February 15th, 2008 at 11:52 am | posted by Natalie.Sugira
President Bush has less than a year left for in his presidency. He might be thinking: so much to do in so little time! Nevertheless, the president is spending some of this precious time, seven days to be specific, visiting African nations including my homeland, Rwanda. I am sure there are many reasons why the president is visiting the motherland; but likely one of the reasons is to shine the spotlight even brighter on the president’s commitment to fight AIDS. His Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has laid the foundation for our next president, but there is still much work to do. In his last State of the Union, President Bush called on Congress to continue fighting AIDS by funding PEPFAR. I hope all the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, will continue to fulfill these commitments.
Before casting my first American vote during the Iowa caucuses, I had an opportunity to share with most of the presidential candidates, including the ones who are still in the race, about the reality of growing up in poverty and what it is like to lose a friend to AIDS. In fact, all the candidates who are still in the race told me in person that the fight against poverty and HIV/AIDS would be part of their agenda. They have spoken about this on the campaign trail across the country, speaking to all Americans, one by one, young and old, about a bright future. In November, I will be casting my first vote in a national election. If nothing else, I want to know how our next president will continue the American legacy of coming to the aide of the most vulnerable. How will he or she honor his or her word to fight against poverty and AIDS?
Iowa State University’s ONE chapter started their campus Political Action Week strong and finished even stronger. On Monday, ONE’s outreach specialist Natalie Sugira spoke to students about her life experiences growing up in Rwanda. On Friday, ONE student members got a taste of activism when Senator Barack Obama held a rally on Central Campus. Twenty plus students wore their ONE T-shirts and attended the event to represent the billion who live on less than a dollar a day.
During the speech, Obama talked about America’s commitment to solving the problems in Darfur and the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Immediately after the speech student volunteers Nora Tobin, Ruth Powell, and Brittany DuBois worked their way through the swarm of students and approached Senator Barack Obama about wearing a ONE band. Not only did he put on a ONE band but they also managed to snap some great photos. Senator Barack Obama proceeded to keep the band on while he shook literally hundreds of hands.
Natalie Sugira, ONE’s Iowa Outreach Coordinator, helped kick off Iowa State University’s political action week by talking to students about her life experiences and the power of civic engagement.
Held on Iowa State University’s central campus, students were invited to stop by for an affordable lunch, political discussion, and to hear various speakers discuss issues important to modern society. ONE staff and many student volunteers set up a table and talked with students as they were getting out of class. While Natalie spoke, ONE members walked around with clipboards and ONE bands signing up people in the audience. The next day there was a great article about Political Action Week in the Iowa State Daily featuring quotes from Natalie’s speech as well as a great photo of ONE members. Check out the story here.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:45 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
Presidential candidate Senator John McCain invited Natalie Sugira and a crew from the Iowa ONE Vote ‘08 field team on stage at a recent stop in Waterloo, Iowa.
On Tuesday, ONE staff and volunteers attended a presidential candidate educational forum at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
At the forum, Senator Brownback talked about his vision for improving education so that America can compete in the world’s market. He acknowledged the work ONE is doing in promoting the Education For All Act and fighting global poverty.
He looked in the center of the room where we were sitting and he said “there are organizations out there that are leading the way to get us where we should be, and ONE is definitely an organization that I am proud to support.”
After the event, Senator Brownback walked towards us, shook hands and thanked me for the work ONE is doing. Before posing for the picture, he asked where I was originally from. I told him that I was born and raised in Rwanda, and he continued saying that he visited Rwanda and Congo this year and saw with his own eyes the work that needs to be done.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:18 am | posted by Virginia Simmons
We’re back.
Susan McCue, John Ryan, Weldon Kennedy, Aaron Banks, Annisa Wanat and I are back from YearlyKos, the progressive netroot’s yearly conference.
Our mission: to make ONE a presence.
The fact: People kept telling me, “it seems like ONE is everywhere.”
Throughout the weekend
*We hosted a global poverty panel;
*Distributed ONE bands and shirts to each of the 2,000 attendees;
*Held a demonstration outside (expect a post from annisa on it);
*Attended five democratic presidential candidate caucuses (Obama, Edwards, Clinton, Richardson and Dodd); and
*In the process of building a crowd for our panel and talking about global poverty issues at other panels, and in the hallways in between, we did our best to get the word out to every one we saw.
Our panelists
*Susan McCue (ONE’s President);
*Christina Siun (blogger at FireDogLake);
*David Beckmann (Bread for the Word’s President);
*Natalie Sugira (native Rwandan and ONE ambassador); and
*Gene Sperling (Center for Universal Education Director and Global Campaign for Education U.S. Chair)
were remarkable. If you get a chance to see them speak, do.
You can view the first 12 minutes of the panel on this ustream video, and you can check out Matthew Yglesias’ live blog post, from the event.
(Important comment to conservative bloggers: build a conference and ONE will be there!)
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, volunteers, members and coalition partners.
The content of each post and each comment represent the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the ONE Campaign or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any posts expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
Iowa State University’s ONE chapter started their campus Political Action Week strong and finished even stronger. On Monday, ONE’s outreach specialist Natalie Sugira spoke to students about her life experiences growing up in Rwanda. On Friday, ONE student members got a taste of activism when Senator Barack Obama held a rally on Central Campus. Twenty plus students wore their ONE T-shirts and attended the event to represent the billion who live on less than a dollar a day.
We’re back.
Our panelists
