More than 30 ONE members and supporters were outside the hotel where the GAVI pledging conference was being held in London at 7.30am this morning, campaigning for two new vaccines against two of the biggest killers of children in the poorest of countries.
With over 300,000 people signed up to support this campaign, we wanted to ensure that world leaders, delegates and the media couldn’t avoid our call as they arrived at the conference.
Supportive placards and a banner helped send a clear reminder that they had just 4 hours to save another 4 million lives. Footage of our team outside the conference was used on BBC News all day, and our activists were even mentioned by Bill Gates at the start of his speech – highlighting the impact that you as our grassroots membership can truly have.
We chanted in 3 languages to have the widest reach possible among delegates, people in the street stopped to ask what our campaign was for, and got a thumbs up in support from UK International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, as he arrived.
After the final total of funds pledged was announced at a brilliant $4.3 billion – even more than we were hoping for – Bill Gates came outside to thank ONE members for our support.
Thank you to those who joined us early this morning to make sure that our collective voice was heard by world leaders. But every single one of you who signed our petition played a part in today’s success, giving millions of children a chance, so thank you too.
This is my first blog for ONE, I joined the team in London last week as UK Campaigns Manager, and very much look forward to meeting and working with many of you on the campaigns ahead.