“How do you maintain hope?” a cocksure voice crowed, deep from within the crowd of more than 200 people.

Needless to say, this guy’s question made for an awkward beginning to what was meant to be an informal question-and-answer segment after the hour-long speaker portion of our STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY program.

We were expecting something more along the lines of, “How do I sign up to be a volunteer?” Or “Will we really be counted for a Guinness World Record tonight?” Anything specific, we were prepared for. But not “How do you maintain hope?”

The way this guy said it––exasperatedly on the ‘how,’ yet edged with a rueful sincerity in the ‘hope’––confused us event organizers, and the podium sat empty while we all pondered for a moment.

“Is he kidding?” I thought to myself.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure… at least until the muffled chatter slowed and the clanking of china plates ceased, giving way to a pointed silence.

This guy’s not joking.

I don’t think any of us––especially the dozen or so core volunteers who’d spent the better part of two months planning our festive event to mark the UN’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty––expected such a question to arise while the motivational words of our speakers still lingered in the air.

After all, Derreck Kayongo had just briefed us on his life’s journey from Ugandan refugee to CARE USA executive; Fredricka Whitfield reminisced about her childhood in the suburbs of Nairobi in comparison to her current job as CNN news anchor; Emory’s Director of African Studies, Pamela Scully, created vivid analogies out of Cape Town cab rides to shed light on the real reasons behind South Africa’s socio-economic disparity; Melissa Fay Greene delivered a humorous, impactful keynote about the time she traveled to Addis Ababa to pick up her then newly-adopted daughter (an Ethiopian AIDS orphan); and I, Atlanta Leader of ONE: THE CAMPAIGN TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY, talked about “Armchair Activism” and how even the simplest actions we take as ONE really do make a difference.

Weren’t our signup sheets, letters to senators, and micro-credit marketplace goods scattered throughout the venue proof enough that hope is being maintained tonight?

Those of us behind the podium looked at each other.

“Should I get up there and say something funny?” I wondered to myself, as I stared at the still-empty podium. “If only I had a copy of my favorite ‘hope’ speech of all time (Jesse Jackson’s oft-mocked but undeniably powerful, ‘Keep Hope Alive,’ delivered at the 1988 Democratic Convention here in Atlanta), I could whip it out and really do some rousing,” I fantasized.

But it was too late.

The hope question zapped our heretofore-momentous mood with laser-like precision. And as the seconds passed, one by one, so markedly we could almost hear them tick-tock, everyone came to the same realization:

This guy has a point.

How do you maintain hope when the overwhelming statistics 99X’s Matt Jones read earlier (in his perfect radio voice) are so staggering?

28,000 children under the age of five in the developing world dying EVERY DAY from poverty and preventable disease?

How can so much of the world languish under––née, perish from––such extreme poverty, while we drink our Merlots and Rieslings here in the Mason Murer Gallery, as city lights twinkle through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows?

We couldn’t stall any longer. This guy deserved an answer.

So, how do you maintain hope?

Melissa Fay Greene stepped back up to the microphone.

Matter-of-factly, she launched comfortably into an unprepared reply to this guy’s question. It was moving and factual, reminiscent of a great piece she’d written for the New York Times Magazine a few years back. Something about a mother who’d lost a child to AIDS, yet decided to take in orphans, and knew of other women who’d done the same. And there could never be too many orphans, as long as there was hope. Or something to that effect.

For all of Greene’s eloquence and professionalism, the details of her answer escaped me. Her words quickly melted into the kind of nonsensical, nasal “wah-wahs” and “Yip-yips” made famous by Charlie Brown’s teacher and Sesame Street Muppets, respectively.

It wasn’t her fault I was zoning. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t eaten a complete meal in 24 hours (no, I hadn’t joined the political fast; I’d been too busy setting up tables and chairs and candles for the event to make time for food). Or maybe I was selfishly enjoying the brief cognitive paralysis that occurs when someone grants you an unexpected reprieve from public speaking.

