In a recent blog I wrote about Fair Trade Month, an annual campaign every October to promote Fair Trade – a system that provides economic development opportunities for farming families and sustainable development for the planet. In this entry, I’d like to underscore the role that Fair Trade certification plays in poverty alleviation, thus aligning with ONE’s core mission to “make poverty history.” I know of no easier way for us to make a difference for struggling farmers and workers in developing countries than to simply choose a Fair Trade Certified™ product—coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, banana, flowers, wine—when we shop or celebrate a special occasion. Fair Trade premiums and additional income for farming families are invested in improving livelihoods as well as community development projects, empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty.
For example, Fair Trade revenues have made it possible for Hutu and Tutsi farmers in Rwanda to provide necessary services to their communities after the devastating civil in the 1990s. Augustin Rutarauisha, member of the Dukunde Kawa Coffee Co-op, says this: “Thanks to Fair Trade, I was able to purchase schoolbooks and keep my children in school. I was even able to buy a cow!”
However we approach solutions to end hunger, the empowerment factor is essential, because with empowerment comes a sense of dignity, and with dignity the possibility of change and sustainable development. Fair Trade is a creative, proven model that works—it addresses poverty at its roots and benefits everyone involved: farmers & workers, industry, consumers, and the Earth.
Fair Trade Month is winding down, but you can support Fair Trade throughout the year. One way students can incorporate Fair Trade into your ONE Campus Challenge is to support serving Fair Trade Certified coffee & tea in campus eating establishments and promote Fair Trade at events. Each of us can make a difference—purchasing the products and sharing the story—as together we help make poverty history.
Well, guys, the ONE Campus Challenge has been a great success, both last year and again so far this year. And I have to admit, it would not have gotten anywhere at all without those of you who have stepped up to lead your campuses in the fight against extreme poverty.
The OCC Team has concluded that it’s about time that we feature all of you campus leaders and all of the hard work that you’ve done for the Campus Challenge.
Keep a look-out on the OCC Blog for a few different profiles of campus leaders each week!
With Halloween on Friday, the OCC Team decided that a low-key challenge revolving around the spirit of the season was the way to go. A few ONE staff took this as an opportunity to push their alma maters further up the leaderboard. Chris may have missed the memo about this week being a low-key challenge…
For your viewing pleasure.
PS –If this episode of OCC TV is any evidence, perhaps another Huzzah training session is in order sometime in the near future for all you OCC newcomers (staff included)? Sheesh.
Details: 10,000 points to the school with the best ONE Halloween photo, to be determined by popular vote.
Deadline: Midnight PST on Sunday, November 2, 2008
Okay, here’s how this works: You take a photo involving ONE and Halloween. It doesn’t need to be too elaborate, but do try to get a quality, interesting picture. ONE’d pumpkins, ONE’d costumes, ONE Halloween parties…whatever floats your boat. Just make sure you submit your photo (just one per OCC member, but as many per school as you like) by midnight on Sunday, November 2nd.
Here’s where things get a little tricky in terms of getting your treats: we want YOU to vote on your favorite photos for the winner. But we don’t want you to get distracted from voting in another little contest that happens to be next Tuesday, so we’ll wait until Wednesday to post the top contenders and send you the link in our weekly email.
So look for the next challenge email, including the link to Halloween Photo Contest voting, on Wednesday next week — not Tuesday!
You’ll have all day Thursday to vote, and we’ll post the winner here on the blog on Friday. So keep checking back for that.
What about the regular weekly photo contest, you ask? It’s still running, in a way. We’ll give a 1,000-point photo contest winner prize to anyone who makes our top contenders list. So if your school has one of the vote-able photos, you automatically get points for being a photo contest winner!
But the 10,000-point (plus goodie bag) treat only goes to the school with the winning photo — the one netting the most votes.
We’ve seen cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, and even the occasional reptile ONE-ed, but never before have we seen it successfully done with a panther.
Every year at the University of Pittsburgh, five groups are selected to paint one of five panther statues to represent what their group does on campus. For the 2008/2009 academic year, ONE at U-Pitt was one of those five groups.
Check out their awesome ONE-Panther. Quite the original photo submission!
The Weekly Challenge last week was to “ONE Your Candidate” where we awarded points to the schools that were able to ONE the most and/or most high-profile candidates and elected officials.
Well, WKU was not messing around. They engaged a host of candidates, as well as getting high-profile candidates and elected officials. They had a discussion with Charlene Rabold, who is running for the Kentucky House of Representatives (good for 500 points), they were pictured with Bruce Lunsford, Senatorial candidate (2,000 points), they banded former President Bill Clinton (for 2,500 points), as well as continuing their relationship with Bowling Green mayor, Elaine Walker, working side-by-side at Habitat for Humanity event (for 250 points – and also good for Partner points!) for a grand total of 5,750 points in addition to the 10,000 they’re taking home for winning the Weekly Challenge.
