Whirlwind of a Week and It's Only Wednesday

For the past 5 days, I’ve been in DC for the ONE Campaign Power Summit (aka a fancy word for training and advocacy). The ONE Campaign is an advocacy organization that fights to keep the less than 1% of the budget that the US spends on foreign aid. In polls, the average American believed we spend at least 25% on aid when in reality it is less than 1% (.6%). ONE has over 3 million members and was founded 10 years ago by Bono. It’s unique because they never ask for members’ money, only their voice- letters, calls, tweets to congressmen. In those 10 years, they’ve created incredible change cutting extreme poverty in half and saving 6 million lives through the GAVI alliance for immunizations. Now we are fighting for the Electrify Africa Act, which has the potential to provide 50 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa with electricity for the first time through US investments and infrastructure.

It was an incredible experience to spend these last days with 200 volunteers from around the world. Not only did we get to advocate on the hill, we also got to meet Bono, President Bush’s former chief of staff, the VP of the World Bank and a former Senator, Blanche Lincoln. I learned so much about the fight against extreme poverty and also about ONE’s incredible job team building and helping people unite around one cause. My favorite speech was last night at our final dinner by a Washington Post columnist named Michael Gershen. He talked about his trips over the past 10 years to Africa. His most recent trip was to rural Rwanda where he visited medical clinics. He asked to visit the part of the ward where there were AIDS patients and he was told there were none, then he inquired about malaria patients and was told there were none, and he was confused until he asked someone where is everyone? The man said the AIDS and Malaria drugs distributed have been so effective that we’re now mainly treating patients with heart disease and diabetes because we can. And the speaker ended by saying that “I know advocacy in this area can be hard and lonely but selfishness is a prison and millions are alive by the populations you serve.”

And with that, I am landing in St. Louis en route back to Texas.

Shameless plug: If you live in Baton Rouge the Tortoise and Hair 5k is this weekend, you know you wanna come! Register www.tortoiseandhair5k.org