November 13th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Seton Hall University’s ONE Chapter posted an event to their local news website, southorange.patch.com, about their book drive for the Liberian Literacy Foundation. Check it out:
The ONE Campaign at Seton Hall University is holding a book drive to benefit the Liberian Literacy Association.
ONE is a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization backed by more than 2 million people who are committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African policy makers and activists.
Seton Hall’s Chapter of ONE works to raise awareness of these issues of extreme poverty and preventable disease within our student body and community.
Education is a powerful pathway out of poverty, and ONE is proud to support the Liberian Literacy Association’s book collection project.
The book drive is targeted toward children in grades K-12, but we will accept any and all books.
For more info including drop box locations at Seton Hall, click here.
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 12th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Can’t wait for the Power 100 at the end of January? Neither can I! Luckily, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois is planning their 2010 Northwestern University Conference on Human Rights for January 21-24 (one week before Power 100).
This year’s conference, Urban Slums: The Shadow of the Humanitarian Generation, is shaping up to be an eye-opening and skill-building weekend. I attended this conference last year and came out of it with so much knowledge, passion and resources at my fingertips. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my college years.
Some of the best parts of the conference:
- All of your expenses are paid for (travel, hotel, food)
- You would be one of 40 delegates from schools across the country … resume builder?
- NUCHR is the largest student-run and student-organized conference of its kind
- I’ll be there!
The application is due on NOVEMBER 29, and there are a couple essays so start now! Check out their website for more information and the application. And feel free to email me at sparrish@ONECampusChallenge.org with any questions!
-Stephanie Parrish, Campus Outreach Ambassador for Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 12th, 2009 at 11:14 am
During our last meeting, the University of Florida ONE Campaign invited local Gainesville author Marcee Winthrop to speak. She spoke from a first person perspective about being homeless. Marcee has lived in poverty for the last 20 years. On New Year’s Eve, she promised her daughter that they would climb out of poverty within the next year.
Marcee attempted many times to become employed, but because of the poor condition of her teeth, it proved nearly impossible to find a job (especially positions related to customer service. She knew no company would be willing to hire someone with her severity of crooked and misaligned teeth.
Marcee then discovered her talents as a writer and poet. She spent hours lost in thought while she used poetry as a medium to describe her experiences with homelessness. She began compiling her poetry and dreamed of selling her work to pay the bills. A kind-hearted pastor at her local church graciously agreed to donate money for her first publication. With his aid, she was able to publish and sell her first book titled Poverty Revolution Part 1. She recently finished the sequel and has found multiple family-owned book stores willing and excited to sell her work.
Her poetry focuses on the hardships and stigmas associated with homelessness. Not only do her poems bring Marcee hope, but they share life experiences most U.S. citizens never have to experience.
Marcee read to us from her book and even performed a poem she created for ONE. Her poem, One??, describes what people can accomplish by coming together as one.
Afterwards, we invited Marcee to our dinner social where members could ask her more questions about her book and the life she has lead. Marcee shared with ONE members eye-opening insights about the poverty and homelessness to be encountered locally, in Alachua County. This event brought a first-hand look at homelessness and the many things we, as ONE members, can change.
Hopefully this experience will help us to further spread awareness in our community about these issues and move one step forward in making a difference. Her book can be found here.
-Bryant Shannon, Campus Outreach Ambassador for Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am
ONE Webster put together quite the event for “Stand Up and Take Action” on October 16 by getting 107 petition signatures to Missouri Senator Christopher Bond. The petition asked the senator to stand up for the world’s poor by co-sponsoring the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act (S. 1524). Today, we delivered it.
ONE Webster President Kritter Keirnan, Secretary Ellie Curran and I met with Senator Bond’s Foreign Policy Legislative Assistant, Michael DuBois, and Community Liaison Peggy Barnhart. We began by thanking the senator for co-sponsoring the Water for the World Act (S. 624), legislation that will provide 100 million more people with clean drinking water by 2015. When we presented the petitions, Mike DuBois informed us that he had already been reading the S. 1524 legislation and was optimistic that the senator would sign on very soon. He explained that the bill is congruent with the senator’s beliefs regarding smart power and was a complement to the America’s Global Development Capacity Act (S. 355) that he co-sponsored earlier this year.
