Right, so I’m just going
to try something here. Get ready, cause you may be about to experience
something you have never encountered on this blog before: ABSOLUTE, UNADULTERATED, UPBEAT ENTHUSIASM.
Wheyyyyy.
Don’t worry if that
bowled you over, I’ll be back to my usual cynical self soon. An open love
letter to Radiohead and a piece called ‘Pissing with the Door Open’ are just a
couple of posts in the Siobhan’s Notebook pipeline. But first, I want to tell
you all about my new role as a Youth Ambassador for ONE.org.
For now, I’m putting on my serious, persuasive,
saving-the-world hat (which interestingly fits nicely around my feminist hat –
the two make a great ensemble!), and am temporarily striking the words ‘pants’
‘poo’ and ‘fanny’ from my vocabulary. (Don't stop reading though!)
ONE are an
international campaign charity working to influence policy on agriculture, health,
business transparency and a variety of other causes relevant to developing
countries. All their work is directed at achieving ONE goal: eradicating
extreme poverty.
If that sounds like a
far off dream, a pie in the sky, a ridiculous flight of fancy, then I have some
good news for you. It’s totally doable. IN OUR LIFETIMES.
‘SHUT THE FRONT DOOR’
I hear your cry!
‘Shan’t!’ I gleefully respond,
‘It’s all completely true. Get ready for some truth bombs, imma BLOW YOUR MIND.’
In my short and privileged
lifespan, the number of people living in extreme
poverty worldwide has been cut in half. If we can keep up the amazing progress already being made, keep investing in nutrition
programmes, infrastructure and smart aid for the world’s poorest nations, extreme poverty could be virtually eradicated by 2030.
Think of the immensity
of that statement. No families having to survive on under $1.25 a day. No more people
working long days to earn less than a pound. No babies born into extreme
poverty. Before I’m 40.
The job of ONEs Youth
Ambassadors is to urge the EU to play its part in making this amazing goal a
reality. The EU as a whole is the world’s biggest donor of aid, and we want to remind all the newly elected MEPs of the vital role they
are playing in global development. We want as many candidates as possible to
sign our #ONEVOTE2014 pledge, encouraging them to do their bit to support the
world’s poorest countries in their 5 year term. It involves protecting aid
budgets and working to increase business transparency and fight phantom firms,
which divert much needed money away from developing countries as well as the
UK.
 |
| 3 London MEP candidates signing our pledge on launch day! |
I can’t remember when
I first became aware of ONE. The earliest marker in my memory is starting uni 4
years ago, and having to explain to every new person who added me on facebook
exactly why my profile photo was of an angry, fist shaking baby.
I really got engaged
with what ONE are doing two years later, when I attended the ONEshot Student Conference.
It was very exciting. I even wrote a guest-blog about it.
I don’t study international
relations. I often saw development as a drastically complex mire, something I
would never deign to know about or influence opinion on. The conference, full
of passionate aid workers and SOAS students, did not alleviate this anxiety,
this feeling of fraudulence. But ONE throwaway comment on the way the UK allocates
its aid budget really stuck with me, and changed my outlook. A ONEshot speaker
pointed out to us that the UKs aid expenditure in Helmand Province was disproportionately
high, and that the reason for it was simple politics: Every time David Cameron made
visits to UK troops, he needed to be bringer of good news. So with every
Ministerial trip to Helmand, the aid allocation increased.
Aid is a big word, fraught
with various meanings and connotations. And it is complex, so much more complex
than I will ever understand. But the image of David Cameron reshuffling aid
money to fit his upcoming speeches made me realize that although progress in development
is influenced by a vast number of complicated issues, that doesn’t mean UK
policy always is. Development policy appeared to me at that moment to be just
as much at the whim of party politics as pasty tax. And I suddenly felt much
more confident getting involved, and felt like I had a right to my opinion. Politicians need to be kept on track.
With this in mind, I know
words like ‘development’ and ‘poverty’ can seem vast and intimidating. But if
you feel like this is keeping you out of the debate, or have the impression
that this means you can’t make a difference, I urge you to get interested, and
get involved. The issues surrounding poverty levels in developing countries and
how they can be alleviated is a topic of great interest to me, and I’m learning
more all the time. But sometimes getting started is as simple as agreeing with
the notion that no one should have to live in poverty.
I’ve listed five
things you can do right now to get involved and have your say, regardless of
how qualified you feel to say it:
1) Sign and share the
ONEVote2014 petition to get fighting extreme poverty on the agenda at this year’s
EU elections: http://act.one.org/sign/one_vote_2014
2) Or this petition,
telling European Leaders to fight phantom firms: http://act.one.org/sign/crack_down_on_phantom_firms/
3) Join the ONE
Campaign. Remember, they want your voice, not your money: http://www.one.org/international/take-action/dashboard/
4) Share this, and
various other Youth Ambassador Blogs. Don’t forget to hashtag! #ONEVOTE2014: http://thechangegame.wordpress.com/
5) Write your own! Get
involved, get tweeting, get writing, get sharing. The more noise we make, the
more important our leaders will realise it is to eradicate extreme poverty by
2030.
So that’s my
enthusiastic, optimistic blog post. I hope you found it as reasonable and rational
as usual. As Alain de Botton said, ‘Cynics are just idealists with awkwardly high
standards’. Well this time, I really feel my standards are achievable. And here’s
my crazed optimistic grin to prove it. I’m taking this to the top.
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