Microbicidal gel and education empower women to stay HIV free

There is exciting news in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention!

1) A promising new microbicidal gel has shown that women who used it were 39% less likely over all to contract HIV than those who used a placebo. Regular usage even reduced transmission chances by 54%!

2) A study in Malawi showed that offering impoverished girls small amounts of money for regular school attendance reduced AIDS and herpes infection. After a year and a half of the program, girls who received payments were less than half as likely to be infected than girls whose families got no payments. The girls started to have sex later, less often and with fewer partners.

What this says to me is what we have known all along. Empowering women to make their own choices...whether through education or access to health information and resources...is a key to fighting AIDS and poverty.


Here's the article in the New York Times about it.

Education for All Act of 2010 introduced!

Just in time for Global Education Action week, Congress took action on Global Education. Cool!

Reps Nita Lowey (D) and David Reichert (R) introduced HR 5117,the Education for All Act of 2010, calling on the United States to be a leading voice in the call to action for access to basic education for the world's children. The bill seeks to ensure the U.S. provides the resources and leadership to ensure a successful international effort to provide all children with a quality basic education by 2015.

The EFA Act lays out U.S. policy that includes: 1) working with other countries, international organizations, and civil society to assist developing countries and strengthen their educational systems, 2) assisting NGOs and multilateral organizations, and promote education as the foundation for community development.

Please ask your representative to cosponsor this bipartisan legislation for Global Education. You can visit
this link from RESULTS to take action!

TODAY is Day of Action for Global Education

TODAY is the day to call the White House for Global Education support. This capwiz link should make it very easy and you can let RESULTS know you took the action.

If the link doesn't work, just call 202 456 1414 and ask President Obama to provide $2B for the creation of a Global Fund for Education.

Thank you for taking action to fight poverty today. Feel free to forward this message to others!

Global Education Day of Action, Dec 10

Three Ways to Take Action for a Global Fund for Education!
On December 10, Human Rights Day, the world will focus on making a Global Fund for Education a reality with a Day of Action. RESULTS has been working to assure access to basic education for all children for a long time and the signs of progress are good.

There are several ways you can ask for U.S. leadership on a Global Fund for Education now, on December 10, and afterward.

1. Call the president on December 10
2. Write your congressperson and ask him/her to speak out.
3. Get a letter to the editor published letting your community know that putting kids in school is smart.

Choose one way or many ways to take action, but make your voice heard. Act now and help get 75 million more kids the primary education they need and deserve for a brighter future.

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1. Call the President on December 10: President Obama, the Time is Now for a Global Fund for Education!
Forward this action along to schools and other organizations so they are prepared to take action on December 10. We know that school increases income, keeps babies alive, keeps mothers healthy, reduces conflict, reduces HIV/AIDS transmission, empowers women, reduces hunger. What are we waiting for?? Let's thousands of calls to the President that day.

2. Write to Your Members of Congress: Urge Them to Work for Education for All.
Forward this action along too!

3.Write a Letter to the Editor : Create Community Conversation about a Global Fund for Education.
Encourage others to write too.

Go to the RESULTS Education Action pagefor other resources and information to mobilize your community on creating a Global Fund for Education

Fighting Terrorism with Schools

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, is featured in Parade talking about his experiences fighting poverty by building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here's an excerpt...

"Young women are the developing world’s greatest agents of progress. Just one year of schooling will dramatically raise a girl’s later economic prospects, and where girls get to fifth grade, birth rates and infant mortality plunge. Teaching girls to read and write reduces the ignorance and poverty that fuel religious extremism and lays a groundwork for prosperity and peace. In military parlance, educating girls is a “force multiplier.” Thus, the flame that burns at the center of my work, the heat around which I cup my hands, are the stories of girls whose lives have been changed by education. "

Fighting Terrorism With Schools | Parade.com

Jessica Alba speaks with Nancy Pelosi about Global Eduation

RESULTS has been touring Jessica Alba around congressional offices this week to talk about the need for Global Eduation. Among her visits was one to see Speaker Nancy Pelosi! Emily's Post on Politics Daily wrote about the event:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/06/jessica-alba-touts-global-education-in-meeting-with-nancy-pelosi/

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Actress Jessica Alba met with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Friday morning to talk about the importance of global education. Pelosi then took Alba to a conference room in the speaker's suite to address 18 members of the Democratic Women's Caucus about raising awareness of the issue.

"Jessica spoke very articulately and knowledgably about the need for greater emphasis on education," a House leadership staffer told Politics Daily in an exclusive interview Friday morning.