Senator Bond has been a champion for the extreme poor in the Senate as of late and he recently co-authored a book that discusses smart power and the importance of US foreign aid to developing countries in southeast Asia. We presented his staffers with an invitation from Webster University President Elizabeth Stoble to speak about these ideas on our campus. They were very open to the idea and promised to pass the invitation along to the senator.
ONE Webster is very excited about the outcome of today’s meeting and we hope we will soon be planning an event for Senator Bond to speak at!
-Nick Stevens, Founder and Online Communications Director for ONE Webster and Campus Outreach Ambassador for Missouri
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 11th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
We have more than 300 books pledged so far through our book entry form, and Bentley University has thrown down the gauntlet by getting a Boston publishing company to agree to donate several hundred books to the Liberian Literacy Foundation. We’re waiting on an exact count of those, but meanwhile here are the other top book-submitting schools so far:
- University of Florida: 121 books
- Sacred Heart University: 98
- George Washington University: 28
- Webster University: 24
- Indiana University Southeast: 18
Remember that we have prizes for first, second and third places in this challenge. Learn more about the challenge and prizes here.
And if you’re planning to submit books, please don’t wait — start entering them in the book entry form now. Even just one book is enough to put your school on our list that we send to the Liberian Literacy Foundation so they can schedule a time to pick up your books between November 20 and 30.
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I got to go to the Hanson concert in Atlanta, and I must say that I am still just as crazy about them as I was when I was 12; but the coolest part of the concert was when they gave a big shoutout to Georgia Tech and their ONE Campus Challenge leader Sharad Gopal for helping host a take the walk event in Downtown Atlanta! They asked who in the audience took the walk earlier and over half of the crowd cheered. Congrats Tech, and great job!
Check out this article in their paper about the event.
Huzzah!
-Audrey Ruark, Campus Outreach Ambassador for Alabama and Georgia
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 11th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
![4086517592_7c423b2687_b[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2435/4095435191_e8a8078a35.jpg)
ONE at MSU tabled on their campus before a football against Western Michigan last Saturday, cleverly enticing passers-by with ONE bands, information about ONE that they could easily stash in their pockets until after the game, and of course, some satiating sweets. People signing petitions walked away feeling good about themselves… and got free candy! Not sure what the score of the game was but this sounds like a win-win.
TAGS: Picture of the Week
November 11th, 2009 at 9:49 am
We already delivered the Upgrade Aid petition, and we’re working hard to get a new ONE petition up. But we want it to be a good petition that will really make a difference and bring in new ONE and Campus Challenge members at the same time, so we’re considering our options carefully. We should have something for you next week.
In the meantime, you don’t have to be idle on advocacy! The mark up on the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act is postponed until November 17th due to a memorial service for Ft. Hood, and the nomination at long last of a new USAID administrator could mean new momentum for our campaign if we keep up the pressure.
So you can still sign the petition and share it with your social networks, and also take your advocacy of this important legislation to the next level by calling your senator(s).
Find everything you need to make your call(s) here. You’ll get 1,000 points automatically when you fill out the form to report your call, and this is a great way to add some real “oomph” to our petition and make sure the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes this bill seriously.
And stay tuned to the OCC Blog for more opportunities to take action!
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Hello all! This past weekend, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness hosted the RESOLVE 2009 Conference at Loyola University in Chicago. The purpose of the conference was to bring together student activists in the fight against global and domestic poverty to launch the Resolve to Fight Poverty 2009 Campaign. Check out their website for more information.
