PEPFAR just passed the Senate this week, which means that $48 billion in assistance has been allocated over the next five years to the poorest of the poor around the world. This is good news! The bill got stuck in the Senate this summer after having passed the House of Representatives and receiving strong support from President Bush. Through lots of Senators’ tireless efforts (including support from both Obama and McCain), as well a lot of on the ground action, phone calls, letters, etc. from everyday people like you and me, this money has been freed up. It’s exciting that now this money will be able to:
– provide care for 12 million AIDS patients, including five million orphans
- provide increases in funds to fight TB and malaria, two diseases that are at their most devastating in the world’s poorest countries
-Â provide training for 140,000 new healthcare professionals in places most desperate for doctors and nurses.
If you want to see if your Senator helped pass this bill and spend 2 minutes sending him/her a thank you email, check here. (Thanking them helps show Senators that voters do care about issues like funding for PEPFAR.) More info on PEPFAR and the history of getting it passed can be found on the ONE Campaign site. Â
Also, the ONE Campaign now has a parallel effort called “ONE Vote ’08”  (OV08). The goal of OV08 is to keep the international issues related to the Millemium Development Goals (poverty, AIDS/malaria, clean water, education, housing, maternal health, etc.) a priority to both of the presidential candidates and to show candidates that American voters to care about these issues and will vote accordingly. Visit their site to learn how OV08 is equipping people to take on the ground action in order to make fighting extreme poverty and AIDS talked about issue in the upcoming election. The video on the main OV08 page is pretty interesting, fyi.