Check out this post about a great opportunity for all you dodgeball fans out there:

The famous fictional dodgeball mastermind Patches O’Houlihan once said, “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” I wonder if he also knew that if you can dodge a ball, you can save a life?

Actually, you don’t even need to be able to dodge a ball, though it’ll help. All you need to do is gather your friends and register at www.pnock.org to play in the first-ever Pnock-Out Pneumonia Dodgeball Tournament.

This week, the Best Shot Foundation announced the 16 cities that will host dodgeball tournaments from February through April. With the regions spanning from New England to the West Coast, university students everywhere will have the chance to participate. In each region, 32 teams will recruit players, raise donations, and collect signatures for the fight against pneumonia.

Legendary quarterback Steve Young is this year’s League Commissioner. As the face of the tournament, Mr. Young wants to encourage the thousands of pro-active and socially responsible students of America to mobilize their power for the fight against childhood pneumonia. The Pnock-Out Pneumonia Dodgeball Tournament is the first step in giving pneumonia the vital attention boost it needs by involving such an influential portion of the nation’s population.

Pneumonia devastates more than 2 million families each year. This disease takes more young lives than the measles, malaria, and HIV/AIDS combined. In fact, each year it kills more children under the age of five than any other disease. As a developed nation with access to functioning health systems and proper information, we overlook pneumonia. As a result, millions of children in the world’s poorest corners continue to perish unnecessarily.

“Unnecessary” because we have the medicine to save these children for less money than most of us spend on a haircut. The vaccine against the two deadliest strands of pneumonia costs approximately $20, and $8 will diagnose and treat a child suffering from the disease. Potentially, we can save a million children every year from dying of pneumonia. All we need is the leadership, dedication, and collaborative effort to ensure that children and their parents have access to these affordable, safe, and effective solutions.

The Pnock Out Pneumonia Dodgeball Tournament is a chance for young Americans to involve themselves in a growing movement to make childhood pneumonia a global priority. Plus, it’ll be a lot of fun. It’s a dodgeball tournament, after all. Between the infinite opportunities to quote Vince Vaughn and the chance to perfect your hurling technique, there’s really no excuse not to play. So grab your friends and “dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge” your way to saving lives!

You can sign up now at www.pnock.org.

As part of the Living Proof Project, the Gates Foundation produced this amazing video which you may remember seeing during Bill and Melinda Gates’ “Impatient Optimists” presentation.

The video follows Ethiopia native Liya Kebede, the World Health Organization’s Global Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health.

The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating report– part one of a two part series– from on the ground in Sierra Leone. Scott Kraft looks at the country’s flailing public health system and the potential impact it could have on the region. It’s a really interesting, in-depth look at a complex and deteriorating situation.

I also recommend this corresponding photo gallery, which chronicles Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown.

Excerpts from Kraft’s piece below, full article here

West Africa is of particular concern to world health officials. With shortages of medicine, trained doctors, reliable electricity, clean water and such basics as sterilized gloves, countries often lack the means to identify and deal with new disease threats.

“As we turn over more and more rocks in more and more places, we find more passages for disease,” said Dr. Scott Dowell, director of global disease detection at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Most aren’t going to be the next HIV or SARS, but it’s pretty hard to tell which ones will and which ones won’t.”

[...] The country has only two pediatricians, and Thorlie is one of four obstetricians. All work at Princess Christian.

Doctors Without Borders set up clinics in Bo, the second-largest city, during the civil war. Now it’s time to begin pulling out and move to other countries in crisis, but Jan van’t Land, the local director, says he’s worried.

“We’re in a difficult situation,” he said. “If we leave, who would take over? It might create another crisis.”

When Koroma took office in 2007, his wife, Sia, launched a global effort to draw attention to the public health crisis. An oil industry chemist before the war, she started a career in nursing during the couple’s years in London. Her evangelical work has brought some help, but she acknowledges that progress has been slow.

“We are faced with so many problems — illiteracy, poverty, youth unemployment and the need for gender empowerment,” she said. “I’m trying to be an advocate for women and children, because they are the most vulnerable.”