The conference organizers contacted me a few months ago asking me to establish a ONE presence at the conference through tabling and workshops. After a bit of planning, I was on my way to Chicago with one of my ONE at U fM members and my fellow Campus Outreach Ambassador, Nick Stevens, from Webster University in Missouri. Friday morning, we set up a table in their beautiful Information Commons building and spoke to all the conference attendees (about 300 students). In addition to handing out ONE bands and laptop stickers, we talked to students about bringing ONE to their campuses. Watch out for some new awesome Campus Leaders in the next few weeks!
Later that afternoon, Nick and I sat on a Student Activism Panel as “seasoned student activists in the anti-poverty movement.” It was exciting to have such a ONE presence, we made up half the panel! The moderator asked us questions like “What has been your greatest success in your work for the campaign? What is your greatest failure and what did you learn from it? How did you get involved in the movement? What advice do you have for young activists looking to be more involved?” After this, we took questions from the audience about what it is like to lobby congressmen and women, how to advertise on campus, how to get new members and how to collaborate with other student groups. It was a great experience and I think the students found it very helpful!
When asked to give tips to young activists, I shared the importance of passion. We are all passionate about these issues, or we would not be involved, but sometimes we may lose sight of that. I recommended that everyone do something that can remind them of their passion when things are getting stressful. For me, there is a large mural of Africa on my dorm room wall, covered in pictures and scraps from my trip to Kenya with the OCC last summer. For you, it may be as simple as wearing a ONE band every day or carrying a picture or quote around with you. Make sure to remind yourself why you do the amazing work you do sometimes, or you may lose sight of your impact.
- Stephanie Parrish, Campus Outreach Ambassador for Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin
TAGS: Uncategorized
November 10th, 2009 at 10:25 am
If you’re at a top 40 school in the ONE Campus Challenge so far this year, congratulations! We are super excited by the actions pouring in and the number of different students and schools submitting them. Really awesome.
But you may have noticed that, just like material wealth in the real world, the vast majority of OCC points are concentrated in the hands of a relative few. The points quickly drop off from upwards of 100,000 in the top 10 to the 10,000s on page 3…and school #100 only has 3,610 points.
So here’s the challenge for those schools in the top 40: help build the college anti-poverty movement and raise the level of OCC competition by engaging a school ranked lower than yours. Consider starting in the 80-100 rankings.
If you can pick a school close to yours and actually visit to table, great. But we don’t expect you to do that. You can accomplish a whole lot, just online — and earn points for your own school in the process:
- Online Sleuthing. Google a school to find its .edu website, and poke around the school’s site for student groups, ONE partner organizations, International Development professors or individuals who might be interested in ONE. Send us the school’s name, address and 5 email addresses for groups or individuals who might be interested, and we’ll give you 100 points per email address.
- Engage on Facebook and Twitter. Post a few lines of OCC explanation and a link to one.org/campus on a message board or the school’s Facebook page — or even the school’s sports team fan page — or tweet at the school for 150 points.
- Email people who might be interested. Just send them a short overview of what OCC is, and a couple of points you think are important (maybe how we make a difference, info on this month’s challenge, or some of the prizes). Provide us the person or group’s email address and what you sent them for 500 points.
- Snail-mail the school. Find the address for the school’s International Relations department, student center, study abroad center, etc. and snail-mail them some info about OCC and a few fliers and sign up sheets they can post on their bulletin boards. Do a good job and this could be worth 1,000 points.
Not all schools have strong online communities, so you might have to visit a few sites before you find a school you can engage. And you might have to think creatively in terms of people and groups that might be interested in ONE. But if you’re successful, you’ll not only be raising the bar for the competition — you’ll also be strengthening the next generation of global anti-poverty advocates and helping ONE build a bigger, better team in the struggle that REALLY matters.
Tell us what you did and whom you reached as a Make Your Own Action, and we’ll award points accordingly. If you hear back from people, let us know and we’ll give you points for following up too. If you can help recruit an active, action-submitting campus leader at a school ranked lower than 80, we’ll be SUPER impressed.
Good luck!
-Emily Stivers
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