Today, ONE member Phillip Williams met with his US Congressional Representative, Jim McGovern of MA. Phillip took time to explain ONE to Rep. McGovern and let him know that in 2009, it is not only possible to fight global disease and extreme poverty, but it is a priority!

Phillip told me that Rep. McGovern was very familiar with ONE’s issues and agenda as he is already a co-sponsor of Education for All, Jubilee, and Global Child Survival Act. And as a member of the House Budget Committee, Phillip asked Rep. McGovern to hold, or increase the upcoming budget number for the international affairs account – the part of the budget that contains all of the US’s global life saving humanitarian programs. Rep. McGovern said that he understood the importance of these issues and mentioned how global development ultimately leads to greater national safely and security at home.

Today Phillip took time to let his Representative know that saving lives in the poorest parts of the world is an important issues to him and he urged action in the 111th Congress. But ONE members everywhere should follow the lead of Phillip and contact their new Senators and Representatives to let them know about ONE and our efforts to fight global disease and extreme – stupid – poverty.

-Matthew Bartlett

Here at ONE Headquarters, it’s easy to feel removed from the individuals and communities that we advocate for around the world. That’s why it was particularly exciting to meet four visitors from Malawi who came to speak with us recently about the challenges newborns face in their country: Grace Tutiwe Ngoto and her daughter Tuntufye, nurse and midwife Hilalpi Kunkeyani and Reuben Ligowe, Program Officer for Save the Children in Malawi’s Newborn Health program.

Malawi, a nation of 12 million people, is situated on the eastern side of Africa surrounded by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia. Their poverty statistics are hard to imagine. The per capita gross national income is about $170 and the amount of government spending on health per capita is $5!

In Malawi, 73,200 children under age five die every year. Twenty percent of these are newborns less than one month that succumb to infection, complications at birth or challenges associated with low birth rates. Impressively, Malawi has managed to reduce their under-5 mortality rate by 30% over the last five years with limited resources. Unfortunately, death rates among newborns have declined at a slower pace.

This being said, while low birth rate used to be considered a death sentence, organizations like Save the Children have had great success with interventions such as kangaroo mother care (KMC). KMC encourages mothers to maintain “skin-to-skin” contact with their low-weight newborns, much like a kangaroo mother keeps her baby in her pouch. This way, any change in the baby’s body temperature is immediately corrected by the mother’s warmth and the baby is exclusively breastfed.

Grace and Tuntufye are proof that kangaroo mother care works. Tuntufye was born two months premature weighing only 2.2 pounds. Grace entered a Save the Children program at Bwaila Hospital in Lilongwe when Tuntufye dropped to 1.8 pounds. By keeping her daughter warm and feeding her every hour, Grace helped Tuntufye grow to 2.4 pounds within in a month. Grace continued using the program at home and is now a Health Surveillance Assistant with the Ministry of Health where she shares her story with pregnant women in the community, educating them about the benefits of kangaroo mother care. Hilalpi explained how helpful this education is because, as a midwife, she sees firsthand how many women lack sufficient information or don’t believe kangaroo mother care can work.

Mothers and newborns still have several challenges to overcome, including lack of access to healthcare facilities and a dire shortage of midwives. As Reuben explained to us, the Malawi government is designing a comprehensive road map to decrease the rate of maternal and child deaths through a sector wide approach towards achieving the MDGs. USAID has already committed some funding to help implement the road map, and Mozambique and Zambia are watching Malawi’s progress as a learning opportunity for their mothers.

For the sake of mothers like Grace and babies like Tuntufye, we should encourage our leaders to provide additional funding and an integrated strategy for child and maternal health, through pieces of legislation such as the Global Child Survival Act. Check out the bill’s status and to see if your representative is a co-sponsor.

-Margaret McDonnell, ONE

Wall Street Journal: Rising Food Costs Further Pressure World Hunger

-Steve Wilson

This Mother’s Day, along with the usual flowers and brunch in bed, think about how the recent rise in global food prices makes even the simple things in life luxuries for the world’s poor. This jump in prices threatens over 35 million of the world’s children – 10 percent under the age of 5 – putting them at even greater risk of malnutrition. According to the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, prices have risen more than 80 percent over the last three years with the price tag for some staples like rice jumping a staggering 141 percent since January.

The present crisis brings me back to a visit that I took to Ethiopia nearly 5 years ago. I was working with a group of women’s health activists from various countries in East Africa and we visited a CARE project in the southern part of the Afar region. More than 300 miles away, in the town of Gode in the Ogaden region (near the border of Somalia), about 1.3 million people were starving as a result of three consecutive years of drought. Many of those most affected were children under the age of 5, who were suffering from diseases related to severe malnutrition – pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles. Fortunately, emergency aid helped save countless lives.

Despite recent declines in child mortality, nearly 27,000 children still die every day from largely preventable and treatable causes like pneumonia, diarrhea, and complications during the first day to year of life. Malnutrition is at the root of half of these deaths. When food prices rise, this situation becomes even more desperate. Already the United Nations, the U.S. and other governments, the private sector, and civil society worldwide are taking steps to help by increasing emergency food aid and working to enact longer-term solutions to bring down energy prices, make greater investments in agriculture and increase demand, and address climate change.

Changing policy, utilizing best practices in public health, assuring clean water, sanitation, and nutrition for the world’s children can only be accomplished through enhanced coordination and accountability of child survival health programs. The Global Child Survival Act of 2007 will ensure that all aspects of government aid like food assistance, vaccination delivery, and basic health care services are better coordinated.

