The ONE Campaign and EDUN Launch Second ONE T-shirt

Washington, DC — Following the success of the 2006 collaboration, the ONE Campaign and EDUN have come together for the second-year-running to launch the ONE T-shirt by EDUN at ONE.org, edunonline.com and at Nordstrom stores. Tens of thousands of T-shirts were sold last year, delivering the message to millions of people worldwide that, together as ONE, we can help fight global disease and extreme poverty and bring fair trade and AIDS treatment to Lesotho, Africa.

“The ONE campaign is a means by which I and anyone in the United States can contribute to helping end poverty in Africa,” said Ben Affleck. “All it takes is doing something really small: just lending one’s voice to a larger movement, one that says, ‘we care about this.’ If we get enough people who say we care, our leaders become aware of that fact, and then they become responsive to that-and that’s how change happens.”

The special-edition shirt will again be 100% African, made in Lesotho from 100% African cotton. The T-shirt costs $40, of which $10 will be donated to the ALAFA fund (Apparel Lesotho Alliance for Africa). ALAFA provides life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to factory workers and their family members in Lesotho. In addition, Nordstrom will match the $10 donation for every T-shirt sold in the U.S., up to $100,000.

The campaign was shot again by photographer and supermodel Helena Christensen, photographing a host of Hollywood stars and musicians all of whom came together to support the ONE Campaign. The entire campaign can be viewed online at ONE.org and edunonline.com starting October 16th.

Influential celebrities giving their time and energy to help reach and engage people in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty include Ben Affleck, Ellen Pompeo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kerry Washington, Laila Ali, Chris Daughtry, Rashida Jones, Julianne Moore, Raquel Welch, The Citizens Band and Waris.

To add a further creative twist to this year’s campaign, each celebrity customized his or her T-shirt on set. The result is a collection of one-of-a-kind, signed T-shirts, which will be up for auction exclusively on the EDUN website for two weeks starting Oct 16th. One hundred percent of the proceeds from that auction will go directly to ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. The celebrity T-shirts will be on view in a display window at Nordstrom at The Grove in Los Angeles from Friday, October 12, through Wednesday, November 7.

“Every three seconds a child dies from global disease and extreme poverty,” said Liv Tyler. “We have got to put a stop to that. Go to ONE.org, put your name on the list, buy a t-shirt and help put an end to these paralyzing epidemics in Africa.”

Since 2006, proceeds raised to support ALAFA have helped over 23,000 workers gain access to prevention programs and of these, 11,000 workers have had access to medicine and treatment. Over 150 peer educators have been trained so the local residents are more aware of how they can protect themselves and others against the danger of HIV. The initiative will help 45,000 Lesotho apparel workers – mostly women and one third of whom are estimated to be infected with HIV – fight back against a pandemic that claims the life of roughly 2,300 people in Lesotho’s apparel industry every year.

EDUN is a socially conscious clothing company launched in Spring 2005 by Ali Hewson, Bono and New York clothing designer Rogan Gregory. The company’s mission is to create beautiful clothing, while fostering sustainable employment in developing areas of the world, in particular Africa. In 2005, EDUN launched the edun LIVE brand of blank tee shirts. The edun LIVE range enables EDUN to drive further trade into Africa through high-volume sales direct to the wholesale market. These T-shirts are 100% African produced, from the fields where the cotton is picked, to the factory where the final sewing of the garment occurs. For more information, please visit: edunonline.com