Billy — our UK Campaigns Manager — hit the road with U2 this fall to take the fight against extreme poverty across Europe! Read the full #ONEonTour series here.
After an incredible 2.5 months on the U2 tour, I’ve packed up my cases, folded up the remaining ONE t-shirts, and put our enormous ONE banner (which, between you and me, is completely destroyed) away.
I’ve settled back into my life here in London and I wanted to share a few short highlights from a whirlwind few months:
1. Meeting Bono, ONE’s co-founder, in Berlin
Germany ONE Staff with ONE’s co-founder, Bono.
It was great to meet our co-founder Bono at the beginning of the tour at our Berlin office. His commitments to activism and fighting extreme poverty have been a huge source of motivation to me throughout my time at ONE.
Before he met with Chancellor Merkel, he shared some of his thoughts on global politics and why our efforts were more important than ever. We even got a cheeky picture.
2. Hanging out with U2 fans
ONE volunteers at the O2 in London.
I love music. I love Adele, Bon Iver, LCD Soundsystem and Gorillaz – that’s my vibe! But, I’ve never met any fans as committed as U2 fans — their support for ONE is astonishing. Many of them had ONE wristbands from previous tours, shared personal stories about why they cared about fighting extreme poverty and so many had become full fledged volunteers for ONE in their hometowns. It was really inspiring and made me feel hugely optimistic about the future of the movement.
3. Laughing with brilliant ONE volunteers
Here’s the truth (trust me). Every ONE volunteer who joined us on the tour was great! They were lovely, funny, and tried their best. From Copenhagen to Milan, I’ve never met such a wonderful group of people willing to give up their time to chat with strangers about global gender inequality and ask them to stand with us, which isn’t always an easy task at a concert.
https://twitter.com/campaignbill/status/1043054055856238593
I feel very lucky to have met so many wonderful people and I’m pleased to still be in touch with many of them.
