The Millennium Campus Network held a conference this past weekend to discuss global poverty and health. ONE’s former intern, Sam Vaghar, helped create this new network of Boston area colleges and universities, and their conference hosted over 700 students and included top global health experts like Ira Magaziner, Dr. Paul Farmer, as well as an event with musician John Legend and Dr. Jeff Sachs.

I attended the first day of the event at MIT and immediately noticed a few ONE shirts and many, many ONE bands. After opening statements and a very good speech by Sam, the keynote address was given by former presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards. In his speech, Sen. Edwards spoke about his travels to Uganda and the extreme poverty he witnessed in Africa. He spoke about the need to fight AIDS and malaria to help bring stability to poor nations and citied America’s moral standing in the world.

After his speech, I was able to briefly speak with Sen. Edwards and thanked him for raising the issues of global poverty while on the campaign trail. We even talked about the global poverty speech he gave in New Hampshire.

From the campaign trail to the colleges campuses, people everywhere are organizing and realizing that in today’s world, that we have the resources to fight global disease and end extreme – less than a dollar a day – poverty.

-Matthew Bartlett