ONE Campaign
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The ONE Campaign is a part of the international Make Poverty History movement which is dedicated to the goal of energizing people in the United States to lobby Congress to increase humanitarian aid by 1% of the federal budget, specifically with the aim of fighting AIDS and extreme poverty in the developing world.
The movement was founded by a coalition of organizations:
Bread for the World
Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere
DATA
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
Mercy Corps
Oxfam America
Plan USA
Save the Children US
World Concern
World Vision
It is supported by the National Basketball Association, Rock the Vote, the Millennium Campaign (for the Millennium Development Goals), and was formed with the help of a $3 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The group has made an effort to be bipartisan and inclusive to all sorts of public, private, and faith-based organizations. It has received support from politically-active spokespersons from both the left and right, including Bono, Teresa Earnhardt (the widow of Dale Earnhardt), Bob Geldof, Danny Glover, members of Jars of Clay, Pat Robertson, Susan Sarandon, Michael W. Smith, and Eddie Vedder. They've also recruited support from celebrities such as Penelope Cruz, Jewel Kilcher, Mos Def, Ellen DeGeneres, Diddy, Jamie Foxx, Ryan Gosling, Tom Hanks, and Brad Pitt.
The name of the campaign comes from both the organization's goal of a 1% increase in the budget and also from their goal to "act as one to end poverty". Recently the group has aired a television commercial to help promote the campaign. The group also sells white wristbands, which have the word "ONE" on them, to help promote the ONE campaign.
The ONE Campaign claims that a 1% increase in the budget could help:
Prevent 10 million children from becoming AIDS orphans
Get 104 million children into grade school.
Provide water to almost 900 million people around the globe.
Save almost 6.5 million children under 5 from dying of diseases that could be prevented with low-cost measures like vaccination or a well for clean water.
Other notable participants include Nelson Mandela, Agnes Nyamayarwo (a Ugandan nurse and global AIDS activist) and Dikembe Mutombo (an NBA all-star and advocate for Africa).
The ONE Address
"One by one, they step forward: a nurse, a teacher, a homemaker. And lives are saved. But the problem is enormous - every three seconds. One person dies; another three seconds, one more. The situation is so desperate in parts of Africa, Asia, even America. That aid groups, just as they did for the tsunami, are uniting as one, acting as one. We can beat extreme poverty, starvation, AIDS. But we need your help. One more person, letter, voice, will mean the difference between life and death for millions of people. Please join us by working together. We can make history. We can start to make poverty history. One by one by one. Please visit one at this address (The ONE Campaign) We're not asking for your money, we're asking for your voice."