Today mark Mother’s Day with the best gift of all – life for the world’s children. Write your member of Congress and ask them to support the Global Child Survival Act. The legislation would streamline the delivery of antibiotics, vitamin A supplements, and vaccines while improving accountability and coordination. It would also provide funds to help save the lives of as many as two-thirds of all children who die in Ethiopia and around the world, many of them from malnutrition or conditions aggravated by undernourishment.

-Liz Creel, US Coalition for Child Survival

Tuesday I had a tremendous experience in Memphis when I helped launch Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers report, which draws attention to the fact that more than 200 million children under age 5 worldwide lack basic health care measures. These aren’t high-tech, high-cost health care interventions…these are simple solutions like antibiotics to treat pneumonia or a remedy of sugar and salt when mixed with clean water that can treat diarrhea. These measures can save more than 15,000 children’s lives around the world every day.
And while that seems like a topic that is very distant from our lives in America or Tennessee, my time in Memphis with the children and faculty of Lamplighter Montessori School brought home how close we really are to the far corners of the world – and how every person, young and old alike, can make a difference in the lives of kids in need halfway across the globe.

I had the great pleasure of talking with students about my trip to Bangladesh last August, when I helped deliver hand-knitted baby caps to new moms and newborns in Save the Children health programs there, which are supported by USAID. Indeed, Lamplighter students themselves made some of the 3,000 caps from Tennessee that made their way to Bangladesh to keep babies warm (and increase their chance of survival) during their first critical hours and days of life.

There was a real excitement about being with the children whose little hands knitted the caps that I had the ultimate pleasure of putting on babies’ heads in Bangladesh as everything came full circle. It was extraordinary to be a part of the entire process … but it was even better knowing that all of us had pulled together to make a big and important difference in the health of children living in Bangladesh and in other countries where children don’t always make it past 5 years old.

Lamplighter students ages 7 to 10 knitted caps and used their voices as part of a project to call on their leaders in Washington to increase funding for newborn and child health programs in developing countries. They told me about their “hard day of lobbying” on Capitol Hill, where they went with baby caps in hand to be heard on behalf of all the world’s babies. Who wouldn’t be inspired by the actions of such young children trying to make a difference?

You can help, too. I’ve mentioned the Global Child Survival Act in this blog before. This legislation, backed by more than 100 members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, could save the lives of millions more newborns and young children globally – every year – and provide health solutions where they are most needed.

It’s critical that you let your representatives in Washington know that you support this bill … and that you keep the power of using medicine as a currency for peace in mind when visiting the ballot box in November. Let’s not let this opportunity to save millions of young lives pass. What better gift can we give moms around the world this Mother’s Day than to raise our voices to address this challenge?

-Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D

My name is Sammi Fredenburg. I’m from Seattle, but yesterday I was in Washington, D.C., to represent ONE and talk about the Global Child Survival Act.

The day started with a House of Representatives’ committee hearing where Senator Frist spoke on the incredible need for this legislation. He presented the committee with thousands of letters from ONE members, some of whom were in the audience with me.

He also brought vitamin A drops and the simple oral rehydration therapy that can save children’s lives in developing areas, and pointed out just how difficult it is to get these resources into people’s hands there.

Also at the hearing, Congressman Chris Shays of Connecticut talked about the work of groups like ONE, Save the Children, and the U.S. Coalition for Child Survival. He pointed out that the work of organizations like these has been more effective than the work of lawmakers in bringing change to people’s lives on these issues.

After the hearing, we met with reporters. CNN was there. So were a number of newspaper and online reporters. Senator Frist spoke, and then introduced me. I shared my personal story with the reporters as I have shared on this blog before. For me, the bottom line is simple: Every year, nearly 10 million children under the age of 5 die from largely preventable and treatable causes. That’s someone’s son or someone’s daughter dying every three seconds, nearly 27,000 children in the developing world today. We should do everything we can to save these children’s lives. And the Global Child Survival Act is an important step toward that goal.

I was thrilled to be at the Capitol, representing ONE and urging Congress to pass this legislation. I look forward to coming back to Washington when the bill is being signed into law. Yesterday was a great day, but that day will be incredible.

[Photos care of Paul Morigi - more photos here.]

-Sammi Fredenburg

ONE super volunteer Sammi Fredenburg of Seattle, Washington, arrived in DC today so that she can present at the Global Child Survival Act hearing on the Hill tomorrow. Senator Dodd and Former Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., will also be speaking.

She walked by my desk just now so I insisted she had to wait while I got a photo. Above, Sammi poses with Josh Chernila who works both Internet and field for ONE.

(Senator Frist administering Vitamin A to a child in Bangladesh.)

-Erin Erlenborn

Annisa Wanat

As I was writing a personal handwritten letter to Senator Coleman, this is what came out when I listened to my heart. I didn’t get all the talking points in but it doesn’t matter. I hope it reaches him.

Imagine saving the life of a child.
Imagine the joy in the mother’s eyes.
Imagine the gratitude.
Imagine what that child has to offer the world.
Imagine the possibilities.
Now multiply that by 10 million.
Every year.
Imagine THAT possibility.

That possibility can be reality, if you co-sponsor the Global Child Survival Act.

-Nadja Gale, ONE Member, Twin Cities, MN