Before leaving for Sundance, our US Branding & Member Engagement Manager Maura Daley took a moment to record this sweet message for ya’ll. She explains what ONE will be doing at Sundance and reminds ONE members to follow on the blog over the weekend. Her excitement is infectious, and we can’t wait to hear all about her adventures!
Follow Maura on Twitter at @Maura_at_ONE and say hello using #sundance.
Several ONE members had the great pleasure of attending Senator Chris Coons’ first “Opportunity: Africa Conference” at the University of Delaware, Wilmington campus yesterday. The afternoon began with remarks from the Senator, including a thank you to ONE for our calls and letters. They do make a difference!
ONE members were active during New Hampshire’s First In The Nation Primary educating candidates and voters on the importance of life-saving programs. ONE Vote Organizer Thomas Leary reports.
The ONE T-shirt had been a common sight on the campaign trail throughout 2011. As the excitement moved on from Iowa to New Hampshire, the candidates kicked it up a notch in the Granite State. Most of the presidential hopefuls were hosting multiple events across the state every day leading up to the primary. ONE members were right there with them every step of the way!
While the days started early and the nights ran long, ONE members only had to think about why we do what we do to find the energy to continue. Knowing that one of the candidates visiting historic theaters or high school gymnasiums could become the next president of the United States meant that we wanted to ensure support for solutions that save millions of lives, create a safe and more stable world and uphold a proud American legacy, all for less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
Last night, close friends and partners gathered to show some love to activist Janessa Goldbeck during the Cycle for Security San Francisco Launch Party. Headlining the event was Lt. Col Paul Clarke (USAF-Ret.), a Truman National Security Project Fellow, who spoke in detail about how proposed cuts to international development assistance would negatively impact a strong national security strategy.
New year’s resolutions are always about finding ways to change our own lives for the better — quitting smoking, eating less fatty foods, working out more… you know how it goes. But what about using our resolutions to improve the lives of the world’s poorest? Or using them to make a positive impact on our own communities? Perhaps thinking beyond ourselves this year will give us more of an incentive to keep our resolutions!
ONE Members stuff folders with the Fix this Budget petitions
Please welcome Kelsey Finnegan to the ONE Blog. She is the winner of our ONE Act a Week blog post contest on advocacy and the holidays. In this piece, she writes about her perception of Africa before and after her time in Ghana.
Sometimes I wonder what life would’ve been like if I’d never gone to Africa. I would have probably existed in a world that was simpler, where my thoughts didn’t reach beyond the boundaries of my university, where things were the way they were just because that was the way things were. We have all seen the sad ads with fly-bitten children’s faces flickering across the television screen. In those portrayals of Africa, it made the continent seem like a dark and curiously lost place, hopeless and wild.
I began my work in Africa at 19, as a volunteer teacher for two months in Ghana. I came across Happy Kids Orphanage, a beautiful but struggling place where the children slept on urine-covered cement floors and never experienced the luxury of a full meal. I saw it as a place that could be receptive to change, and in the years since, we’ve been able to build a dormitory, two classrooms and start a nutritional food program. In my favorite project, I partnered with a fair-trade company, Della, to start the Happy Kids Sewing Program.
Surrounded by red AIDS ribbons projected on the nearby university center, old municipal building and historic Statler Hilton, local businesses, community groups and residents gathered in downtown Dallas’ Main Street Gardens on Thursday evening, December 1, to observe World AIDS Day 2011 and to commemorate 30 years of fighting against the spread of HIV/AIDS. In support of the United Nations’ “getting to zero” campaign, event organizers brought that fight to the local level with the message, “Whether or not you are infected, we are all affected by HIV/AIDS.”
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
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