Two Weekly Challenges in a row? As always, way to set the bar high, Hilltoppers.
If you check our leaderboard often, you may have noticed the same school has been #1 for four straight weeks now. No kidding, Wright State University is doing an amazing job of racking up the points. With an astounding 1,222 members registered and 291,060 points accumulated, they’ve pretty much secured their spot in the Power 100.
But everything they’re doing, you can do too. Here are just a few of the ways WSU has found for racking up mega points.
First of all, they’re milking the partner activities. You get a whopping 2,500 points (that’s like winning two and a half weekly photo contests!) for collaborating with any of ONE’s 150 partner organizations, a lot of which probably have groups on your campus. Plus you get the added benefit of signing up the members of that organization, which is 100 points per sign up. This blog is full of ideas for partner activities, you don’t have to scroll back far to find one.
Plus you can combine a partner activity with another OCC action to maximize your points. For the “Stand Up and Take Action” challenge, WSU partnered with Oxfam International to put on an event called “ONE penny, ONE person, ONE hope,” and got the 2,500 points for submitting a partner project in addition to regular points for challenge reporting (not to mention they were a strong contender for the win!).
WSU also held a film festival with another partner organization, Jubilee 2000. That got them another 2,500 points for a partner event, plus 350 for film-showing, and all those 100-pointers for signing up film festival attendees. Brilliant!
And Wright State has gotten super creative about submitting their own actions. They ONE’d a baby for 100 points (we figured that had to be worth a little more than the 50 you get for ONEing a pet). They got their library to host a display of global poverty-relevant books for 500 points. And they got 187 freshmen to hand-write letters to their Senator as part of freshman orientation — since we give 500 points per letter to congress, that got them an incredible 93,500 points!
We can all learn a lot from WSU’s creativity and initiative. Keep up the good work, Rowdy Raiders!
Emily and Maisie present the “DOs” and “DON’Ts” of this week’s “ONE Your Candidates” challenge, with special help from ONE staff and interns…and students from Webster University, who happened to stop by our DC office on their way to meet with members of congress about extreme global poverty. Thanks, Webster!
Details: 10,000 points to the school that gets the most and/or highest-profile candidates to show their support for ONE.
Deadline: Sunday, October 26th, 2008
This week, we’re asking you to respectfully document elected officials and/or candidates supporting ONE. We’ll be judging based on how many candidates/officials you ONE, how high-profile they are, and also the quality of your contact with them. You’ll need to submit a picture using our report tool in order to get points for challenge participation and be considered for the win.
Here are some great tips for how to properly ONE your candidates, and some sample questions to ask at events.
5 Ways to Get a Candidate’s Attention:
1. Ask good questions. At a public appearance, ask candidates what kind of leadership they will provide on global poverty. You can ask questions directly or submit them through a media or organizational host, depending on the format of the forum or event.
2. Have a strong showing. Organize a group of ONE Members in ONE t-shirts for a big rally or local forum. Try to stand near the front and in the view of television cameras and/or reporters.
3. Use the handshake line. At candidate events, there is almost always a handshake line. It’s a great chance to get in a good question and to ask the candidate to put on a ONE wristband.
4. Get a photo. Candidates like posed photographs and you need one to complete this challenge. Getting a photo of you or your group in ONE t-shirts with the candidates is a good way to ask a question and extend a discussion. Or you can use a photo of just the candidate wearing a ONE band. Just make sure ONE and the candidate are in the picture.
5. Have 1-2 talking points for reporters in case you’re asked questions. Let them know that a factor determining your vote is a candidate’s proposal to fight global poverty and preventable disease.
Sample Questions for Candidates
For candidates for federal office:
1. How will you work to fight diseases such as AIDS and malaria in the developing world, and how do such efforts fit into your approach to foreign policy?
2. The Millennium Development Goals range from providing universal primary education to halving the number of people suffering from hunger. What role should the United States play in the international effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015?
For candidates for state and local office:
3. How will you work locally to support the global effort to fight diseases such as HIV/AIDS and to support leaders at the national level in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals?
4. What role do local elected leaders play in the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which range from providing universal primary education to halving the number of people suffering from hunger?
Remember: The voice of the ONE Campaign is always earnest, collaborative, positive, respectful and hopeful. It produces results and, most importantly, makes the hope contagious. The ONE Campaign is bipartisan and does not endorse any single candidate, so get both sides of the aisle if you can. And get those pictures!
The OCC Blog is a daily log of the ONE Campus Challenge, a competition among American college students
to prove that their campus has the most creative and effective extreme poverty fighters in the country.
The site is operated by ONE volunteers and campus leaders.
The content of each post represents the views of that post's author and does not necessarily reflect the
views of the ONE Campaign. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any posts
expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
Understand how the ONE Campus Challenge works by reviewing the rules. All participation in the challenge is subject to the terms and conditions in the rules.
