Campaign to fight poverty comes to MU

By Marty Swant

Published Oct. 2, 2007

MU is just one school that has taken up the challenge presented by a new program to fight poverty.

On Saturday, singer Bono and comedian Chris Rock launched a new addition to the ONE Campaign, the ONE Campus Challenge, at a special Clinton Global Initiative and MTV forum on youth activism.

The ONE Campaign, consisting of more than 2.4 million people, works to raise "public awareness about the issues of global poverty, hunger, disease and efforts to fight such problems in the world's poorest countries," the ONE campaign Web site states.

Kimberly Cadena, press secretary for the ONE Campaign, said the goal of this challenge is to get millennials engaged in the fight against poverty.

The involvement at MU began when sophomore Tyler Sangermano replied to an e-mail from Student Outreach Coordinator Erin Eagan earlier this year about bringing ONE to college campuses.

The main focus for now is getting the word out that ONE is coming to MU, Sangermano stated. She said she plans on talking to students living in residence halls, different groups on campus and the community.

The first major event will be Oct. 17, the Global Day of Action Against Poverty, she said.

The ONE Campus Challenge is divided into three phases, with each working to empower students to fight poverty and raise awareness on their campus by themselves.

According to a news release, the second phase will begin with the Power 100 Summit, an invitation-only summit in Washington, D.C., for selected activists and the leaders of the top 100 campuses.

The summit will be an opportunity for leading campus ONE chapters to unite, learn more about ONE goals and ideals, and listen to renowned speakers, political leaders and activists. When the summit is finished, ONE chapters will be challenged with a new objective to achieve during the second phase.

Along the way, chapters will have an opportunity each week to earn points for their schools.

Teams can earn points for their schools by completing different tasks. For example, if a school has its mascot place a ONE band on a rival school's mascot, the school earns 2,000 points. At press time, MU had earned 7,140 points.

This week's challenge concerns recruiting members by having students sign up on the ONE Campaign Web site.

"The challenge isn't a call to students to be better poverty fighters than their rival school," the news release stated. "It is the challenge to a generation that has the power to end extreme poverty."

Sangermano said she thinks it is time for people to stop turning a blind eye to poverty.

"People need to realize the brutalities of HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty, and accept the responsibility we have as able human beings to help them," Sangermano stated in an e-mail.

The MU ONE Campus Challenge chapter will be holding ONE days, which will occur on the first day of every month, beginning on Nov. 1. The days will promote the program through tabling, getting people to sign the ONE Declaration and educating people about HIV/AIDS and poverty as well as offering solutions to alleviate these problems.

The group, which is not yet an official student organization, will also be handing out flyers and wristbands. Sangermano stated they plan on becoming an official MU organization in the near future.