Poverty awareness campaign brings movement to BU

from The Baylor Lariat

By Kimi Willingham
and Hayley Frank
Reporters

The ONE campaign, the movement to make poverty history unveiled a new student-led avenue of involvement last Saturday night at a special Clinton Global Initiative and MTV forum.

The ONE Campus Challenge is a project to provide America's college students with tools to combat global disease and severe poverty. The goal of the challenge is to recruit up to 100,000 new ONE members on 1,000 college campuses across the nation.

Through interactive technology, this goal is not an impossible task. Students possess cutting-edge technology information and numorous networking opportunities through media outlets that could aid in their efforts to become the voice of the future.

The ONE cause has more than 115,000 friends on MySpace and more than 65,000 contacts on Facebook, according to Kimberly Cadena, the ONE campaign's spokeswoman.

Cadena said that throughout history, college students have led and organized many important movements such as women's suffrage and civil rights. Students "are not just involved (with the ONE campaign) but have really fueled the movement," she said.

"It's a really easy thing to do, to get involved with what's going on in the world," said Carmen Jimenez, an Irving senior and an advocate for the campaign.

"Students can actually take political action just by putting their name on a list," she said.

The ONE Campus Challenge encourages students to form groups, hold regular meetings, take action and create poverty awareness among friends, the community and eventually, the globe, according to its Web site.

Baylor students have already begun raising awareness for the cause. Members from several organizations, such as Baylor Students for Social Justice, have participated in events to alert students to the issues of HIV and aids.

"Of course, Africa is the continent hardest hit by this problem," said Jon Singletary, assistant professor in the School of Social Work and faculty adviser for the Student Global AIDS Campaign.

"We are working to increase the amount of financial assistance that the United States gives to these poorer countries."

At the same time, the Student Global AIDS Campaign will aim to reduce the foreign debt owed to rich countries."We need to forgive the debt of poor nations so their economy can increase, and they will have the chance to participate in global trade opportunities," Singletary said.

Through active involvement in this challenge, students will have the opportunity to earn points for their university through participation. The ONE Challenge is divided into three phases, which are marked by events, opportunities and tasks.

The beginning of December will mark the end of the first phase. At this time, the top 100 universities leading will be asked to take part in a three-day national conference in Washington, D.C. After participation in this political campaign, the ONE campaign hopes leaders will be equipped with ideas and personal ambition to create a fire of support for their campuses.

In phase two, the top 10 schools are chosen and given a staff and budget from the ONE campaign. Cadena said this is to "encourage the members to organize and mobilize a plan."

During phase three the winning school is selected by ONE leadership. If chosen as the winning school, ONE will host a special performance on campus. The performer has yet to be announced.

"This is a perfect opportunity for a campus like Baylor to live out their faith by really making a difference in the world by creating policies that help the poorest of the poor," Singletary said.