’s just part of an overall strategy to protect us. And the United States has to make up its mind - if it’s going to confront the conditions that cause radicalism and protect ourselves, or retreat and withdrawl and say, ‘well you know it costs too much money, therefor we’re not going to try to help others.’”

-Virginia Simmons

Laura Bush on AIDS, Malaria

First Lady Laura Bush talked about PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative on the Chris Wallace show on Sunday. Watch the clip here. (Note, it may take a few minutes for the full video to load.)

From the interview:

Laura Bush: But many of the policies that I’ve had the chance to visit, like the PEPFAR, the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, or the president’s malaria initiative in Africa, are policies that really came from him, I mean, that he felt like the United States could be effective by making sure a whole lot of people in Africa had the chance to get on antiretrovirals and literally save lives.

And my daughter Barbara was in Kenya and Rwanda this week. She went with the World Food Program. And I visited some World Food Program sites and PEPFAR sites.

And she said that when she was introduced, this made her weep. People would say your dad saved my life, because they’re very aware they’re getting antiretrovirals because of the president’s emergency plan which, of course, is funded by the American people, by the American taxpayer.

Chris Wallace: Nancy Reagan once told me that during her husband’s second term, she felt freer to go out to talk about public policy and her views on them, and you seem to be doing the same thing. Why is that?

Laura Bush: Well, I don’t know that it’s — I mean, I think I felt perfectly free during the first term as well to talk about whatever I was interested in. But I also think it took me a while to realize what a platform I had.

You can read the full transcript here.

First Lady: Banded

Yesterday, I was able to band the First Lady and ask her a question about her recent trip to Africa!

At a National Press Club luncheon, Mrs. Bush spoke about her tour through Senegal, Mozambique, Zambia and Mali and the importance of foreign aid initiatives.

The question I submitted, asking what most impressed the First Lady during her trip, was the first asked during the question and answer session. Her reply is below.

MRS. BUSH: Well, I think it was hearing the “Lazarus effect,” I mean, these stories of people who were literally dying and then once they were on antiretrovirals they came back to life. But certainly one of the most moving parts is the work that so many groups are doing on ground in Africa. Bruce’s group, the RAPIDS Consortium, have a donor who has given 23,000 bicycles to Zambia, so that the care-givers that we met can literally go door to door in their neighborhoods and find out who needs help.

One of the reasons PEPFAR and these other programs are effective is because we’re working with people who are already on the ground and who can go door to door. And to hear the stories of these care-givers was really very, very inspiring.

Read the full transcript from the First Lady’s remarks here.

-Sarah Crouthers