At 5pm EST tonight, ONE’s Next Top T-shirt Challenge will be over. Have you looked at the top 3 designs and voted for your favorite yet? After you vote, we’ll give you a 15% off coupon for the ONE Store. You can use that coupon to order the winning T-shirt (it’ll be available shortly after the voting wraps up) or any of our other great merchandise.

A big thanks to the more than 500 ONE members who submitted designs. Their creativity was inspiring. And to our expert judges, too. They had the near impossible task of whittling the contenders down to three. Check the finalists out now and go vote for ONE’s Next Top T-shirt.

Check out this post from Chandler R. Carriker, Director of Theological Education with Youth (TEY) at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia/Gettysburg:

Last weekend I led The Affirmation of Baptism Festival at the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, PA. This event was a gathering of young people, seminarians, and theologians to worship, study, and reflect on where God is calling us in the world. As a part of Theological Education with Youth, a joint initiative of two Lutheran seminaries, this program looks to the wisdom and gifts of young people in the mission of standing with and advocating for the poor, hungry, and outcast. At Gettysburg Seminary this year we explored what it means “to live among God’s faithful people” as a global community, and how we are called in the faith communities we live in to bring hope to others. Through small group discussion, worship focused around our call to end hunger and poverty, and challenging theological explorations provided by church leaders, we explored what it means to live among all of God’s people in the world.

ONE served as a valuable partner with us to offer glimpses into their mission of advocacy and offering resources for these young leaders to take back to their congregations, including ONE Sabbath materials for worship and education. ONE Member Pastor Dan Donmoyer helped all in attendance understand the importance of acting as ONE through an exercise which utilized the power of scripture as the backbone for advocacy. Through their witness of speaking on behalf of the poor and hungry, we hope to help lift up continuing generations of advocates. ONE Sabbath materials were used for worship, and ONE Sabbath study guides were utilized in small group discussion times. We also were fortunate enough to view portions of the “Living Proof” presentation by Bill and Melinda Gates which truly inspired us!

Jessa Anderson-Reitz is a member of Zion Lutheran in State College, PA. Please click here to hear her share some of her thoughts from our event and how she plans to bring ONE Sabbath back to her congregation. Following our event, Gettysburg Seminarians were invited to the coffee shop on campus for pizza and some conversation about ONE Sabbath and how they can best remain involved in their future ministry.

Chandler R. Carriker, Associate in Ministry, Director of Theological Education with Youth (TEY)
Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia/Gettysburg

Wow. Since we launched ONE’s Next Top T-shirt challenge three weeks ago, more than 500 ONE members have sent us T-shirt design ideas. Their designs moved us, made us laugh and reminded everyone involved with this project that your creativity is a powerful force in the fight against global poverty.

The other judges and I had a tough time narrowing it down to three, but we’ve done it and now it’s time to vote for your favorite T-shirt.

Check out the top three designs and vote for which one should be printed on ONE’s new 100% organic, fair trade T-shirts made in Uganda.

And to say thanks, after you vote we’ll send you a coupon for 15% off from the ONE Store. Here’s a sneak-peek at the finalists:

The winning T-shirt will be available in black and white, and in both men’s and women’s styles in the ONE Store online. We’ll let you know which design took the top honors in an email next week. Make sure to watch for that announcement, because it’s going to include pictures of Connie Britton of Friday Night Lights and the guys from the multi-platinum band Daughtry modeling ONE’s new T-shirt.

But first, you have to decide which T-shirt they are going to wear. Vote now.

ONE got a second visual shout out this week!

Singer/song writer extraordinaire Sara Groves released the second video for her new disc “Fireflies and Songs.” In the video for the song “Twice as Good” Troy Groves appears throughout wearing his ONE Edun shirt.

Sara has long had a heart for Africa, traveling to Rwanda in 2005 and 2009. She sponsored a child from Gisanga, Rwanda through Food for the Hungry. She actively supports the human rights agency International Justice Mission. Both Food for the Hungry and IJM are ONE Partners.

