Thanks to U2’s support of ONE, we’ve been given a chance to work with their current 360 tour. We’ve been working on this for months now, and finally, yesterday, we saw the first show.

I arrived last Friday to put together ONE’s booths at the concert and coordinate our volunteers. I’ve never seen a rock concert in the making, much less a stadium show for a crowd of 90,000. Within 10 minutes of arrival I was standing at the front of the stage looking out into an enormous sea of empty seats. The scale of the whole thing was overwhelming — and that was without lights, sound, or a crowd.

Between Friday and the first show yesterday, I worked on getting together the ONE booth and lining up volunteers for the shows. We have two booths at the venues where volunteers explain ONE and invite people to join up. New members get one of our special edition ONE wristbands, and can have their photos taken as part of “The Future Needs a Big Kiss” – a concept that fits perfectly with ONE’s optimistic view of shaping and embracing the future. The band are using these pictures in a segment of the show, so there is a chance that the best kissers and huggers will end up seeing themselves on the ginormous IMAG screen during the show.

Monday afternoon we ducked outside of the front gates where loyal fans had been queuing for days to ensure they got the best spot next to the stage when the gates opened. The fans came from all over the world, from Spain to Ireland to Chile. Lots of smooching going on. I think some new aquaintances may have occurred. One fan appeared at the photo booth dejected that she didn’t have anyone to kiss. A group of willing volunteers wasn’t far behind offering to help remedy that problem.

Tuesday was a long time coming, and my adrenaline kicked in as I watched the gates open and the fans rush in. For the next few hours we signed up as many fans as we could physically talk to, and took over 300 pictures of people giving their kiss to the future. As U2 started up, we packed up our booths as everyone was inside the stadium, and it was high time that we joined them.

The concert itself was stunning. I’d heard the rehearsals, but the show itself was an order of magnitude more powerful, punctuated by a stadium literally shaking as fans jumped up and down to the music. There were some amazing moments of the show that talked about ONE. First, they linked up to the International Space Station and Bono asked Frank de Winne, the UNICEF ambassador and astronaut, to join ONE, which he enthusiastically agreed to — a spaceman has signed up for ONE!! Later on a giant Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared on the screen, talking about the people who’ve made great social changes throughout history and how we all are those same people, especially when we act together as ONE. And finally, Bono introduced the song “One” with the Kiss the Future photo montage, urging the audience to sign up as they watched the ONE pictures floating across the screen.

I left the show with a silly grin on my face as I packed up all our stuff and headed home for some much needed sleep. With all the excitement I hadn’t realised how much being on my feet all day in the 34 degree celsius heat had taken out of me. It was the best type of tired there is.

Ill be blogging from every show… Next time I’ll be shorter I promise, just wanted to catch you up.

-Weldon Kennedy

Time magazine honored George Clooney yesterday as one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2009 for his activism around the crisis in Darfur. George has been a great friend of ONE, and working with the organization he cofounded, Not on our Watch, he has been an influential player in the fight to focus attention on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur — and on the responsibility of the US government and other world leaders to do something about it.

ONE cofounder Bono writes about Clooney in the Time 100 Issue:

His commitment to ending the atrocities in Sudan is not a role, not a performance. It is real — and it is serious work. Some people think celebrities should stick to the script, stay feted and fetal in their air-conditioned trailers. Some people think it’s an appalling juxtaposition to see the rich and famous in a photo call with the vanquished and the vulnerable.

It is. George knows that. But he also knows that the cameras trained on you and the column inches dedicated to you could be covering something a little more important than, well, you. Like the slaughter of innocents in Darfur. Like the refugee camps full of starving Sudanese.

And he knows the details, the nuances of his and your sides of the argument. Hey, if you’re going to pay attention to George Clooney, he’s going to insist you pay attention to this stuff. Now there’s a radical idea.

Read the full text here.

Bono also interviewed George on his work in Darfur for a CNN special on the Time 100 hosted by Anderson Cooper that will air Friday night May 1 at 11 PM EDT on both CNN and CNN International. It will re-air on CNN Saturday and Sunday at 8 and 11 PM EDT.

-Kathy McKiernan

ONE co-founder Bono is writing an occasional column for the New York Times and his latest column appeared today.

Below is a notable except that relates to ONE’s work:

“A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.

But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.

Your soul.

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.”

You can read the full column here.

-Virginia Simmons

Yesterday, U2 performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people at “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration” concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. ONE co-founder Bono took a few moments backstage to record this message to ONE members. Check it out!

-Josh Peck

On Friday we brought attention to a Gallup poll that indicated the American public considers President Bush’s work in the fight against HIV/AIDS to be his administration’s most successful accomplishment. Yesterday the Associated Press ran an article that serves as an interesting companion piece, examining this issue from an African perspective.

