ONE Blog
ONE Act a Week: Create an anti-poverty Internet meme
|
Action: 27. Time: 10 minutes. Level of difficulty: Moderate. This week, we thought it would be fun to ask our ONE members to create their own Internet meme based on our issues. In case you don’t know what a meme is, it’s a concept that spreads swiftly via the Internet. It’s the funny cat pictures you’ve been sharing. It’s the “S%@! Girls Say” offshoot videos you’ve been watching. It’s Rebecca Black’s “Friday” song you’ve been listening to. Most Internet memes are funny, crazy and let’s be honest — pointless. So, what if we could create Internet memes that pushed us to do something important, like take action against poverty, break a stereotype or change our thinking about an issue? The new media team came up with a couple of examples to help illustrate this point:   Now it’s your turn to come up with something. Create your own anti-poverty meme using the I Can Has Cheezburger Internet Meme builder, then submit the URL of your meme to us using the form below. Next Friday (Friday, Friday!), we’ll post up our favorites on an album on the ONE Facebook page. Remember, poverty is a sensitive issue, so please try to be positive, uplifting and considerate when creating your meme! Have fun. |
Proofs: Performing miracles at Ghana’s Tema Clinic
|
Life happens here at the Tema Clinic in Accra, Ghana. Babies trade a death sentence for life. Mothers transform their sickly skeleton figures to healthy, able bodies. Tema offers hope in a place that was once hopeless and ravaged by AIDS. Funded by the Global Fund through financial support from Product (RED), Tema Hospital cares for 2,200 people living with HIV. We recently visited their facility again –- their work never ceases to amaze me. The Global Fund make it possible for the hospital to provide ARV treatment and PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child-transmission). Thanks to these interventions, only 4 percent of babies at Tema with HIV-positive mothers are born with the virus.  |
What We’re Reading: African leaders say continent ready to lead world growth
|
African leaders say continent ready to lead world growth – African leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos declared that they are ready to “play a new role in the global economy as a powerful driver of growth.” While much still needs to be done to improve Africa’s infrastructure and education system, Africa’s economy is already expanding rapidly. According to Guinea’s President Alpha Conde, “the fastest growing continent in the world is determined to keep reforming and innovating.” (AFP, Dave Clark) Business, social media to prevent babies with HIV – Business and social media leaders united on Friday to “tackle the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies, saying the medicine and the money are largely in place, and with the right organizational skills they can eliminated HIV-infected births by 2015.” Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, “will lend the power of social media to increase awareness about the issue, by pulling in 1,000 influential Twitter and Facebook users” for the cause. (AP) |
Cocoa can save the world
|
Senior ONE Adviser Michael Gerson is on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this blog post, he writes about the benefits of cocoa crops on the country’s economy.  We traveled down dirt roads near the town of Beni, in eastern Congo, close to the Ugandan border. Militias are active in the region, so our group was protected by an armed escort. Interactions at checkpoints along the road are unpredictable. In the town of Beni itself, a curfew is imposed each night at sunset. |
New & Buzzworthy: Where people live on less than $1.25 a day
|
A roundup of the week’s most talked-about international development content from ONE, partners and the web, January 20 to 26.  Where people live on less than $1.25 a day. Bono, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and more look back on 10 years of the Global Fund. ONE’s CEO Michael Elliott talks to Facebook about social media and advocacy at the World Economic Forum. A lovely photo album from our time at the Sundance Film Festival. A moving a capella song devoted to the famine in the Horn of Africa. ONE Campus Challenge, Part 2. |
Moved by the war in Sierra Leone, an Ohio teenager finds a way to give back
|
Rana Abuhilal is a 17-year-old ONE member from Dublin, Ohio. She wanted to share an interview she did with a teenager in her community from Sierra Leone, who is doing amazing things for her country halfway across the world.
Tabetha John left her home in Sierra Leone to live in the United States at age six. Ten years later, she continues to stay connected to her home country donating clothes, books and more to Africa. Born in Freetown, Tabetha grew up around tropical beaches and had a great family. But on a recent trip to Sierra Leone, Tabetha said she witnessed poverty at a whole other level. After Sierra Leone’s civil war, many people lost their homes, and even more than that. “A lot of people on the streets are missing limbs. I’ve seen homeless people missing their arms, or missing part of their leg,” she says. “A lot of [people] have scars on their faces too.” Seeing these extreme cases of poverty motivated her. On the other side of the world, Tabetha gives back to Sierra Leone by donating clothes, shoes and books to the homeless. |
Project HEART: A success story
|
Last week, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) celebrated the transition of Project HEART to local partners, after eight years of putting hundreds of thousands of patients on life-saving ARV treatment.  Project HEART was launched in 2004 in partnership with the CDC and PEPFAR to scale up access to HIV prevention, care and treatment services in Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. As of September 2011, Project HEART has enrolled more than 1 million people in HIV care programs (including 80,000 children), provided antiretroviral treatment for more than 560,000 patients, and tested and counseled more than 2.5 million pregnant women. |
Blog Contributors
Hot Topics
-
Fight the Famine, Feed the Future
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger. -
Crisis in the Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food. -
The Beginning of the End of AIDS
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS. -
Agriculture Accountability
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
From Our Members
-
Moved by the war in Sierra Leone, an Ohio teenager finds a way to give back
Jan 26th, 2012 | Posted by Guest Blogger -
ONE Peoria links up with local Rotary group
Jan 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Field -
Photo essay: A day in the life of a ONE Vote organizer
Jan 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Field
From Our Partners
-
Cocoa can save the world
Jan 27th, 2012 | Posted by Michael Gerson -
My 2012 annual letter
Jan 24th, 2012 | Posted by Bill.Gates -
How do you get to 100 percent?
Jan 24th, 2012 | Posted by Guest Blogger
