As we continue our campaign to protect critical Canadian international development funding, ONE member Sarah Stone, from Waterloo, Ontario, reports back from meeting her local member of parliament.
As a constituent and on behalf of ONE I had the opportunity recently to meet with Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.
ONE member Sarah Stone and Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament
Mr. Braid had recently returned from a trip to South Sudan as part of his role as the vice chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, the main purpose of which is to discuss trade, aid and strengthen ties with African parliamentarians. During this trip, and on previous trips to Africa, Mr. Braid has seen firsthand the benefits of Canadian foreign aid. We discussed my involvement in the Griot Project, and my recent trip to Washington this past December to participate in #ONErocksDC, a lobby day on Capitol Hill and the White House with ONE.
This blog post is reprinted from the Manila Times with permission from the author. For more information about the enormous burden of rotavirus disease in Asia and the introduction of rotavirus vaccines in the Philippines, check out PATH’s RotaFlash.
DIARRHEA is a leading killer and cause of illness in children in Southeast Asia, and many do not realize that a major cause of childhood diarrhea is a virus called rotavirus. The Philippines will soon become the first country in the region to provide rotavirus vaccines to its most vulnerable children. Rotavirus mainly causes illness in young children living in areas where there is a significant risk of dying from severe diarrhea and vomiting. The good news is that most of these deaths can be prevented with vaccines and managed with simple treatments, if available and accessible.
Dartmouth College’s award-winning a cappella group, the Aires, partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote awareness of the continuing famine in the Horn of Africa. The group, which placed second in last year’s NBC show “The Sing-Off,” recorded “Calling My Children Home,” a folk-inspired tune by Emmylou Harris in honor of the victims of the famine. The song alludes to separation and longing, and they sang this special song at a performance at the UN headquarters earlier this month.
Listen to the song here:
These themes are all too real for the nearly 13 million people affected by the famine in the region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that upwards of 1000 people flee Somalia every day, choosing to walk to neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, or Djibouti for refuge. Those countries, too, suffer from food shortages.
“We wanted to give something back,” the Aires’ manager Ethan Weinberg told the UN News Service. “We have a larger following now and we wanted to use our reach for a good cause.”
ONE member Heather James reports on a faith event in Washington state.
Saturday morning was incredible. Braving construction chaos and downtown parking, a group of 25 interested (and interesting) everyday citizens of Washington State converged in Tacoma to attend a ONE Faith workshop with Jonathan Young, our regional field director and Adam Phillips, manager of faith advocacy at ONE.
We learned about initiatives for global health and poverty relief, and how these things relate to our faith communities. Our goal for the morning? To come away with at least one practical thing a faith community could do to make a difference in the life of one of the 1.5 billion people living in extreme poverty.
Action: 28. Time: 30 minutes. Level of difficulty: Difficult. For the results of last week’s action, click here.
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, Women Deliver is calling on international development advocates (like you!) to submit nominations for their Women Deliver 50 List, a collection of the top 50 inspiring ideas and solutions that deliver for girls and women.
According to their guidelines, “these advancements could have been made by an individual, governments, the private sector, or civil society, but they must have helped to improve the condition of girls and women around the world, in one or more of the following 5 categories:
Technologies and Innovations
Educational Initiatives
Health Modernization
Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns
Leadership and Empowerment Programs
Nominations must be submitted by February 10. The winners will be announced on International Women’s Day and at the Women Deliver 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur.
OK, I’ll admit it: Last week’s ONE Act was a little crazy. We asked our ONE members to create “I Can Has Cheezburger“-style graphics to persuade people to take action against global poverty. Usually these kinds of things are made to get some laughs and share on the Internet, but we thought it might be cool to use them for something a little more useful. Here are some of our favorites from this week:
If you think you can do better, make your own graphic here, and share the link with us in the comments below.
ONE Vote Organizer Mike Castaldo looks back on a year of campaigning for the world’s poor with ONE Vote.
After a year of following candidates around, the ONE Vote 2012 team has officially survived four states and lots of miles on the road. Along with a few bumps and bruises, we made new friends, got together with old ones, and did what we could with what we had to end extreme poverty and raise awareness around the country, particularly with GOP presidential candidates.
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.
