Just a reminder that each petition signer is worth 500 points
Today ONE members are taking action to make sure the African Union keeps its promise to put Zimbabwe on the right footing and show the world that it is serious about change. The African Union (AU) will serve as guarantor for the new Zimbabwe “unity government” and it is critical that they take immediate action to ensure Zimbabwe takes steps in the right direction.
In recent weeks, Zimbabwe has attempted to form a “unity government” between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Show the African Union that the world is watching to make sure it keeps its promise to this new government, by signing our petition to the newly-elected African Union chairman Muammar Gaddafi.
Petition text:
Please ensure that the African Union executes its role as guarantor of the new Zimbabwe unity government.
In the past weeks and months we’ve been keeping you posted on the ONE Blog about the increasingly volatile and dangerous situation taking place in Zimbabwe. After suffering through a botched and violent election last year, Zimbabwe remains a land of devastation. 28 years of increasingly dictatorial rule by President Robert Mugabe have led to hyperinflation, food shortages and a breakdown of basic public services.
Take action now by adding your name to our petition asking the African Union to do its job as guarantor of the unity government, and work to end the political repression that has crippled Zimbabwe.
Details: 20,000 points to the school with the best original action to promote ONE.
Deadline: Midnight PST on Sunday, March 1st, 2009
YES!!! It’s finally your big chance to gather hundreds of ONE’d pets in your school’s football stadium and arrange them into a giant ONE logo!!!
Okay so that might NOT be the best example of how to make your own action for this challenge. But you should think about combining some of the (non-pet-involving) actions from our action list in creative ways — and make sure you submit each piece separately, milk this challenge for all the points you can get.
Or you can really make your own action from scratch. Think about what’s missing from our list of actions, and come up with a great new way to promote ONE and/or raise awareness about ONE issues on your campus.
We’d especially love to see do-it-yourself actions that have a real, lasting impact — rooting your OCC program more firmly at your school so next year’s team will be even stronger than you are now.
You can also tap into great ONE resources, such as:
- The new Zimbabwe petition: it’s worth 500 points per signature, and you know how we love those petitions here at ONE. Think about creative, non-table-involving ways you might gather signatures.
- The ONE Sabbath sermon challenge: groups of faith make up an important component of ONE, but we haven’t ever connected them with OCC. If faith is important to you, your community and/or your campus, maybe you could help us out.
- Our transition document for the Obama Administration: we delivered this great document to the Obama Administration already, but maybe you can think of other ways to promote it.
And you have tons of tools, including our blogs, your local media, Facebook (Maisie loves Facebook!), our events tool, and lots more at your disposal.
For those of you in top 10 contention, this could be a test-drive for what will eventually be a much larger (and better-funded) project.
For those who attended the Power 100 Summit, this is an awesome opportunity to apply anything and everything you picked up, whether it came from our staff, a guest speaker, or one of your peers.
Get creative…and get your Game On!
(Thanks to Caitlin Hillman from Iowa State for the adorable bunny picture!)
The Wolverines womped the competition to win our Video Super Challenge by about a hundred votes. Their video is a good promo that shows the need for OCC on their campus and in general. Check it out:
Congrats, UofM, on your THIRD challenge win of the year! That’s 20,000 points closer to securing your spot in the Top 10.
We’re also giving a 5,000 point runner-up prize to Webster who gave the Wolverines a run for their money, and 1,000 points each to Curry and Missouri State for making our top 4.
Stay tuned for the next Super Challenge, coming out this evening!
Was there a part of the Power 100 Summit that changed your life forever — or just something you thought was really cool?
Well if so, here’s a chance to earn 750 points by getting an entry on the OCC blog.
Just send us your thoughts, in no more than 300 words, on your favorite part or parts of the Summit. And send a related photo (or two) along with it. All photos will be considered for “Photo of the Week.”
Of course we’re not going to post just anything on our blog, so make it good! We want to know what inspired you, what you learned, and what rocked your world.
There’s no deadline, but don’t wait too long. After a month or so we’re going to have new things to talk about (Africa trip, anyone?).
Lucie Carlino is a native New Yorker currently attending school in New Jersey. As a junior at Seton Hall University, she is majoring in International Relations and Italian with a post-graduate goal of attending law school. She first heard about the ONE campaign through Live8 and was excited to learn that an organization was taking the initiative to raise poverty and AIDS awareness. Soon after she signed the ONE declaration, she founded a ONE campus chapter at her school. Through organizing and formally establishing an on-campus club she felt prepared to serve students beyond her campus gates and decided to tackle the COA position.
She recently traveled to El Salvador as part of a service trip, mentoring orphaned girls ages 5 through 13. There, she gained first-hand experience in living in poverty, which further catalyzed her passion for raising awareness.
Aside from her involvement with ONE, she enjoys traveling and experiencing different cultures, listening to music and shopping for records in Greenwich Village, NYC.
Although really the entire Power 100 deserves credit for this shot, it was Guergana Botchoukova from Bentley College who was first to submit a photo of the ONE logo on the ice from Saturday night, and gets out 1000 point Photo of the Week prize.
Just like Jake Sasseville’s plane tickets, sometimes these things go to the ones who want them most – so don’t be caught lying down (get it? Lying down? Like in the photo?….oh, nevermind).
Anyway, Bentley is making a rapid climb up our Leaderboard this week. They’re at the top for most points in a week, and if I’m not mistaken, have jumped a few spots to become #16 right on Webster’s heels.
Remember you can receive 2,500 points for participating in a partner activity!
We’ve all been reading the headlines, and watching the news about the financial crisis. These are truly hard times for people all around the world.
President Obama and his new economic team, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have a huge job ahead of them. They have been facing down a growing economic crisis and recession in the United States from day one.