All I could do was focus on the crowd.

Like a less contrived, updated version of Norman Rockwell’s famous painting, Do Unto Others, the colorful group could hardly be more diverse: jean-clad high school students, sleek young professionals, white-haired Buckhead benefactor types with expensive handbags, Consul Generals, local press, stay-at-home-moms, lawyers, ONE and CARE volunteers in their T-shirts, and a large contingent of beautiful African Atlantans. And all were staring, with intense eyes focused on the podium, waiting for the clincher.

How do you maintain hope?

Greene’s rebuttal wasn’t short and sweet, but effective nonetheless.

I wish I could remember her exact quotes, yet, quite frankly, I don’t even know if it would matter. Isn’t any example about maintaining hope valid? Isn’t hope, like love, one of the universal concepts to which all humans can relate?

Greene hadn’t so much rescued us from this guy’s question as delivered us back to the original purpose for the evening: to STAND UP and celebrate the hope that we have for the eradication of poverty in our lifetimes.

Hope isn’t just about changing the numbers or statistics. It’s about knowing there’s work to be done and hopeful people to do it. There are human lives to save and hopeful medicines to save them. There are girls and women to educate and hopeful schools to build for them. And so on.

So, to Melissa Fay Greene––and everyone at the gallery–––I say, “thank you.”

And, to this guy with the hope question:

Thanks for coming. And thanks for asking, because if we can’t answer a simple question about hope, then where are we? Who are we?

As The Lost Boys of Sudan segued us from the Q&A into their set of optimistic Afropop, I realized this guy’s question about hope was the best part of our whole STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY event. It made each of us realize that we weren’t here for the donated whole smoked salmon or the dark chocolate truffles or even the great music.

We gathered at this place on this evening because of hope.

We can accomplish many things as ONE, but the most important thing we can do is always––always––maintain hope.

By Kristi York Wooten, ONE Atlanta October 17, 2007

The night began with a welcome by the event organizers and ONE members Brian Webster and Lori Saltveit. Emmit Powell and The Gospel Elite followed with a half hour of inspirational music and and singing. At 7:00, Joshua Fryvecind from Zoo Station, Sarah Dotlich from local group IDEX that partners with grassroots groups in developing countries and Joel Rubinstein from RESULTS San Francisco Bay Area read the Stand Up pledge that was read by millions around the world. At this point, the crowd stood up with our readers. The evening wrapped up with 45 minutes of U2 music provided by the awesome tribute band Zoo Station.

Kelli met Robert Lewis at the event. Here’s what she had to say about her meeting with him, “I was so inspired by his heart. He visited Cambodia recently and could hardly enjoy himself while there because of the extreme poverty, but he was inspired by a few ONE members he met while there. He read about our Stand Up event in the newspaper and took a bus to SF from his home in San Mateo. He signed the ONE declaration last night, took some information to read at home, and has joined our local ONE volunteer list.”

In addition to a great crowd of supports standing up against global poverty, local news station, KTVU Channel 2 and KCBS AM San Francisco radio covered the event.

See KTVU Evening News Coverage here. (Requires Windows Media Player)

How does one find the words to express what came into fruition in Miami on October 13th? Was it amazing? No, we had the will; we knew we could do it. Was it magical? Well, there certainly was something very thrilling about taking the thread of an idea and weaving it into a reality.

About two months ago a group of ambitious ONEsters met on a weekly basis to plan what became a successful event for the eradication of poverty and the re-emergence of ONE Miami. Different teams worked on various aspects of the event, from advertising to entertainment. One thing that I found particularly striking, was all of the resources we have right here in our community. When you look at how quickly we were able to put this impressive event together, it makes you wonder what more we can do. What are the limits of our capabilities? Imagine if we all pooled our resources together, what positive changes we could make in the world. Do we have the will?