Alba, 28, the star of movies "Sin City" and "Fantastic Four," has recently become the U.S. co-chair of the group 1GOAL: Education for All, which advocates for the 75 million children worldwide (half in Africa) who are denied access to education.

"It's great to see Jessica Alba bringing her celebrity to promote this important issue of basic education to children in the developing world," said a policy staffer for Speaker Pelosi.

The actress was described by another staffer as "gorgeous," very skinny, with "reddish brown hair and huge lips."

For her meeting on Capitol Hill, Alba wore a black-and-white tweed suit, black tights and black patent leather Mary Jane Chanel heels. She wore her hair down and "very natural makeup." For D.C.'s autumn weather, the actress wore a black overcoat with a ruffle down one side.

Staffers said Alba appeared somewhat awestruck during her visit to the most powerful office in the Capitol. After the policy meetings, she went to the Speaker's Balcony and asked to have her picture taken with a personal camera with the impressive view of the National Mall and the monuments. She also spent time taking pictures with some of the key House staff who work on global education issues.

Pelosi's staffers say Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) has championed the issue of education in the developing world. Over the past several years, Lowey has pushed to increase funding for global education, and in the current House appropriations bill for Foreign Operations, Lowey was able to get $1 billion dollars for education initiatives worldwide.

Washingtonians never cease to be amazed at how much smaller movie stars are in real life. One of the staffers who saw Alba in person describes her as so small that her "whole body is the size of my arm."

1 GOAL: new "education for all" campaign

ABOUT 1 GOAL: EDUCATION FOR ALL

This World Cup, we’re asking fans to sign up to give 75 million children a fair chance in life. Education beats Poverty – and gives people the tools to help themselves.

Global football stars, the football world and its governing body, FIFA, are behind 1GOAL. This World Cup is a moment for us to shine – let’s leave a legacy of education. We don’t want your money – we just want you on our team. Write Your Name for those who can’t. Join1GOAL.org

1 GOAL is an ambitious and important campaign that will change the lives of children living in poverty by helping to give them an education. We’re campaigning in over 200 countries from now until the FIFA World Cup final in South Africa in 2010.

1 GOAL is quite simply a global team that will voice our wishes to world leaders to keep their promise of giving everyone an education by 2015.

WHY EDUCATION FOR ALL?

Today, 75 million children are denied the chance to go to school. These children could be the next generation's leaders, sport stars, doctors and teachers. Unable to read or write, they face a lifetime of poverty. It doesn’t have to be this way.

We’ve already seen success—we’ve been able to help 40 million more children get into school and live more productive, healthy lives. We have a plan, we know how to beat this—all we need now is the will to make it happen. If we come together around this World Cup, we can do even more and reach our 1 GOAL: Education for all.

Click here for more info and to join 1 Goal.

2009 Millennium Development Goals report

From the United Nations Millennium Campaign:

The 2009 MDG Report, leading into the 2010 MDG review conference that represents the last major recommitment before 2015, is both promising and disturbing. Actual progress has been made, but the economic crisis is cutting severely into those gains, and, at this pace, the world will fall far short of achieving the Goals.

Overall, the number of people living in poverty (under $1.25 a day) had dropped by 400 million from 1990 to 2005 (1.4 billion) despite the growth in world population, an astounding number that, on its own, is proof that the Goals are achievable. However, the economic crisis chiseled away at that progress, and 90 million more people are expected to be added back to those rolls this year. Success in reducing hunger worldwide is likewise being reversed.

That news was delivered to the Hill last week at a well-attended briefing helmed by Anita Sharma, North American Coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, Francesca Perucci from UN Stats, and Dan Carucci, Vice President for Global Health at UNF.

Carucci delivered good news on Goal 4. Deaths of children under the age of five dropped from 12.6 million a year in 1990 to 9 million a year in 2007. He specifically pointed out the dramatic surge in the delivery of bed-nets to combat malaria in Africa and the success of measles vaccination programs. The world is also nearing the goal of universal enrollment in primary education , particulary in southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where enrollment increased by 11 and 15 percent respectively between 2000 and 2007.

On every other mark though, we're far behind pace. The most stark reminder came from Carucci: "in 2000 500,000 women died while giving birht, 500,000 died in 2005, and 500,000 will die this year." That is to say, there has been zero progress on Goal 5, reducing the maternal mortality rate by 75 percent.

