Bread for the World

Sorry Jim Lehrer, Bill Moyers has you beat this week. Moyers has produced two great shows on hunger and poverty recently. Both feature ONE partner Bread for the World’s president, Rev. David Beckmann.

The April 4 edition of Bill Moyers Journal highlighted the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the problem of global hunger. And this Friday, April 11, Moyers will spend time looking at the farm bill and the effect U.S. commodity payments have on farmers, women, and children. The current farm bill extension is set to expire on April 18, so the show couldn’t be more timely.

Check your local listings for airdate and times.

Thanks again,

-Jennifer Coulter Stapleton, Bread for the World

I’ve been watching the news coverage of President Bush’s trip to Africa with some interest, as I hope many others have too. A presidential trip always garners much press coverage but this time it has been slightly different and for good reason. There is a lot of good news to report from the countries that the president has visited!

Some of it reflects the progress made partly because of things the president has done during his two terms. President Bush focused more attention on Africa than most expected when he took office and more than any other president in recent memory. His initiatives on HIV/AIDS, malaria and the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account will have a lasting impact on the continent, on the lives of individual Africans. One particular story focused on the progress made against malaria and what an amazing difference bed nets were making in reducing the incidence of the debilitating and sometimes deadly disease. Essentially the story showed that additional resources, targeted properly can transform lives.

The president’s trip has, in my mind, served at least two purposes – it has refocused the country’s attention on these important issues and it has demonstrated that with effort, determination and a relatively small amount of money (the total budget for poverty-focused development assistance in 2008 is $15.4 billion—which is less than one half of one percent of the federal budget, of this just over $4 billion goes to Africa), the lives and futures of millions of poor people can be dramatically improved.

There is still so much to be done to reduce hunger, poverty and disease in Africa and around the world. Nearly a billion people around the world live on less than $1 a day and 854 million are hungry. I hope that the stories coming out of Africa in the last few days help motivate us all and provide the presidential candidates with a sense of what is possible. We can meet the Millennium Development Goals. Leadership matters.

-Asma Lateef

(Asma Lateef is the director of the Bread for the World Institute. She blogs regularly at Bread for the World Institute Notes.)

Are you interested in honing your skills to become a better organizer? Want the opportunity to interact with other like-minded folks from across the country? ONE partner Bread for the World is looking for the best and brightest 18-35 year old advocates to become our “Hunger Justice Leaders.” If this sounds like you, apply today here.

This summer (June 14-17), we’ll kick the program off with a four-day interactive training in Washington, DC. We’ll pay for the trip and the training for those chosen. Bread for the World’s Hunger Justice Leaders will then commit to leading advocacy efforts to overcome hunger and poverty on their own campuses and in their communities.

Watch the promo video here, and then please forward it on to other people you know who might be interested.

We hope to see you in June!

-Jennifer Coulter Stapleton, Bread for the World

About a month ago, we asked you to take action on the farm bill. Thousands of you made phone calls to your senators urging broad reform of the farm bill. Yet, the senate was delayed in taking action. After many false starts, the senate is likely to begin voting on amendments to the farm bill on Tuesday, December 11.

Even if you’ve called before, please take the time to call again. This may be our last chance to impact our senators.

Call your senators today at 1-800-826-3688

Ask them to support the following amendments:

• The Grassley-Dorgan Amendment
• The FRESH Amendment

Background on these amendments here.

Check out this YouTube video about this action alert:

Thanks,
-Holly Hight, Bread for the World

I had the extreme personal honor this month of being invited to a morning with Dr. David Beckmann, the President of Bread for the World. It was unexpected and I was delighted: I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. The big issue up for discussion was the Farm Bill. It’s time to raise awareness and mobilize for real change.

Before we got started, I asked Dr. Beckman’s assistant if I could pass around the ONE petition, and thank the good Lord, before I left I stuffed a fistful of ONE bands in my bag, too. After we circled the room with introductions, I was asked by Dr. Beckmann to please pass ONE bands around the room, and the a sign-up form for ONE. I’m so glad I didn’t have the embarrassment of not having any on me! Well, this is interesting: all but one person in the room was already signed up and getting the action items and emails. That is so cool!

Bread for the World is an original ONE partner. The early ONE volunteers in our regions are indebted to their offices for taking our calls during 2004 and 2005 prior to an interactive yahoo site with groups and regional leadership, training, and toolkits.

I was anticipating a large sanctuary-full of people. Instead, I found myself in a comfortable setting with about one dozen other active members of the anti-poverty movement. The interaction with Dr. Beckmann and among the local activists proved invaluable. The partnership with ONE was commended often for our participation in hunger and extreme poverty and campaigns, such as ONE Vote ’08.

The Farm Bill is anticipated to hit the floor of the Senate later this week or the beginning of next week. We have been encouraged to contact our senators and ask them to support the “FRESH” amendments to the Grassley/Dorgan amendment, that would cap commodity payments to $250,000 per household, and the Lugar/Lautenberg Amendment that broaden the agricultural safety net by making a free revenue insurance program available to all farmers, saving billions of dollars to be used for nutrition, conservation, the McGovern-Dole international school meals program and more.

As noted in a previous blog, we either need to act now or we will have to wait five more years until the Farm Bill is revisited again. This Bill also addresses non-domestic agricultural trade issues, and as we enter the holiday season, we indeed can use our voice on behalf of the extreme hunger, to truly “feed the world, let them know its Christmastime.”

Stay Close,

Sammi in Seattle =)

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!)

David Beckmann of Bread from the World is talking to WMBI live now about his participation on the Aug 4 9:15am global poverty panel at YearlyKos. You can listen live here.