How many ONE members can you fit on a tractor?
Wow – what a day so far! We’ve just come back from London’s Marble Arch, where we were joined by ONE members, a tractor, and a large vegetable display spelling out THRIVE. Yes, really!
Why? Well that’s what passers-by were asking us too, and it’s all for a very good reason. Today, across the globe, ONE launched our biggest and most ambitious campaign yet – Thrive. This 4 year campaign seeks to break the cycle of hunger and poverty, by tackling the root causes of both. And if leaders, donors and businesses step up by 2015, an incredible 15 million children won’t have to face malnutrition, and 50 million people will be lifted out of poverty.
British Olympic athlete Mo Farah fired the starting pistol by sowing a seed of change with his family, and ONE members sowed their own seeds in pots too, which they’ve taken away and will help grow as our campaign progresses.
Next month, leaders from the world’s richest countries, the G8, are meeting at Camp David in the US and we need to get this vital issue onto the agenda. But US President Barack Obama needs to hear that there’s support throughout the G8 and beyond, and it’s up to us to show both him and UK Prime Minister David Cameron that we wholeheartedly support this. And that is what we’ve been doing today.
Here’s Adrian Lovett – our Europe Director – launching the campaign at our event today:
Please do add your voice to this, quite special, campaign and share it online to ask those that you know to join you too.
Thanks again to everyone who joined us today. Let’s thrive.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that 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.
10/04/2012 at 5:13 pm
Here’s a message to the US Senate t 4 years ago, sent to the committee where Obama and Biden were members:
“I hope we continue to realize ever more fully that outside the box and inside the box have only a box in the way. We outside the box know quite a bit of what’s going on, many times in exquisite detail, perhaps in ways that those inside the box can’t quite as easily access if at all. We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?”
11/04/2012 at 1:42 pm
Poverty is not a natural phenomena. It is a man made problem in an organised way to deprive millions of people to their natural right to live with peace and love, so we must sow this seed for thriving their hopes and ambitions for a new light of justice and equality.