Global Weekly Update September 13, 2010

Take Action: Generate Media on the Global Fund’s Replenishment Meeting This Fall

The numbers keep growing! You are meeting our challenge to reach our goal of placing 15 editorials, 10 op-eds, and 50 letters to the editor by September 19! So far we have generated 9 editorials, 4 opeds, 21 letters to the editor! Congratulations on your amazing media efforts so far! Let’s keep it going. We need everyone to make an effort at a editorial, and op-ed, or a letter to the editor to drive the message to the president.

Use this September action sheet (Word) for guidance and tips.

Check out all this new media from this past week!

Sept 7: San Francisco Chronicle, CA: Obama’s AIDS showdown. Global Fund editorial. Joel Rubinstein, San Francisco

Sept 7: LA Times, CA: Obama’s funding to fight AIDS is weak. Global Fund editorial. Suzanne Wang, Los Angeles

Sept 8: Chicago Tribune, (North Zone) IL: US can turn its attention to another war long overdue. Global Fund LTE. Cynthia Levin, Morton Grove

Sept 8: Times of Trenton, NJ: Global Fund Needs U.S. Support. Global Fund editorial. Phyllis AlRoy, Trenton

Sept 8: Durham Herald Sun, NC: Global meets local. Global Fund LTE. Lisacaitlin Hess, Triangle

Sept 9: Durham Herald Sun, NC: We Must Fund Cures. Global Fund LTE. Heather Stein, Triangle

Sept 10: Janesville Gazette, WI: You can help infants here and abroad. Global Fund LTE. Tanya Oemig, Evansville

Sept 10: Albuquerque Journal, NM: Aid to Global Fund Helps Fight Diseases. Global Fund op-ed. Suzanne Prescott, Albuquerque

Sept 10: Durham Herald Sun, NC: An effiecient use of taxpayer dollars. Global Fund LTE. Tom Zulauf, Chapel Hill

Sept 10: St. Petersburg Times, FL: Global fund to fight disease gets results. Global Fund Op-ed. Ken Schatz, Tampa

Sept 11: Detroit Free Press, M:I Obama must make sure U.S. word is good on Global Fund. TB Editorial.

Sept 13: Los Angeles Times, CA: Health funding would pay off. Global Fund LTE.

Sept 14: San Jose Mercury News, CA: Mercury News editorial: Obama must fulfill Global Fund pledge. Bob Alders, San Jose

Be sure to thank your editorial writers, write letters to the editor in response, and make on line comments!

Media Hooks and Resources

Your media outlets will want to know how things relate to recent stories and the community. See this blog post for incredible hooks and resources to use in generating media. Read More.

Register Your Stand Up, Take Action Events and Use Them to Get Media

Stand Up, Take Action: Make Noise for the MDGs is a worldwide awareness and action-taking weekend for the end of poverty. Individuals and groups all over the world choose to create, register, and take part in a variety of different community events — Stand Up events — every year to make their voices heard and move the planet that much closer to putting poverty in the history books.

This year, Stand Up weekend will happen right before the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in September. This year’s theme is the achievement of the MDGs. REGISTER YOUR EVENT so people can find you!

This fall is a critical time for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. The U.S. needs to go to the Summit and to the Global Fund replenishment in October with a pledge of $6 billion over 3 years in order to ensure that this critical global health mechanism can continue to save lives. Your local Stand Up event shows your community and our government that Americans do care about supporting the Global Fund.

Think about how you can use this opportunity to get local media. It’s a local angle on a huge global event. Some ideas include:

• Invite your local editorial writer or reporter to your event and ask them to write an editorial or story.
• Ask your editor if you can write an op-ed on the event and on the need for the U.S. to take action.
• Write letters to the editor and send them in at the same time about your event and the need for the U.S. to take action at the Summit and at the Global Fund replenishment in October.

