Dear ONE Member,
Thanks to your efforts, 2006 was an incredible year for the ONE Campaign -- but now all our hard work is in jeopardy. $1 billion in funding to fight poverty has been eliminated from the budget.
This is a catastrophic u-turn in the fight against extreme poverty.
You can prevent this loss by contacting your representatives now and urging them to take action.
One billion dollars represents so much more than the time that you and other ONE members spent calling and e-mailing Congress. To countless people living in extreme poverty, those billion dollars are the difference between life and death. It is the promise of a better tomorrow, with bed nets to fight malaria, life saving medications, and schools for children.
Right now, the new Congress is set to pass a year long Continuing Resolution (CR) which will keep government funding at 2006 levels through 2007. This means that any gains we made in 2006 would be lost.
Thankfully there are Members of Congress working hard to see that our progress is not rolled back. Dick Durbin and Sam Brownback in the Senate and Barbara Lee and Christopher Shays in the House of Representatives have written letters to the Congressional Leadership urging them to fund some of the crucial poverty-fighting assistance that was allocated in 2006.
Ask your Members of Congress to sign-on to the Durbin-Brownback and Lee-Shays letters.
To make sure that Congress understands the importance of this issue, we will be faxing your letters directly to your elected leaders. Then, next week ONE volunteers will be visiting Congressional Leadership offices to deliver the letters by hand.
Click here to send a letter to your representatives and urge them to co-sign the Durbin-Brownback and Lee-Shays letters.
Congressional Leadership is deciding right now how to allocate a very limited amount of funding, and it is up to you to make sure that they fund poverty-focused development assistance. As a constituent you have your representatives' ears, and it is up to you to let them know that extreme poverty is a priority for you, now and in the future. Sending a letter now will let them know that you care deeply about ending extreme poverty.
We have a chance to save hundreds of thousands of lives, but only if we let Congress hear this urgent call. We can't let one more year go by where the scale of our response is outpaced by the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty.
Please take a moment to send a letter to your representatives and urge them to co-sign the Brownback-Durbin and Lee-Shays letters.
Thank you for your voice,
Josh Peck, ONE.org