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Making ONE Voice Count
As Published in the Hartford Courant
January 15, 2006 - During U2's Hartford concert in December, charismatic lead singer Bono took a moment to give a shout-out to the ONE Campaign. His organization, DATA (an acronym for debt, AIDS, trade and Africa), is among ONE's founding organizations.
"It was terrific," says Eileen Burke of Westport-based Save the Children, another founding organization. "People of all ages were at the concert, from teenagers to aged rockers, and at one point, a visual comes up, a map of Africa, and Bono starts to talk about what the situation is like. At that point, they flash up on the screen a number you can call from your cellphone or send a text message."
By most standards, 2005 was a horrible year. At its onset, the world was still reeling from the post-Christmas tsunami in Asia. Sprinkled throughout were floods, fires and wars. The AIDS pandemic continued to strafe Africa. Pakistan was rocked by an earthquake. And America had Katrina.
Through it all, Americans gave and gave, and what experts predicted would be compassion fatigue never came. Americans gave in record numbers - to other Americans and to people abroad.
May 2006 be a gentler year, but may we take from 2005 the knowledge that in many of last year's worst-hit areas, the disasters wouldn't have had nearly as large an impact had those places not already been racked by poverty, pestilence and a lack of attention from the people in power to change things.
The ONE Campaign seeks to change that, even though it is emphatically not a fundraising organization. What the ONE Campaign wants is your phone call, your e-mail, your letter to your elected representatives to ask that an additional 1 percent of the federal budget (about $25 billion) be devoted to fighting AIDS and poverty worldwide. ONE also seeks, according to its literature, "debt cancellation, trade reform and anti-corruption measures in a comprehensive package to help Africa and the poorest nations beat AIDS and extreme poverty."
In July, Burke took family members to Philadelphia to the Live 8 concert. There, she says, when the ONE message flashed on the screen, "I'm standing next to my 12-year-old nephew, and he pulls out his cellphone to text-message the ONE Campaign, and in front of him is a guy decked out in his Vietnam vet paraphernalia, and he pulls out his cellphone to text-message."
And in that, ONE has a certain genius to it. Make your voice heard. Affect the voting of your elected representative. Change a life. Follow the lead of celebrities like Bono, who with Bill and Melinda Gates was recently named Persons of the Year for their work in alleviating world poverty and improving world health.
Since April, 1.6 million Americans have joined ONE (and ye shall know them by their identifying white wristbands). Already in this state, 25,600 citizens have joined, according to ONE spokeswoman Meighan Stone. All five Connecticut House members supported a bill introduced in November that would increase support for international child survival. Gov. M. Jodi Rell declared Dec. 10 "State of One Day." Proper attention from policy makers, says Save the Children President and CEO Charles MacCormack, "offers millions more children the chance to grow up to celebrate their fifth birthday." Every year, according to Save the Children, more than 10 million children under age 5 die from preventable or treatable diseases such as measles, tetanus, diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria. Malnutrition contributes to more than half of these deaths.
Writing a check is a wonderful, charitable thing to do. But proactively changing a vote, helping to build a country's infrastructure and offering preventive medicine is even better. The president is mulling over his 2007 budget requests now. He should hear from you. Burke says, "In the end, that's going to help these children."
