April 8th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Our petition to ask your senators to co-sponsor the reauthorization of PEPFAR is live. Urge your senator to sign on today.
PEPFAR, America’s response to the global emergency of AIDS, malaria and TB, has already passed in the House with bipartisan support, 308 to 116, last month.
Now we’re trying to reach 50 co-sponsors for this legislation in the Senate. That level of support will help guarantee passage of this bill to increase funding – for proven solutions to these deadly but treatable diseases – from the $15 billion spent during the last five years to $50 billion for the next five.
We’ve set an aggressive goal of 50 Senate co-sponsors and we’ll be updating the blog and our “senatometer” regularly with the new signers.
The current co-sponsors are below. If you don’t see your senators’ name, send them a petition today.
Current Co-sponsors
Joe Biden (D-DE)
Richard Lugar (R-IN)
Cross-posted on the ONE Blog
4 /8/08 11:30a.m.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Over the week following World AIDS Day, Princeton students tabled in their campus center asking students to sign socks. The campaign was part of a larger action to fix the President’s Emergency Relief Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPRFAR) bill which will soon be up for restructuring and reapproval. Rather than take the normal approach to writing letters to Congress, the students joined a campaign to “Air-Out-Your-Dirty-Laundry” on PEPFAR to sign personalized socks outlining which part of the bill you find “stinky.” The action was wildly successful and we quickly ran out of socks after 142 socks had been signed. The socks will now be brought to DC for Congressional visits to make sure all the students’ voices get heard (or their dirty socks get smelt).
January 25th, 2008 at 10:44 am
The name Bill Gates isn’t an uncommon addition to a conversation when talking about ending world poverty, but I know that I’m always pleasantly surprised when a new program is developed or new grants are made available with the Gates name attatched to it. The newest addition? Mr. Gates pledged $306 Billion in grants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to develop poor farms in third world countries, most of which are run by women. Talk about THAT for an allowance.
“If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women,” Gates said. He wasn’t the only one that had something to say either; UN Leader Ban-Ki Moon focused on issues ranging from malaria to climate change, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked the World Bank to also focus efforts on climate change. Both old and new additions to Product (RED) were in attendance; Bono and Michael Dell of Dell Computers had more than enough to talk about.
It’s pretty cool to see some of our favorite leaders doing good around the world; I don’t know about you guys, but it definitly fills me up with a lot of pride and hope to be involved with something as effective and meaningful as the ONE Campaign. Huzzah!
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/25/davos.main/index.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
On Thursday, January 3rd, 2008, Erin Thornton (Policy Director of ONE) spoke on AIDS at the Power ONE Hundred Summit in Washington D.C.
Ms. Thornton works with a team to “ensure that ONE/Data principals and key staff members have the most up to date, factual, persuasive policy argumetns possible on all of ONE/Data Issues.” Ms. Thornton has been a part of ONE/Data for over 5 years and previously worked with the Export-Import Bank, the State Department and USAID.
This Partner Issue Break Out Session was very informative. Ms. Thornton informed us that when developing policy positions, reactions and analysis she looks to find persuasive, factual and up to date information. She cited UNAIDS as the “most reliable” source of inromation and as the place where the ONE Campaign gathers most of its AIDS related information.
From this session we learned that in 2008, there were 2.1 million AIDS related deaths and 2.5 million infections. The fact that the new infection rate was higher than the AIDS related mortality rate provides clear evidence that more work needs to be done; Not enough is being done in AIDS prevention and/or treatment. Ms. Thornton informed us that today there are currently 33 Million people living with AIDS within developing countries alone. The most vital information gained from this session, was the reemphasis that AIDS is not an independent goal, nor is it a seperate topic from any of the other 4 goals of our campaign.
We all understood that AIDS is linked to TB, Malaria and job creation and education. Unfortunately, Africa lost an extremely high number of health workers while having the highest demand for health workers in world. However, these health workers must feed their families as well, and without any financial support or equal access to medical supplies (in comparison to doctors around the wrold) it is almost currently impossible for these health workers to have a living.
Ms. Thornton also showed us that through the Global fund the net result would result in 3.3 million treated for TB, 46 million bed nets would be provited for malaria prevention, and 49 million people would be treated for malaria.
In regards to the existance or conjurinng of any policy in regards to sex slavery, and/or the rape epidemic (the aftermath of war children on the male psyche), it does not exist. We alaso discussed nations who’s stereotypes, or strong relgiously affiliated culture provides infostructure which unfortunately hinders the effectiveness of education regarding AIDS prevention and treatment. The proposed policy in dealing with this problem is to work within cultural infostructure inorder to try and gain awareness of prevention and treatment.
We all thank Ms. Thornton for taking the time to share her valuable experience and knowledge with us. We truly gained a lot from her session on AIDS!!!! We also would like to thank the staff of the ONE campaign and specifically the ONE Campus Challenge for the opportunity to meet with Ms. Thornton, ask questions, and gain from her insight and experience. The Power 100 Summit was an amazing experience and opportunity for all of us. And I truly think we all learned so much through the staff, speakers, and one another. Thank you for this expereince!!!!!
update: photos added and typo fixed.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
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).
TAGS: AIDS, Action, PEPFAR