Miami’s Stand Up to Make Poverty History, hosted by ONE Miami in Bayfront Park, was an evening for the community to come together, listen to live music, and hold an open forum to discuss not only what is being done to reduce extreme poverty worldwide, but also to talk about what more we can do to expedite the solution. About 1000-1500 people walked down the Bayfront promenade to come to our event. We gained about 200 new members to the ONE Miami team in probably our most successful gathering to date. We met representatives from local schools who intend to bring the message of the ONE Campaign to their campuses. We were able to develop deeper relationships with our partner organizations.

The highlight of our evening was the creation of a large ONE Human logo followed by the STAND UP declaration where hundreds stood up at once to declare our support for the eradication of poverty. In addition, a very large ONE declaration was rolled along the promenade. It was here that attendees filled it up with messages of hope and conviction in the belief that the ONE goals are attainable. Most importantly, the people of Miami came together to show the world that we have the desire to eliminate poverty. Do we have the will? We certainly do!

Danielle Depas, ONEmiami
www.onecampaignmiami.com

Our partners for the event were Bread for the World, International Partners in Missions, Microfinancing Partners in Africa, ONEworld, and Alliance of Students Against Poverty. As ONE we were proud to stand with tens of millions of people around the world. To hammer home the message to our members of congress, participants wrote letters and made phone calls to support the Jubilee Act. The event was a great way to increase awareness in the St. Louis area and we look forward to being able to increase our outreach efforts through our new members.

Thanks,
Nick Stevens
ONE Regional Outreach Ambassador

We briefly introduced ourselves (since many of us weren’t familiar with one another), then I gave a short presentation on the basics of ONE’s mission. Following the presentation we all stood as one of our members read the Stand Up script. Pictures of the meeting and of us all standing are attached.

I think this meeting served as a great beginning, or resurrection as one member put it, of ONE activity in Kansas City. We will do some brainstorming in the next few weeks and plan to meet again next month and get an awareness event planned in the coming months.

Thanks for all your help and guidance since I joined the leader group! While ten was a good number for our first meeting, we’ve got plenty of room to grow…

-Nicolette King, ONEPrairieVillage, Kansas City, Kansas

Seattle City Club

The Seattle City Club presents forums and events that allow members to interact with Seattle Leadership. This week, four prominent leaders of NGO’s in our region held a luncheon and forum which included a Stand Up of 150 at the event: Peter Blomquist of MercyCorps, Bill Clapp of Global Partnerships, Tim Hanstad of the Rural Development Institute, which is a form of microcredit for land-ownership in highly-indebted poor countries, and Professor Joel Migdal from UW’s Jackson School of International Studies.

With half the world’s population living on less than two dollars a day and more than one billion people living on less than one dollar a day, over the past few years, local civic leaders have developed new initiatives for global development to support sustainable economic development for the world’s poor.

World Vision at the Green Bean

Come evening many of us gathered again, in spite of in climate weather and storm warnings. The Green Bean Coffee House is a fair-trade, street-front, bohemian gathering place which hosts ONE monthly meetings on the north end of Seattle. We met there for an evening of information and action, networking and fair trade coffee, tea, and organic food. It was like a party of many of my dearest activists and heroes and their friends and families. The networking that took place in the room was priceless.

Following the Stand Up, World Vision’s Steve Reynolds shared how one person can make a difference in the large war on poverty. He and his “feeding village”, unwittingly and even without enthusiasm, became a focal point in the call for justice and legislation on behalf of Africa’s poorest people. In early 1984, he and a few other journalists met up with a BBC correspondent and released footage to the world of one of the worst famines in history. That was the report Bob Geldof and his wife observed and which became the reason so many preachers, televangelists, NGO’s, and yes, celebrities were flying in for a few hours for him to tour around. So for him to be notified that not only was an up and coming rock star on the way, but he was bringing his wife, and it was to be done quietly. Moreover, this rock star wanted to stay and work (yeah, right), well, you can imagine.