But while we must work for economic justice at home, we must also not forget our brothers and sisters across the globe in this time of need. That’s why Jubilee USA has launched the What’s On Your Heart? Campaign. Over 6,000 people across the country have already sent handmade hearts and postcards to remind Timothy Geithner that as Americans we care about issues at home and also about our sisters and brothers around the world. The hearts will be delivered to Geithner personally by a delegation of religious leaders, including Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
There are two really simple ways to get your message to the new Treasury Secretary
DO IT YOURSELF: Make a heart telling the Treasury Secretary “what’s on your heart,” with your own message or click here for suggestions. Sign it with your name, address, phone number, and email address. Mail your heart to: Jubilee USA Network / 212 E. Capitol St. NE / Washington, DC 20003.
The deadline to take action is February 20th, 2009.
Amanda Beckham, a senior at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and recent attendee of the Power 100 summit had this to say about why she is involved:
The reason I decided to fill out a postcard, and to empower others to do the same, is because not only is it one of ONE’s issues, but it resonates with my personal humanitarian beliefs. I believe that in conjunction with clean water and substantial food, as well as proper education, there is no way these countries are going to develop and thrive economically and sustainably, if they have debt looming over their heads…These are the reasons I want to be a part of this movement, and I can’t just sit back and think that someone else will take care of it… writing a postcard is the absolute least I can do, but every little bit counts… I also hope others will feel this same altruistic obligation to help our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
We encourage you, your friends, and community members to join Amanda and thousands of other people in sending messages to Timothy Geithner, reminding him that he should do everything he can to address global and domestic poverty. Thanks you for all you do!
We had a lot of fantastic entries, but the Video Super Challenge has come down to 4 videos: Webster, University of Michigan, Curry and Missouri State.
Vote for your favorite video here. You’ll have until this Sunday, February 15th, at midnight PST to vote and get your friends to vote, too.
The top 10 decision is coming up in just a few weeks and we’re turning the voting over to you because these 20,000 points are a VERY big deal. We want them to go to the school that wants them most, and that means the team that mobilizes existing members and sign up new ones to win.
Here’s why these points matter: After a slew of new actions, UofM just jumped from #6 to #5 on our Leaderboard. If they win, they’ll firm up their #5 spot, and be pretty comfortable in the top 10.
But they’ve got tough competition from the Curry students, who want that #5 spot back and also have a strong video up for voting.
Meanwhile, Webster sits at #15 and they need this win badly to jump ahead — possibly TWO spots — and have a shot at the top 10.
But #14 Missouri State isn’t going to be bowled over — they’re hoping to pull off a jump themselves, up to #13, and also position themselves for the top 10!
A bunch of other schools have stakes, here, as well, because maybe they don’t want to be jumped over or threatened as Webster, UofM, Curry and Missouri vie for top honors.
Maisie, Emily and the rest of the OCC team are POOPED after this past weekend’s Power 100 activities. But we’re working hard to evaluate the awesome Video Super Challenge submissions, finish up our blog coverage of the Summit, pin down the top-prize band so we can make that announcement soon, and get your next big challenge announced next Tuesday (February 17th).
The video challenge submissions are pretty strong, and with 20,000 points at stake, we want to make sure we get the final decision right. So later this week, we might be asking you all to vote for your favorite of the top 3 videos.
Sunday at the Power 100 Summit was mostly about student organizing, and it was awesome to see the students so eager to share their experiences and so excitedly scribbling down the words of others. We’ve got a real set of go-getters here, once you get them going!
The one to get them going was Sadia Hameed, Lead Organizer in Oxfam America’s Extractive Industries Program. We all could tell she knew exactly what she was talking about. She gave the Power 100 some awesome tips on student organizing in an engaging presentation with plenty of audience participation.
Of course she got everyone involved — that’s her job!
“It’s about who you are in your every day life,” Sadia said, advising the students on how to get motivated in specific anti-poverty activities. “It’s about how you want to get involved, and the little things you can do every day to make a change.” She then turned the microphone to the students, asking them to tell what particular issue most inspired them.
“My soapbox is children,” said Andrea Finley from Kansas State University. “No child should go hungry. I just can’t understand how we could ever let that happen.”
Melissa Salomoni from the University of Connecticut talked about social justice. “For me, it’s about equal rights for everybody. Education, healthcare…we should all have the same opportunities.”
The students got another chance to share their experiences later in the day, when Maisie, Weldon and Patrick Schmidt presented a town-hall-formatted panel on student organizing. I heard so many amazing, creative ideas for motivating groups that I couldn’t keep up in my notes — and I’m a pretty fast typer!
Well, I was also a little distracted by Charlie Kraiger from Michigan State University, who was sitting next to me. Charlie was so visibly excited about collecting all these ideas and applying them to his school’s OCC chapter next year that it was fun to watch him take notes.
When Stephanie Parrish from the University of Michigan suggested playing on school rivalries to get other students excited about racking up OCC points, Charlie whispered to me: “I am going to talk to her later and see if we can have some kind of competition going so everyone at MSU will want to sign up just to knock U of M out of the top ten!”
Another Charlie, Mr. Harris from last year’s OCC champs Western Kentucky University, really captured the whole spirit of the session with his tip. “Show your enthusiasm,” he said. “People will respond to your passion.”
It’s funny, I laughed a little at Weldon when he told me, on the first night, that the thing he was most looking forward to was watching the students interact and respond to each others’ passion.
The OCC Blog is a daily log of the ONE Campus Challenge, a friendly competition to determine which university's student body has the most effective global poverty-fighting campaign. The site is operated by ONE staff, Campus Outreach Ambassadors (COAs), and Campus Leaders.
The content of each post represents the views of that post's author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
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