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Column: Global Poverty Project - International
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Diane is a supporter of the Global Poverty Project. After watching the live stream of the Global Citizen Festival, Diane decided to take action in her community to bring an end to extreme poverty.
What would $1.50 buy me today? A loaf of white bread, 1 and 1/2 pounds of apples, a soda from a convenience store or a cheeseburger. What if this is all you had to spend each day for not only food, but your entire livelihood including shelter, clothes and medicine? 1.4 billion people are faced with this reality each day.
At the age of 44, I am back in college and see where life has taken me. One day I was doing some research and I ran across an article that stated the Foo Fighters would be playing a concert benefitting the Global Poverty Project. Being an avid fan, I tuned in. I streamed the concert on my laptop and enjoyed the show. I heard the stories of current GPP partners and what they have accomplished with so little funding. Adam Braun, CEO of Pencils of Promise, said that he used to not be sure how he, as one of billions on this earth, could ever make a difference. One day, he started his journey with $25 and is now opening his 100th school. WOW! One person can make a significant difference! First, even if something we do is significant to one person, it was worth the effort. Second, if we all work together, we can accomplish much.
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I looked further into GPP and found more information pertaining to living on less than $1.50 a day. I thought to myself,”I can’t even get a decent sandwich for less than $5.00 “. This started me thinking of how my existence on this earth could benefit someone else. Wristbands, everyone loves wristbands. Color? Several internet sites agree orange is the color of hunger and poverty, so orange it is. What should it say? Simply, $1.50 a day. This would not only remind the wearer of how fortunate they are, but provoke conversation. I also added the GPP web address to remind the wearer to continue to follow the GPP’s progress.
I found a company that would make the Silicone (latex free) bands in the US and use the scraps to make children’s playground bedding. Perfect! Great for allergies, great for the environment, and made in the US!
I have had these wristbands for a week and have had a great response! I get asked about mine several times a day. Will I save the world with these wristbands? No, but all of us together will make a difference in so many lives.
The Global Poverty Project is so wonderful at pulling resources together, that I decided I wanted to be a part of their mission. Orders can be emailed to 1.50adaywristbands@gmail.com. They are $5 each. $3 from each wrist band goes to Global Poverty Project, $1.50 goes to local non-profit charities in the US, such as food banks purchasing bulk food ( 25 cents buys one pound of bulk food! ) and non-profits dedicated to promoting volunteerism, $.50 will purchase another wristband to pay it forward!
Wristband, anyone?
After discussions with Diane, the Global Poverty Project has decided to devote the money that is donated through the purchase of wristbands to help fund our Spring Tour. In Spring 2013 GPP will send a team of skilled presenters on a tour across the United States. The team will give presentations to 100 community groups, universities, and schools. Are you interested in booking a presentation for your group of 150+? Email gpp_usa@globalpovertyproject.com. |
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In May this year, I made the decision to sacrifice a week of my relatively indulgent lifestyle to become involved in a worldwide pledge to put an end to extreme poverty. I'm sure you're probably thinking: "How does a smiley Northern chick propose to eradicate the world's biggest problem just by simply offering a week of her time?" Well, I hopped on down to the supermarket, spent a fiver on rice and tinned tomatoes, promised I'd live on that and nothing else for a period of five days and asked people to sponsor me for it. The challenge was Live Below the Line and on the day that I decided to become involved, I became a Global Citizen fighting to put an end to world poverty. As a result of my pledge and the overwhelming generosity that people showed in their donations, I was chosen to attend the Global Citizen Festival that took place on the 29th of September in Central Park, New York.
 The concert was organised by the Global Poverty Project, the organisations responsible for Live Below the Line and supported by an assemblage of charities and campaigners with one overriding objective in mind - to end extreme poverty within a generation. They came together merged ideas, planned and prepared an event that they hoped would inspire those that attended. And they achieved a result to be proud of.
As far as charity gigs go, there's probably no better place on the planet than Central Park at the beginning of autumn. There we were, sixty-thousand people crowded beneath a city skyline at sunset swaying to Neil Young and Crazy Horse as the streetlights behind us flickered in response to the impending darkness. There was singing, there was bouncing, but most of all there were inspired people. Thousands of people united in their one sole purpose - to stand as Global Citizens who have campaigned and fought for the end of world poverty. The explosive post-grunge dynamics played out through the fingertips of Dave Grohl and his band Foo Fighters arguably contrasted with squeaky clean Disney-kid Selena Gomez's tender speech on the tireless work of UNICEF but nevertheless proved that the Global Citizen family is one that is exclusive only to humanity.
An unexpected and welcome arrival of soul singer John Legend saw a touching version of John Lennon's ever-relevant â??Imagine' tinkered out to a grateful crowd and we listened with intent to the speeches and statements of charity co-ordinators and ambassadors.