But stay they did; for a month in the fall of 1985, and on the quiet: no media, not even the benefit of publicity. They worked constantly, on the ground, with children, with shovels, with music and drama, with broken hearted and broken people. In one sound bite a child by his side is constantly coughing. No not croup, not whooping cough, could be TB or pneumonia. The battles for global health we still lobby for today, yet the price tag for attacking this and other pandemics has grown exponentially while our governments and World Bank and the IMF tarry. We can be very grateful for the likes of The Global Fund, the Gates and Clinton Foundations, many of the ONE partners who are working to stop the bleeding, yet our world leaders need to hear from us all.

Action

The presentation was followed by a letter-writing workshop by RESULTS member Dr. Larry Donahue, and I gathered correspondence and plates for Jubilee Drop the Debt, and will deliver the ones turned into me by hand to the congressional and senatorial offices in our region this week, with a thank you note for support of our various legislations. While the week in our region brings matters of extreme poverty and hunger to the front burner, we will bring these items of correspondence and phone calls right to them.

It’s a great week for the ONE campaign and our partners in many of our cities, bringing a diversity of people and NGO’s and issues together, and we here still have a few days to go. I’m proud in events like this seeing our partners networking, exchanging contact cards and information, planning on meeting again. This is priceless. In the war on poverty, nobody wins unless everyone wins . . .

Stay close,

Sammi in Seattle =)

After the assembly, students broke into small groups and met with members of community groups including the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, the ONE Campaign, and World Vision. I was honored to be included as a Break-Out session presenter where I was able to share my experiences with the ONE Campaign, report on our current efforts and on all that has been accomplished with ONE. I was very inspired spending this morning with such high caliber students who are committed to ending extreme poverty.

-Shayne Moore, ONE Member, Wheaton, IL

Throughout the day Wednesday, six amazing students from the Artists of Foreign Policy group visited classes at Columbia College in Chicago to count their colleagues who wanted to take a stand against extreme poverty and global disease.

In the evening, they joined with the ONE Campaign and the Critical Encounters “Poverty and Progress” program at Columbia to hold a public event on the Millennium Development Goals and show the audience how easy it is to get active in the fight. They shared the stage with artists in the area who have written performance pieces on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, genocide, and water shortages, as well as speakers on how unfair debt practices have contributed to the crisis.

After the stand, participants made paper clip versions of themselves to put on a map as a permanent exhibit of those that made the stand. And they took the first steps toward action by linking their names together to form a chain that will accompany a petition to their senator asking him to co-sponsor the Jubilee Act to so that impoverished countries can stop repaying debts and start investing in education, adequate housing and basic health care.

-Annisa Wanat

Paritioners from church and other churches in the area as well as students from Chillicothe Middle School and Zane Trace High school turned out. Jeremy Siberall, who is running for a City council seat was there and he signed the ONE Declaration. Diane Carnes, City Council member, Rep. Party Head and Mayoral Candidate running against Mayor Joe Sulzer was in attendance as well. They were joined by Mary Elsass, Director of United Way of Ross County, as well as Dr. Ellis Frazier of the Ross County AIDS Task Force.

ONE Chillcothe Group leader Christopher Cooper gave this brief account:

I introduced Mary Elsass and Dr. Frazier Josh sang some more and spoke about the Jubilee Act Jennifer and I passed out the one page info sheets on Jubilee and the take action sheets I read the highlights from last year’s STAND UP Dirk Moore, along with 5 others lead the crowd in the STAND UP declaration I introduced ONE Vote ’08 We showed the ONE Vote ’08 video starring Chris Cooper and that Matt Damon and Bono guy, whoever they are : ) LOL Dirk Moore did an acoustic set of Davenporte songs that had everyone on their feet The ceremony was over and ONE Chillicothe musicians continued with an open mic jam session

The crowd was about half White and Black and an equal mix of the religious “affiliated” and “unaffiliated.” Bev said it was beautiful and she’s never seen anything like it among the youth.

All in all, it was another great ONE Chillicothe event. A Christian venue brings in rock bands and gospel groups who cross lines of faith drawn in the sand and do away with the theological sticking points to let the unifying message of ONE bring us all together.

Check out a bunch more photo of the event here.