Many Senators and Representatives have already signed the letter asking Obama for a robust FY10 International Affairs Budget, which of course is the subject of this week’s challenge. Below is the list of signers. If your Member of Congress has already signed, you can still make the call – only instead of trying to persuade him or her to sign on, you’ll be thanking her or him for already signing. These calls are important, too. Members need to know their constituents support things like this, because that effects the level of support the Senator or Representative gives.

Here’s the list of already-signers:

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekly Challenge #9: Call Congress!

Details: 10,000 points to the school with the most advocacy calls to members of Congress about the FY10 International Affairs Budget.

Deadline: Midnight PST on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Obama has made a lot of great promises about all he’s going to do to fight global poverty and preventable diseases, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. But in order to meet those commitments he has to get on the right track right now, with his first budget. If his FY10 budget priorities fall short, it’ll even harder to meet our poverty-fighting goals in 2011 and beyond.

We can’t let that happen, and that’s why we’re asking you to call Members of Congress so they can make sure Obama knows that America wants his first budget to fulfill his promises to the world’s poorest people. Click here for all the information you’ll need to call your Senators and Representative.

You probably won’t get to talk directly to your Members of Congress, but their staff are sure to take down your message and deliver it. Please be courteous to anyone you talk to. Remember you’re representing ONE!

Now, you may have noticed some pretty wild jumps on our leaderboard lately. A couple of schools have tried to exploit our automatic system to accumulate massive points. But all it gets them is a temporary jump in the standings and a spot on our naughty list, because we have lots of ways of catching cheaters. We will be confirming your calls to Congress so please keep your school on our nice list by playing by the rules.

You can make three calls, one to your Representative and one to each of your Senators. After that, you can encourage your family, friends and classmates to make calls too, or even host a phone-bank. But everybody has to do their own reporting.

Click here for instructions, talking points and the form to register your calls.

-Emily Stivers

The University of Michigan’s ONE chapter has had some trouble this year navigating through the bureaucracy of our administration.After awhile we came to the realization that the larger scale projects we’d been hoping to implement were not going to happen any time soon. Instead of getting discouraged we tried to think outside the box and put together some fun, small actions that would get the ONE name out to students.

Since football is one of the greatest traditions here,we thought it would be a great place to start. With that, one of the favorite things students like to do at games here (and many other places) is blow up beach balls and send them flying throughout the crowd. Piggy-backing on this idea – we got together and spray painted beach balls all black and then painted the ONE logo in white on them. We did this at an awesome pre-game tailgate with our ONE members.

When we launched the balls in the air we got a lot of questions about what the logo meant and why we were doing it. It made for a fun picture and was definitely a great way to get the word out. Just because the administration or faculty are being difficult doesn’t mean there is nothing left to try – think outside the box a little and it can end up being the best action you take.

-Stephanie Parrish, University of Michigan ‘11

Last week we asked you to tell us why you were involved with ONE and the ONE Campus Challenge. Many new Facebook friends and equally many compelling stories later, I stumbled upon a link to a youtube video submitted by Tyler Sangermano, Campus Leader for the University of Missouri-Columbia, sent to us from what appears to be the year 2062. (Rough estimate.) Tyler reflects on her past as a Campus Leader with OCC as well as her experiences in the first Power 100 Summit.

The video speaks for itself. Huzzah!

-Maisie Pigeon

This week’s winner for the Photo of the Week is the submission by Kettering University of this cute kitten who braved the elements to show its support for ONE. This little guy was just one of many kitties ONE-ed by Kettering. While not easy to judge which kitten was most deserving, 1000 points goes to Kettering for the seasonal submission!

-Maisie Pigeon

“I’m so cold.”

So you care about ending global poverty, and you’re already a ONE member on your campus. But your school doesn’t have a campus leader for the ONE Campus Challenge with just weeks to go before the announcement of the Top 100 schools for the Power 100 Summit.

A few reasons why you should step up to the plate:

1. It will ultimately help your campus in the ONE Campus Challenge.

   Campus Leaders will have access to a host of tools that no one else has access to on the OCC site – tools like “Email Your Campus” that will help you to organize all of the other ONE members on your campus. Having a bunch of members is great, but sometimes you need to get them all in one place.

2. You get free stuff.

   If your school wins a Weekly Challenge, you are the recipient of the Weekly Challenge Winner Prize Pack, which contains a Flip Video Camera, this year’s OCC t-shirts, books, posters, fliers, and some other stuff that will help to promote ON E on your campus.

3. Other resources.

   As a Campus Leader, you’ll work closely with the Campus Outreach Ambassador (or COA) for your state. COAs are active Campus Leaders themselves so they can really help you get ONE off the ground on your campus.

4. Um, did we mention the Power 100 Summit?!

   The Power 100 Summit is a three-day conference in DC exclusively for the Campus Leaders of the 100 top-ranked schools in the country. Students will have access to speakers that are experts in ONE’s issues, as well as the opportunity to participate in workshops with ONE staff, and of course, to network with 99 of the country’s other most active student advocates.

Sign up at your campus’s page on the OCC site!

-Maisie Pigeon

The OCC Team has given up trying to hide our Facebook addiction. Check out how we participated in the Story/Book Challenge this week at the office.

