When you’re talking about poverty and global disease, there’s nothing like stats to help people understand the scale of the tragedy. And here we have the latest stats on the AIDS epidemic from UNAIDS.

While the astronomical numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS can be overwhelming, there is important good news here. The number of people contracting AIDS and dying from AIDS annually are both on the decline.

Also, the methods for tacking and counting the AIDS crisis are getting better. As a result, UNAIDS revised their estimate of people living with AIDS from 39.5 million in 2006 to 33.2 million in 2007. This decline doesn’t mean that AIDS is any less prevalent, but knowledge is the first step in the fight.

Some key stats to remember:

• People living with HIV/AIDS globally: 33.2m
• New infections in 2007: 2.5m (6,800 per day)
• Deaths from HIV/AIDS in 2007: 2.1m (5,700 per day)

Download the full breakdown of the UNAIDS report (pdf).

Tuesday, November 27th, College of Charleston in Charleston, SC hosted Representative Ron Paul on campus for our Bully Pulpit series. “The Bully Pulpit: Reflections on Presidential Communication” is a series hosted by the College of Charleston and its Department of Communication that welcomes presidential candidates from the two major political parties to the College of Charleston campus to discuss the importance of presidential communication. The video of Dr. Paul can be found at cofc.edu/bullypulpit .

After the event, I met with Dr. Paul to discuss the issues of extreme poverty around the world. I told him about the ONE Campaign and our efforts to end extreme poverty and fight the global AIDS pandemic. He said he supported humanitarian aid if the money were available. Dr. Paul supports ONE in our effort- so add one more presidential candidate to the list!

-Seaton, College of Charleston

Earlier today we opened up this very blog to all the ONE Campus Challenge campus leaders. So far the regional outreach students have been very productive and helped get out some great stories of what’s been going on in the Campus Challenge. So make sure to check back soon, with over 125 authors there is no telling how many posts we’ll see.

I hope you enjoy, as I, for one, welcome our new OCC campus leader overlords.

Yup, that’s the office these days. Go Brandeis!

College of Charleston is a beast.  They just smashed down the 1,000 barrier, and don’t look like they are ready to stop.

But, despite all those recruits, they are still slipping in the rankings as Sacred Heart pulled into the lead today. Guess it is still anyone’s game.

For the last few weeks we have been turning on the heat for the presidential candidates to tell us exactly what, if elected, they would do fight extreme poverty and global disease.

So far this “On the Record” campaign has been stunningly successful as we’ve delivered more that 55,000 petition signatures to each of the campaigns. But if we’re going to get all of the presidential candidates to take this challenge and make the On the Record campaign a success, we need to go all out. It’s phone call time.

To make a call:

1. Go to ONE.org/OnTheRecordCalls/
2. Use the drop down menu to look up candidate’s numbers.
3. Use the talking points to help you with your call.
4. Fill out the form and check off each candidate you called.

It should take about 30 minutes to call all 15 candidates, and at 1,000 points a call, that good for 15,000 points for just half an hour of work.

This is a huge chance to make a real difference in the fight against poverty. If we can get the candidates to make commitments to fighting poverty now, before the primaries and caucuses, we stand a good chance of our next president being dedicated to our cause.

If you’re still looking for something to do for your World AIDS Day event this Saturday, check out this list of what some of our allies are doing:

http://www.one.org/worldaidsday2007/

In honor of World Aids Day on Saturday, I thought I would honor a couple of VERY special people I’ve met in the past year.

Over the summer, I went on a study abroad program to Kenya. While we were there, we had the opportunity to spend some time in Kibera in Nairobi. Kibera is the largest slum in East Africa and some people estimate over 1,000,000 people living in a little over 1 sq. mile.

Aids is pretty rampant in this part of Kenya. And the close living conditions make a lot of other diseases, like TB and malaria, much easier to catch than in more sparsely-populated areas.

While the Aids rate is high, those that are HIV remain extremely positive. Carolina for Kibera is a nongovernmental organization that works with the inhabitants of Kibera. CFK has a women’s health organization, called Binti Pamoja, that deals with HIV/AIDS, violence against women, sexual abuse and other women’s health issues. While I was there, they sold us beadwork, which contributed to the health costs of the women involved in the group.

Many people aren’t quite sure what living conditions in a place like Kibera looks like. I’ve included a couple of photos from our trip so you can really get the visual.

Check out Carolina for Kibera and the amazing people there for yourself at http://cfk.unc.edu/.

It looks like when lots of folks went home for the holidays they took the opportunity to take a picture with their pet in ONE gear. There are over 25 new submissions, here are a select few (click the image to see the larger version).

I found this while looking through the ONE Sabbath materials. Its a good, short video that really puts our world into perspective. Check it out!

http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm

Nick Stevens, OCC Regional Outreach Ambassador