There was talk of thanks, help and improvement. Statistics on childbirth mortality rates silenced the chatter of the audience as Somali midwife Edna Adan was rightly rewarded a Dedication to Service Award for her outstanding achievement of training 200 nurses and 150 midwives in Somaliland. The crowd applauded as Edna gave thanks and vowed to continue her tireless work in preventing the unnecessary deaths of thousands of women and babies every year.
Other exceptional individuals were rewarded for their time and dedication to charitable causes: Haitian amputee Wilfred Macena was presented the Community and Leadership award for his endless courage and spirit in the plight of the earthquake that left his country devastated in 2010. Urmi Basu, an honourable lady who devotes her life to fighting gender inequality and female oppression in India, was given the award for Commitment to Justice and Systematic Change, and Jonas Salk was posthumously commended for his life changing developments in the area of Technology and Innovation.
 And through all the words of thanks and encouragement, we, the audience stood in awe of the remarkable people who have relentlessly offered so much time and energy into such a selfless cause but one that is so central to the heart of our universe. So we stood, we watched, we listened and we thought about what we could do in the fight against global poverty. I stood alone in the crowd and thought to myself: "This has to end, the whole reason we're here has to end." And it will. Through the work of charities and the people who care enough to become Global Citizens, poverty will end.
The festival saw an astounding $1.3billion dollars raised in commitments to end world poverty and I, for one, hope that this figure is just the beginning of a long but worthwhile battle with an issue that claims the lives of millions every year. I hope people saw and heard about a rock concert where a crowd boogied into the darkness to the distinctive blues rock sounds of The Black Keys. I hope the word of sixty thousand people enjoying themselves in the name of charity spread through the streets of New York. And I hope that next year, the Global Citizen Festival will be back to light up the Great Lawn of Central Park (or even somewhere fitting in the UK!) with more music, awards and pledges. I hope that together, we can save lives.
You can join me in living below the line in 2013 by registering at www.livebelowtheline.com/uk |
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Last Tuesday, 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot by members of the Taliban while returning home from school in Mingora, northwestern Swat.
Malala has been campaigning for girls to go to school in Pakistan, despite receiving death threats from the Taliban. Earlier today, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now the UN Special Envoy on Global Education, has launched a petition in her name.
The petition highlights the 34 million girls not currently in school and the 61 million children being shut out of primary education. The petition also “calls on Pakistan to ensure that every girl like Malala has the chance to go to school.” Gordon Brown is highlighting the abuse of rights in Pakistan but also calling on the international community to ensure that all children have access to education by the end of 2015. Mr Brown said he would hand the petition to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari when he visits Islamabad in November.
While Malala recovers in the hospital, the world is taking responsibility for continuing her message. Gordon Brown stated: “Indeed the protests reveal a world no longer willing to tolerate the gap between the promise of opportunity for all and the reality of 61 million boys and girls shut out from even the most basic of primary schooling.”
Malala, at 14, stands up for children in Pakistan by leading this protest-- demonstrating that children understand the fundamentality of education as a right, and are demanding to learn: “the spontaneous wave of protest we are witnessing shows that children are more assertive of their right to education than the leaders who promised to deliver it.” (Brown)
The Taliban endeavor to make Malala soundless, while we can ensure her message reverberates in every corner of the world. We-- as Global Citizens-- will stand for every child and their basic right to an education.
We are Malala.
Sign the petition to support Malala and help her win this fight at educationenvoy.org.
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"The Global Citizen platform ignites a global movement, encouraging tens of thousands of people around the world to easily voice their support for children everywhere being free from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Engaging the broader public on these issues is critical if we’re going to succeed in helping all children, no matter where they live, lead healthy, productive lives." - Melissa Covelli, Senior Program Officer, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Global Citizen movement is about action. People around the world are learning more about issues of extreme poverty, sharing content through social media, signing petitions, asking world leaders to take a stand and donating to causes for which they are newly impassioned.
The Global Citizen Festival was a singular moment in a movement that will continue to grow and continue to bring together partners under the objective of ending extreme poverty within our generation. We brought together an incredible coalition of NGO partners spanning the entirety f the Millennium Development Goals. We drove these partners to reach far above and beyond their current ambitions. We set out to secure commitments that were entirely new and larger than what had been done before. Then, we set up a truly world stage with a 60,000 person live audience and through a massive online broadcast to ensure accountability in achieving these ambitious commitments. The platform offered by the Festival as well as the monitoring and evaluation plan that will be implemented by the Global Poverty Project will hold these organizations accountable to achieve these ambitious new commitments in the coming years.