Your Stand Up, Take Action: Make Noise for the MDGs! Global National Outreach Weekend Planning Guide is available to help your plan your group’s event is now available. Consider “standing up” this September to grow your group, fundraise for RESULTS, and/or raise your voice for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals! Plan and register your event today so you are counted!

Exciting Events This Week

Education for All Act to be introduced in the Senate!

Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY) will introduce the Education for All Act this Thursday, September 16. Please stay tuned for our press annoucement and info on how to ask your senators to cosponsor. More information to come next week.

Training Call on Navigating the RESULTS Website: Wednesday at 9:00 pm ET

Wanting to feel more comfortable finding resources on our site? Then this call is for you! Join this helpful training call this Wednesday at 9:00 pm ET by calling 712.432.3100, passcode 761262

Millennium Promise Webinar on the MDG Summit: Thursday at 9:00 am ET

Join Millennium Promise for a morning webinar with John W. McArthur, CEO, Millennium Promise, on Thursday, September 16, at 9:00 am. John will provide an exclusive, behind-the-scenes update on the upcoming MDG Summit, as well as specific action points on the steps necessary to ensure that the MDGs are achieved. This briefing is a unique opportunity to hear an objective critique of where the MDGs are, what gaps still exist and the opportunities before us. Q&A will follow.

Webinar Event Details

Bring Your TB Advocacy to the Next Level — Apply for a World AIDS Day Mini-Grant!

World AIDS Day (WAD) is December 1. To help highlight the deadly synergy between TB and HIV, RESULTS Educational Fund (REF) is offering RESULTS grassroots groups the opportunity to undertake TB advocacy activities for WAD 2010 and beyond that might not be possible without support funding. Activities can fall between September 1 and December 31, 2010. We are making funds available, through a competitive grant application process, for WAD events, and TB awareness building in your communities. These mini-grants are funded through REF’s ACTION project.

Visit our 2010 World AIDS Day page for a link to the application.

Ideas Types of Activities — Be Creative!

• Organize a community panel discussion on TB-HIV co-infection and invite the media, community members, and members of Congress.
• Reach out to local HIV/AIDS groups to build coalition support around events that could highlight TB-HIV.
• Organize a conference call for journalists with local or state TB experts (e.g. a state TB controller).
• Hold a screening and discussion of a TB-HIV related film.
• Research the history of TB in your community and do a public art show, display, discussion or other community event to bring attention to it and the current state of affairs of TB in the world.
• Work with your local opera on their production of La Boheme or La Traviata and make the connection to TB.
• Organize a book club around an appropriate TB related book.
• Identify and work with one or more TB patients to help them become advocates. Find opportunities for them to write and be published, speak out publicly, speak anonymously (on a radio program for example).
• Create an event — a rally, a walk, a candlelight vigil — that brings media attention to TB.

Let me offer my heartfelt and overwhelming congratulations to everyone at RESULTS, both for everything you’ve been doing at this critical moment for the Global Fund and also for everything you’ve been doing for so many years to help the world make the progress that it’s made on so many key issues around health, education, and other areas critical to tackling the problems of extreme poverty. You really are the ones makes an extraordinary difference.

— Dr. John McArthur, CEO of Millennium Promise

September 15: Training call on navigating the RESULTS website. 9:00 pm ET. Call in to (712) 432-3100, passcode 716262.

September 17–19: National outreach for all groups around Stand Up Against Poverty weekend.

September 20–22: UN MDG Summit.

October–December: Fall fundraising campaign.

October 3: Muhammad Yunus will be on the Simpsons to talk about the power of microfinance! Think about hosting a house party. Listen to this interview with Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson and microfinance advocate.

December 1: World AIDS Day. Interested in an event to raise awareness about TB-HIV coinfection? Think of all the possibilities, and then apply for a mini-grant to help your event take off!

Other Dates

September–November: We’ll be working to identify U.S. TB patient advocates who can speak powerfully about their experience with TB to make it real for our communities.

October or November: Media training for TB Controllers and grassroots activists.