-Maisie Pigeon

Sacred Heart University’s Michael Fazzino writes:

Why am I a part of the OCC?
When I got an email that ONE was looking for Campus Leaders over a year ago, I had to toy with the idea for a little while. Sure, it sounded like a great opportunity to work directly on issues I care about, but was I really up to the task? While I was passionate about eliminating poverty, I couldn’t recite facts as readily as Bono and didn’t have any experience in lobbying. Would Sacred Heart University really be receptive to ONE?

Still, I dove in. Then everything started to fit into place. I eventually got ONE recognized as a club on campus. I began picking out the “best of the best” around campus to be a part of my executive board – those who had the best ideas and were most motivated. We began getting interested members, going from half a dozen to over 100 active members. We began meeting weekly and coming up with ideas – ideas that ranged from working in our own poverty stricken community to giving aid to those across the globe.

Because of our outstanding work, we began getting recognition around campus. We began to meet with individuals like Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, Congressman Christopher Shays, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator John McCain, Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and many others. The president of the University declared Sacred Heart a ONE Campus, as did Mayor Finch in declaring Bridgeport a ONE City.

Our members are as diverse as our talents. We’ve put up posters, designed t-shirts, held food drives, micro-financed individuals around the planet, gone into local schools, raised awareness on and off campus, and through it all, shown that ONE is a fantastic organization that deserves our time and energy. If our education at Sacred Heart University has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t just sit in a classroom and expect to learn. We have to get out and make an impact.

As a result, not only have we gained a greater sense of the vast scope of people who need help on our planet, I’ve strengthened my relationship with each diverse organization and department on campus. ONE has helped open the door to countless other opportunities for me, including internships with Product (RED) and the United States House of Representatives. Most importantly, I’ve seen firsthand the impact a person can have by using their voice and a little bit of motivation. I’m much better off for it, and I’d encourage anyone to jump at the opportunity to become a campus leader, or at a minimum, donate some of your time to ONE.

-Michael Fazzino

Today we feature Justin Kralemann from Baylor University in our Campus Leader series:

Shortly before I became a ONE campus leader, I was reading a book by Bill Hybels called Holy Discontent. This book talks about how God has given all believers a discontent/conviction for something in the world. For some it may be poverty, for others it could be responding to a hurricane or earthquake, and so forth. A few days after reading a chapter on poverty that mentioned the ONE Campaign, I received a call without prior notice from the ONE Campaign. (I still have no clue how y’all got my number). The person asked me if I would be interested in becoming a leader for the ONE Campaign on my campus. I knew this had to have been a God thing because after reading the chapter, I really felt convicted to do something. It seemed God placed the opportunity right in front of me and I decided to take it!

Aside from this experience, I have had the blessings to travel all over the world. I have gone on mission trips to Romania, Kenya, and Mexico. I have also traveled to Thailand, China, and a majority of Europe. Because of these opportunities, I have seen firsthand what poverty looks like. I have watched helpless as hundreds of mothers beg for food to feed their children on the streets of China. I have worked day after day to help treat hundreds of Kenyans suffering from Malaria on my trip to Africa. These opportunities have truly made an impact in my life. However, one thing I began to notice was the fact that one act of kindness made a huge impact. When working on mission trips, I was encouraged that I had decided to do something to make a difference rather than simply ignoring a problem because it was too big.

Extreme Poverty is all over the world, yet if enough people step up and make a difference, it could be eradicated. This is exactly what the ONE Campaign is doing. It is asking you to make a small impact in people’s lives knowing that many small differences can ultimately make a very BIG difference.

I love the quote by Mother Theresa that says, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” This has been my constant challenge within my own life.

-Justin Kralemann

Check out the blog-post below to see how your campus can earn 2,500 points by hosting a WorldCrafts holiday shopping party!

-Margaret McDonnell, NGO Partnerships Team

WorldCraftsSM, a fair-trade, nonprofit entity- through a partnership with an artisan group comprised of women who make jewelry- is helping to give Afghani families an expectation of life beyond their impoverished conditions. You can join this and other efforts by hosting a WorldCrafts event on your college campus.

The women sell their handmade products through WorldCrafts and use their earnings to pay for their families’ health-care and education needs. As the Afghani artisan group expressed, “We all are very happy with this job. It helps us to forget our family problems for the hours that we are working together, laughing and talking. Being together makes us brave and gives us courage to fight for our rights.”

Natalia, one of the artisans in this group, shared her hopefulness, “I am very happy that we will soon start a literacy class here.” Natalia desires to be able to read and more. Her father died due to an illness when Natalia was 10, forcing her to drop out of school. As a young woman, marriage before her brothers was forbidden; and now, at 28, Natalia is deemed too old to marry. Yet, she discovers freedom in her ability to work. “It is very good for me to have my own money,” she concludes. “I can provide everything for myself without asking my brothers. Now I can even help my brothers, and I put my nephew in school.”

WorldCrafts not only gives each artisan a glimpse of life beyond continuous war and poverty but also offers them the means to achieve such a life. Abiding by Fair Trade Federation guidelines, WorldCrafts works closely with artisans to ensure fair labor, wages, working conditions, and business development.

How can you help? Host a WorldCrafts holiday shopping party on your campus. It’s easy and you can find step-by-step plans here. Visit http://www.worldcraftsvillage.com/ for more information about artisan groups and their artistry, and for resources for planning a WorldCrafts event.

-Kristi Griem, WorldCrafts

Since 1996, WorldCrafts has imported handmade crafts from artisans worldwide, providing them and their families with hope and income for food, shelter, education, and medicine. WorldCrafts works with 70 different artisan groups in 38 countries.