The report overall is fascinating. It's rare that you get an engaging accessment of how the entire world is working toward achieving collective goals. I highly recommend at least skimming the whole thing (pdf). Here is a link to the report in pdf form: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202009%20ENG.pdf

Bringing Kids to Lobby

I have so many cool stories from my recent trip to DC with my RESULTS group I hardly know where to begin. But, as always, when I don't know what to talk about...I talk about my kids or something they've done. :)

One of the most interesting successes of our group lobby visits on the Hill this year was our new tactic of bringing the voices of children into our visits. We didn’t literally have them with us, but with a little prep work at home we were able to help kids have a powerful impact in our message to promote Global Education.

Global Education is an easy topic for kids to connect with, so I held a letter-writing party for neighborhood moms who brought their children to write with them. We read the story of “One Hen” by Katie Smith Milway together. It’s a true story about a boy who used a microcredit loan to buy one hen, which begins his family’s path out of poverty. (Since they eventually pay school fees with it and use the proceeds of a chicken farm to send him to college, it’s a Global Ed story, too). Then, the moms and kids wrote letters for our meetings. Our local media was also invited to the party which resulted in a front page story about our lobby visits with two large color pictures of our kids busily writing the very letters we’d deliver in person on Lobby Day. In addition, another group member had her high school kids send letters with their opinions, too. Every time we brought out that front-page picture, and especially if we had kid letters with it, it brought the meeting to a halt in a very good way. Studious expressions turned to smiles, our group was complimented for our initiative, the cute kids were ooh-ed and aah-ed over.

As an example of how much children can help us, I offer a story from Senator Burris’ office. After discussing Global Education – complete with our media, kid-letters, a story about Julia and her “Journey with an Afghan School” project – I wrapped up by saying that if Julia could accomplish all she had at her own personal risk and expense, surely the U.S. could step up and do more. He then told us a story from a meeting with Bread for the World that took place week prior to our visit. Bread activists had brought 8-year-old girl Adrienne along with them. She told her personal story of selling pencils in her class and raising $900 for an international development project. With her feet swinging, not even able to reach the floor, she ended by telling him that if she could do that, she thought the American government could do more, too. It obviously made a big impression on him as he repeated the story with the comment directed toward both Bread and RESULTS, “You guys are really good at this!” He then asked if the kids’ addresses were all included because he really wanted to make sure that they each got a response.

For the RESULTS parents out there, I’d like to say this…sometimes it seems like it’s hard to merge our worlds of highly intellectual lobbying and highly emotional caretaking. Yet I urge you to find creative ways to blend the two. Our lobbying needs more emotion, personal connection and icebreakers in general. Kid-letters and media with children featured is a great way to do this. We only had actual kid-generated letters to deliver for two of our meetings. For every other meeting, I showed our front-page picture, which helped, but I wished I had more of those letters to hand out. For next year, I can only say this…we’re gonna need some more kids!

Education is Basic Right for All Children

Printed in the Morton Grove Champion, June 11 2009
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Education is Basic Right for All Children

School’s out for summer vacation and some of us parents are wondering what to do with kids at home all day. For many families, lack of school means squabbling siblings and child-care hassles until camp starts. But what would it mean if there were no school – ever? That’s the reality for the families of over 75 million children around the world without access to basic primary education.

As the economic crisis continues, children in extreme poverty continue to be its biggest victims as they are forced to leave school to work, care for siblings, join armies, or even be sold into slavery. Yet education is the single, most effective intervention to help them lead productive, healthy, and safe lives. Without decisive leadership to achieve Education for All, these kids will remain trapped in poverty without education. Progress made since 2000 to increase school enrollment could be reversed.

While campaigning, President Obama pledged $2 billion toward a Global Fund for Education. By eliminating school fees, improving teacher quality, and providing textbooks and other incentives to keep kids in school, the U.S. can literally change the future of an entire generation at risk. For that, $2 billion is a bargain. Plus, we would get the added value of international goodwill and make children less easy prey for extremist regimes.

Increasing the U.S. global education contribution to our fair share can greatly accelerate progress toward universal primary education for all children by 2015. Despite the dismal economy, there are countries ready and waiting for American leadership in creating a multilateral Global Fund for Education. A Global Fund would harmonize donor contributions to ensure quick and effective disbursement of educational aid. Work is being done to reform and expand existing mechanisms, but for efforts to be ambitious, the U.S. must boost the capacity of the international community. The world is waiting for us.

Our country isn’t so self-absorbed that we disregard the need for education in the world’s poorest communities. Americans care. President Obama cares. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, long-time champion of basic education rights, cares. A minivan mom like me cares. We need congressional appropriators like Representative Mark Kirk (R-10th) and Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) to care enough to appropriate the $2 billion and support a new Global Fund. Because no child should be on a permanent vacation from school.

-ccyl