Global Weekly Update February 18, 2013

Top Action: Face to Face Meetings During the Recess

According to research, meeting face-to-face with our elected officials is the most influential tactic we can use to move our members of Congress on issues of poverty (or any issue). You might say that lives depend upon your ability to schmooze and build solid relationships with members of Congress.

This is a congressional recess week, when members of Congress are at home meeting with constituents. Call your representative’s office and ask to speak to the scheduler. See if he/she can arrange for you and some RESULTS friends to speak with your representative for few minutes, or find where he/she will be speaking in public. There is always a chance you can get a last minute meeting or find a public venue where you can ask a question. You can find more guidance on how to do this in our Activist Milestones. Once you have a meeting set, the RESULTS staff can support you in organizing your agenda and requests. The most timely requests you can make are around 2014 appropriations — find appropriations resources.

Where Are the TB Alarms?

We’ve watched as the media has sounded the alarm around SARS, Bird Flu, and even this year’s annual flu virus — every major media outlet has covered these global health stories. But where is the alarm and concern about tuberculosis? Where is the sense of urgency around a disease that has gone from a treatable form to become multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), then extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), and now totally drug-resistant TDR-TB? What are we waiting for? Where are the alarms when TB killed 1.4 million and nearly 9 million people fell ill with it in 2011? Shouldn’t we be concerned that someone who develops an active case of TB will infect, on average, 15 people with whatever strain they have — including all of the drug-resistant strains? Where are the extraordinary measures for a disease that is the second largest infectious killer in the world behind HIV/AIDS? Read more on why we should be alarmed on our blog. 

Additional resources will soon be available to help you engage your community, media, and members of Congress around World TB Day (March 24). Some things you can do now are:

• Use our action alert to call the President and ask him to fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria with at least $1.65 billion in 2014.
• If you are a RESULTS chapter, you can apply for a World TB Day Mini-Grant to plan community activities that will bring a sense of urgency to the issue of TB.
• There will be TB briefings in both the House and the Senate that you can invite your members of Congress to attend (details coming soon).
• We will soon have an editorial packet you can share with your editorial writers. Consider contacting them beforehand to let them know that you would like them to write something on World TB Day. Send them a link to the blog post mentioned above to start them thinking.

Amazing Grassroots Advocates

The impact of RESULTS in directly related to your breakthroughs in exercising your personal and political power. Here are some examples of great power being exercised:

• Volunteers from the Northwest are organizing their annual Northwest Regional Conference the weekend of February 22–24. The are expecting 68 attendees from Washington State, Oregon, Montana, Canada, and guest speakers from Washington, DC (Joanne Carter) and Indianapolis, IN (Lisa Marchal). They’ll also be hosting TB-HIV advocate Luwiza Makukulu of Zambia.
• Volunteers of our new Charlotte, NC group will be meeting with their member of Congress for the first time this Wednesday. They have about 30 hand-written letters to carry with them from students at Davidson University. Numerous other chapters are busy setting up face-to-face meetings, the most powerful thing we can do.
• Thank you for all our groups who have reached out to us to say that they are planning their 2013 fundraisers! Houston, Columbus, Bremerton/Kitsap, and Seattle are all in the planning stages. Check out our fundraising blog for ideas about how your group can participate in one of our fundraising campaigns this year. Please contact Cindy Levin at [email protected]to let us know what you’re up to and get support from our RESULTS office. Be sure to help us publicize our upcoming events in VA, MD, IL and UT with anyone you know in those regions. Links to the events are below.
  • March 2 Arlington, VA: House Party with Zambian activist Luwiza Makukula. You can also find a simple like to the event here: www.tinyurl.com/RESULTS-Arlington.
  • March 3 Laurel, MD: House Party with Zambian activist Luwiza Makukula. You can also find a simple like to the event here: www.tinyurl.com/RESULTS-PGCounty.
  • March 9 Chicago: House Party with Musician Ella Gill You can also find a simple like to the event here: www.tinyurl.com/RESULTS-OakParkEvent.
  • March 10 Salt Lake City: Evening with Muhammad Yunus. You can also find a simple like to the event here: www.tinyurl.com/RESULTS-Yunus.

Join RESULTS in D.C. This Summer, July 20–23

Put July 20–23 on your calendar and join the RESULTS in Washington, D.C., for the RESULTS International Conference. This is truly a transformative experience where new and existing advocates learn, socialize, play, and advocate. It is a crash course on becoming powerful. For many of our advocates, it provides them with inspiration to last the rest of the year. Our keynote speaker on Monday of the conference will be Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus. Internationally acclaimed spiritual author and lecturer Marianne Williamson will also be leading a daylong workshop on Saturday of the conference. You’ll hear from some of the most brilliant people in the world on the problems and solutions of poverty, and you will have an opportunity to meet with the people who have the money and power to put poverty solutions in place — your elected officials. If you join us in D.C., you will believe that you can make a difference.

Find more information about the conference here and register today!

Global TB Fight Hits a Wall: India’s New Strategy Actually Makes Disease More Drug-Resistant, Doctors Say

— Front page headline from The Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2013

1. February 22, 1 pm ET. RESULTS Introductory Call. Please RSVP for the call so we can welcome you. Dial-in number: (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262.

2. February 27, 9 pm ET. From Zero to Hero: Moving Your Lawmakers Up the Champion Scale Webinar. Click http://tinyurl.com/RESULTSZero2Hero to join the webinar. For audio, join via your computer at link, or dial (775) 996-3560, room # 796141. RESULTS’ most critical relationship-building work is with our members of Congress. We build these relationships so that we can influence how they understand and act on issues of poverty. But how do we know when we are making progress? How do we know what to do next to move them further along the path of support and leadership on these critical issues? Join this call to learn about using the Champion Scale to help you in making the progress you want to make.

3. March 4, 8 pm. Building Bipartisan Champions Cohort Call. You can dial (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262 to join these calls we plan to host every other month. Do you have a member of Congress who seems not to be open to our issues? Feel blocked at every turn? These calls will be designed to help you define the tools you need to plan a way to empower your members of Congress to be a catalyst toward a world where poverty no longer exists.

4. March 9, 2 pm ET. RESULTS National Grassroots Conference Call for Global Poverty Campaigns. This month’s theme will be: Addressing the Scourge of Tuberculosis. Dial (888) 409-6709 to join.

5. March 18, 8 pm ET. RESULTS Free Agents call for global poverty advocates. (218) 486-1611, passcode 7378587 (RESULTS). Are you a RESULTS activist with our global poverty campaigns, living in a town with no RESULTS group? You are alone no more! Contact Lisa Marchal for more information on this monthly group call.

6. July 20–23, 2013. RESULTS International Conference in Washington, DC. Dr. Muhammad Yunus and author/speaker Marianne Williamson are already set to join us. Mark your calendar now!