Just wanted to highlight a comment that ONE member Valentina Benson just left on my post about Idol featuring ONE tomorrow night.
Below her comments, also find a new photo of Bono from his recent trip Tanzania. Footage from the trip will air on Idol Gives Back on Wednesday night.
Valentina Benson Says:
WOW, this is going to be amazing! SOOO excited that Bono is able to touch the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on this issue. Think of all the young people who will give to this cause throughout thier lifetimes because of this…I got to ask hime a personal question after his speech in Philly on 10/21/05 and I think of his response daily. I asked, “How can I teach my students (5th grade) about the issues in Africa,’ Bono replied, “Make it an adventure, NOT a burden.” Well AMERICAN IDOL GIVES BACK is definitely an adventure.
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[photo caption: Caption is: Bono, U2 lead singer and co-founder of The ONE Campaign and Product (RED), in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with Eusebia Chilipwele, a former nurse and grandmother who now volunteers full-time providing home-based care to adults and orphans living with HIV/AIDS. Eusebia lost three of her own children to AIDS and now looks after 7 family members, in addition to her work in the community. The health care facility with which Eusebia works, PASADA, is funded in part by America, via contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and PEPFAR.]
On Wednesday night, American Idol is going to feature ONE on their special “Idol Gives Back” episode.
Last year we gained 100,000 new members after Idol Gives Back aired, and this is going to be another incredibly important moment to place the fight against extreme poverty in the living rooms of more than 25 million Americans.
The episode will air at 7:30/6:30c and I’ll be watching and live blogging (in case you don’t have a TV, miss it or just like to read our blog;)
Stay tuned for more updates as the air date draws closer. Until then, an exclusive sneak peak for loyal ONE Blog fans of our co-founder Bono’s recent trip to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he met 14-year-old Deloy. Footage from the trip will air on Idol Gives Back on Wednesday.
[Photo caption: ONE co-founder Bono meets with Deloy, a 14-year-old boy living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania who lost both of his parents to HIV/AIDS. Deloy, shared with Bono his "memory box," a small cardboard box decorated in wrapping paper in which he keeps mementos from his mother and father. Deloy receives help from a wonderful health care facility in Dar es Salaam called PASADA, which is funded in part by America via contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and PEPFAR.]
I’m guessing a very large majority of the 1.4 million people getting AIDS treatment, the 3.3 million treated for TB, the 46 million people who have received mosquito nets paid for by the Global Fund, have no idea something called the Global Fund exists.
I’ve been visiting Tanzania this week, and the Global Fund wasn’t very visible, except when President Bush mentioned it. Does that matter?
After all, the Global Fund is just a way to collect the best proposals from countries, choose the best ones based on good science and medicine, and then monitor success. They have no offices in any of the 136 countries where they fund programs.
So if your relatives are getting mosquito nets, it probably doesn’t matter to you. Like most people, John Moses Nyahenge, a computer science student I spoke with in Dar es Salaam, said AIDS and malaria were two of the biggest challenges in Tanzania, that the U.S. is helping, and that he hadn’t heard of the Global Fund.
“They know it’s the US that saved their lives,” said Pam White, who runs the U.S. Agency for International Development in Tanzania, said about Zanzibar island. That’s true. In addition to the presidential initiatives on AIDS and malaria, the US is the largest contributor to the Global Fund (though France and Sweden and dozens of other countries, plus companies, foundations and (RED) buyers do too).
I do some work for the Global Fund, and I’ve met a lot of the staff. They’re fairly normal people, putting in long hours in an office across the highway from an airport. The good they help people do is pretty remarkable – more than 2 million people are alive today who wouldn’t be.
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On Wednesday night, American Idol is going to feature ONE on their special “Idol Gives Back” episode. 