The video for “Twice as Good” comes out of her time in Rwanda as well. Sara relates about the song:

In Rwanda they say, “You better have four good friends,” because the ambulance in Rwanda is a cot carried by four men. So if you get hurt, you better have four friends that are willing to forego a day’s wages and usually help pitch in on your medical costs. I brought back statuettes, which represent that from Rwanda for each of my ‘go-to’ girlfriends. We each have one in our home. Often, one of us will say, “It’s my turn in the cot.” Christa Wells, an amazing singer/songwriter from NC, came up with the line ‘half as hard and twice as good’ and I kind of built the song around that.

Check out the video:

Many thanks to Sara, Troy and the entire band!

P.S. If you want to see and hear more, check out this video for the Sara’s song “I Saw What I Saw” inspired by her time in Rwanda.

Follow Friday is a chance for people on Twitter to recommend other people, organizations, and movements on Twitter. We at @ONECampaign like to take the opportunity to give shout-outs to other partner organizations and people who are making a difference in the fight against extreme poverty.

Here’s today’s round-up:

#FF Investing in mosquito nets in Angola is only one amazing thing @malarianomore is doing. You can read their reports here: http://bit.ly/uk9D

#FF Any soccer fans out there? Sign a virtual football and support the fight against malaria with our friends @UAMalaria: http://bit.ly/bLo5H

#FF A video from @UNICEF highlights undernutrition in Mali. Give it a look: http://bit.ly/2SCY6O

#FF A mission team with @missiondocs arrives to help women in Mali. Read more stories from their work in Africa: http://bit.ly/2iFJ9R

Check out this post—in the lead-up to next week’s World Summit on Food Security—from American Jewish World Service, another entry in our Food Security in Focus series.

Why are so many people hungry? It’s a simple question with complex answers. Hunger is not driven by a lack of food in the world. Global hunger is rooted in a web of political and economic policies that prevent access to food, particularly in developing countries. Hunger is complex because food is political.

As Policy Associate at American Jewish World Service (AJWS)—an international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice—I am exploring ways in which our own U.S. aid, trade, and agriculture policies affect global hunger.

Through grantmaking, service, advocacy and education, AJWS supports grassroots organizations that are achieving food sovereignty in their own communities by developing sustainable solutions to food insecurity. My advocacy from our Washington, DC office responds to the global challenges and the local solutions of AJWS’s grassroots partners.

For example, Kenya—a country of nearly 35 million people—produces less than 50 percent of the food that its population needs to survive. Small-scale growers were long ago forced out of business by cheap subsidized imports from Western nations. Kilili Self-Help Project (KSHP), an AJWS grassroots partner, is working to reduce Kenyans’ dependency on foreign imports by promoting local, sustainable farming that helps communities feed themselves.

To support this work from here in the U.S., AJWS is pushing to fix the aid, trade and agriculture policies that perpetuate challenges faced in Kenya and elsewhere.

Food is a human right, not a privilege. It cannot be traded and treated like any other commodity. Join us in calling on our U.S. leadership to promote this principle during the upcoming World Summit on Food Security on November 16 to 18 in Rome.

Stay tuned to AJWS’s From the Ground Up campaign to learn more, and be sure to take our hunger quiz!

-Amanda Cary, Policy Associate, American Jewish World Service

This week brings an exciting new development for Google enthusiasts and all those interested in fact-based debate and data. According to the Official Google Blog, World Bank public data will now be more readily available and easy to find through the search engine.

Google explains it like this:

With today’s update, you can quickly access more data with a broad range of queries. Search should be intuitive, so we’ve done the work to think through queries where public data will be most relevant to you. To see the new data, try queries like [gdp of indonesia], [life expectancy brazil], [rwanda's population growth], [energy use of iceland], [co2 emissions of iceland] and [gdp growth rate argentina].

So click on “rwanda’s population growth” which I’ve hyperlinked above, and you’ll find an image that brings you here. Here you can cross-check Rwanda’s population growth with, say, Angola’s or Iceland’s. And that’s just a sample of the wealth of information Google has made available through the World Bank. The hope is that this new embedding feature “will help facilitate quick and easy access to public statistics.”

Check it out, and let us know what you think.