We utilized the following framework for new commitments to be considered for the Global Citizen Festival:
1) A financial announcement that will not been broadcast in any other forum and was not announced before September 29, 2012 (i.e. can not also be announced at Clinton Global Initiative)
2) A financial impact that will have significant consequence for the world’s poor in the relative near future (up to or over the course of the next 5 years)
3) An announcement of new money for a specific programmatic objective OR a commitment to fundraise a specific amount of money for a specific programmatic objective in the near future (within 5 years)
Global Poverty Project will meet with each NGO to evaluate progress in six months time. GPP will produce a Post-Global Festival Review Document to evaluate progress of the NGO partners in meeting commitments and accomplishments at one year, two year and in five years time.
Half the Sky was a Principal Partner that brought a large commitment announcement to the stage. A spokesman from Half the Sky commented, “Because of the platform offered by the Global Citizen Festival, 15 of our partner nonprofit organizations declared bold commitments to achieve incredible outcomes for women and girls living in extreme poverty. The Global Citizen platform drove new and incredible attention to issues facing women and girls around the world. The coalition of 15 NGOs representing the Half the Sky Movement announced $167.5 million in new commitments.”
In total, at the Global Citizen Festival, $1,314,700,000 in new financial commitments were announced to benefit the extreme poor.
- The Half the Sky Movement commits to raise $167.5 Million for women's empowerment through a coalition of 15 NGO partners.
- The U.S. Fund for UNICEF will raise $500 million by 2015 to fight for the survival and development of children.
- charity: water commits to raise $100 million by 2015 for clean drinking water, 100% of which will directly fund water project costs in the field.
- Pencils of Promise will generate a movement of 500,000 actions toward education for all.
- World Vision commits to raise $14.5 million for advocacy to reduce child and maternal mortality rates.
- World Food Program USA commits $15 million towards reducing childhood malnutrition in Central America.
- Global Partnership for Education will raise $500 million to help 5 million children in crisis and conflict areas get in school and learn
- Malaria No More will raise up to $1.5 million to expand life-saving health education programs in central Africa.
- The Earth Institute commits $6.2 million for food security throughout the Horn of Africa.
- Earth Day Network commits $10 million to plant 10 million trees over 5 years around the world.
Global Poverty Project is mobilizing a growing movement of young people to be actively engaged and then using that social movement to hold NGOs and governments accountable. The platform offered by the Global Citizen Festival allowed for increased impact for the world’s poor from a financial perspective but also introduced greater accountability and re-energized a youth movement. All of these elements are absolutely fundamental in the movement to end extreme poverty within our lifetime. |
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As part of the Global Poverty Project’s commitment to ending polio, we are honoured to be working with Rotary International. Rotary was the first organisation who dared to take on the challenge of making a world without polio a reality and, since 1985, they have spearheaded efforts to vaccinate children across the developing world so that polio becomes as forgotten there as it is in developed countries. Since Rotary took the lead in ending polio, cases have been reduced by 99% - from more than 350,000 in 1988 to 650 in 2011 - and the number of polio-endemic countries has been reduced from 125 to just three (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria).
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Rotary’s motto of “service above self” is a powerful and inspirational one. It is a motto that has inspired Rotarians to raise over US$1 billion to end polio, to work with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in leading the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and to ask, not if we can end polio, but when.
On the 25th of May, 2012, the World Health Assembly declared polio an emergency for global public health, calling upon its 194 member states to fully fund the GPEI. The UK has been one of the leading countries spearheading the charge to eradicate polio. In January of last year, the Prime Minister announced a doubling of the UK's support to the GPEI, to help reach over 90 million children in 2011-2012. However, the measures needed to eradicate polio for good are expensive and the GPEI needs at least $240m by January 2013 just to continue operating. Indeed, the GPEI is facing an almost $1 billion funding gap over the next two years, meaning that it is having to scale back and stop vital vaccination programmes for children.
Now that we’re so close to eradicating polio, the time has come, not to falter or pause, but to continue to act. Indeed, Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, says:
"We have a window of opportunity now, with cases at an all time low. But if there is polio anywhere we are at risk of polio everywhere. Only eradication will ensure that polio does not re-emerge as a global threat."
As part of the Global Poverty Project’s The End of Polio campaign, we have been presenting at Rotary clubs across the UK. The passion with which the Chairman of Aberdeen Rotary club, John Milne, spoke about his concerns that the last sufferers of polio will be forgotten summed up Rotary’s commitment. Just like the Global Poverty Project, Rotary sees the final 1% as the most important. Both organisations believe that no child should face a lifetime of disability from a disease we know how to prevent, simply because of where they are born. Inspired by the commitment of Rotarians to ending polio, and their steadfast belief that a polio-free world is possible, the Global Poverty Project will continue to campaign alongside Rotary until the dream of a polio-free world has been realised. |
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