The article offers many different perspectives and opinions, including those in Africa who have been directly impacted by programs such as PEPFAR, to those who feel the focus on HIV/AIDS has distracted too much attention from other diseases.

Excerpts below, full piece here

Like countless Africans, [Sweetness] Mzolisa looks forward to Barack Obama becoming America’s first black president Jan 20. But — like countless Africans — Mzolisa says she will always be grateful to Bush for his war on AIDS, which has helped to treat more than 2 million Africans, support 10 million more, and revitalize the global fight against the disease.

“It has done a lot for the people of South Africa, for the whole of the African continent,” says Mzolisa, a feisty mother of seven. “It has changed so many people’s lives, saved so many people’s lives.”

Some critics, like rockers-turned-advocates Bono and Bob Geldof, have become admirers.

“The Bush regime has been divisive … created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives,” Geldof wrote in Time Magazine as he accompanied Bush on an Africa trip last February.

“The administration and Bush himself deserve a lot more credit than they received for getting this job done,” says Josh Ruxin, assistant professor of public health at Columbia University.

-Chris Scott

U2 lead singer and ONE cofounder Bono was presented with the Nobel laureates “Man of Peace” award on December 12 for his activism in the fight against extreme poverty. He received the award in Paris during the 9th Annual Summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Italian left-wing leader Walter Veltroni, who co-hosted the event, said, “[Bono] has put pressure on the world’s governments to reach the UN’s Millennium Goals. To give him the prize, is to say that fight will carry on.”

Mikhail Gorbachev spearheaded the creation of the award, and this year’s event was attended by many Nobel Peace Laureates including Northern Irish politician John Hume and former South African President FW De Klerk.

As part of the ceremony the Nobel Laureates and Bono issued a call for the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winning Burmese politician who is under house arrest.

“I am an over-awarded, over-rewarded rock star. You are the people who do the real work … So I am very, very pleased to be in such esteemed company,” Bono said at the event.

-Jessica Gomez-Duran

Last week, when Bono spoke at the California Women’s Conference, he passed along some of the startling stats (listed below) about women in Africa.

• Nearly two-thirds of adults with HIV in Africa are women young women (age 15 to 24) in South Africa accounted for around 90% of new HIV infections in 2007.
• In Africa, the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth is 1 in 20 (compared to 1 in 2,800 in the US).
• Although up to 80% of farmers in the developing world are women, they own less than 15% of land worldwide.

You can find more facts about women in Africa, as well as inspiring facts (like the one below) about the benefits of investing in women in the developing world, in this new fact sheet.

“Investing in women is considered smart economic policy because it can often yield higher economic returns than investing in men. Providing an extra one year of education beyond the average boosts earnings by 10-20%, compared to 5-15% for males. Increasing the share of women with a secondary education by one percentage point boosts annual per capita income by 0.3% on average. A study in Kenya found that agricultural yields could be raised by as much as 20% simply by reallocating existing agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizer, education) more equally between men and women.”

-Virginia Simmons

As you know, Bono spoke at the California Women’s Conference this past Wednesday. One volunteer Amy Quinn was in the audience, and had this to share:

I was one of the lucky 14,000 women to have attended the Women’s Conference in Long Beach last Wednesday. I left the conference with a renewed sense of purpose, which quite frankly, I desperately needed when I arrived at the conference that morning.

In particular, I was moved by Bono’s recollection of his experiences back in the mid 80’s – on his visit to Ethiopia during the horrible famine that occurred there. This is also when my “world vision or Weltanschauung” changed, and I, at the ripe old age of 14 – became a hunger/poverty activist. As Bono said – the flames of that continent sting your eyes – they sear your conscience… He said, “In my travels I have met kids the mirror image own and looked into their faces as they let go of life. And it makes me even angrier that their eyes are always free of accusation. It humbles me beyond belief that they don’t hold it against a world that couldn’t spare the twenty cent immunization that would have them back in the bosom of their family. Even their mothers and fathers…their grief is pure. There’s no blame, just acquiescence…”

As the mother of a six year old little boy – it was easy for me to substitute my son’s eyes for this image.

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As we previously reported, Bono spoke at the 2008 California Women’s Conference last night. We’ve compiled the full footage of his speech, split into 5 parts, below. Enjoy!

PS- In his speech, Bono refers to a petition organized by the ONE Campaign to hold both presidential candidates accountable in the fight to end extreme poverty. Please sign here.

Full speech, Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

-Chris Scott

Bono is scheduled to speak at the 2008 Women’s Conference in a few moments. You can watch live in the webcast player below. (Webplayer is after the “read more” jump.)

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