Thanks to a new campaign sponsored by Rotary International, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF, polio in Africa may soon be a thing of the past. The campaign is called Kick Polio Out of Africa and its aim is to raise awareness about the debilitating disease using a sport (soccer) and an event (World Cup 2010) that Africa loves.

The campaign was officially kicked off in Cape Town, South Africa with a soccer ball signed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The ball is now traveling through 22 polio-affected countries in Africa, stopping just this week in Nairobi, Kenya.

Keep an eye on the ball as it makes its way across Africa here.

A simple green circle marks the gate of a home that we pass. Two doors down, a red circle with a line through it. A seemingly meaningless change in color, but therein lies the all the difference for households here in Port au Prince. Behind the first, a structure spared, while beyond the second lies a home in ruins.

In the neighborhood where I have spent the past weeks, the destruction seems random. Along one street, only a few red circles, only a few scattered piles of rubble. Behind compound gates you catch glimpses of tents in driveways, the only safe housing for families fearful of returning indoors.

Driving toward the General Hospital, the distribution of suffering becomes ever less random. The equity of loss and destruction is overwhelming, yet numbing in its uniformity. The once majestic dome of the Presidential Palace slumps like a fallen souffle. The Ministry offices are like giant dollhouses, gaping structures missing the fourth wall. Here there are fewer tents, but many more people. Families here have no driveway left, their homes are now lean-tos made of sticks, sheets, and a layer of tarp if they are lucky.

The loss of shelter, sustenance and security are the result of natural disaster. The culpability for the continual erosion of the rights to housing, food, and water however, must be found elsewhere. The international community has yet to offer coordinated assistance to the Haitian government to fulfill these rights. Concerned individuals must not allow the urgency for Haiti and its population to fade in the coming weeks and months ahead. Of course the irony is that only now does the gap in the stark inequality of the distribution of suffering among Haiti’s population begin to close. We must each stand with Haiti, today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.

-Joan VanWassenhove, Partners in Health

You can check out their short video about their work below, and read the corresponding post here:

Every three months, organizations with the top number of votes in five categories receive $200,000 from American Express—and turns out several of our partners and friends are currently up for the top prize. Save the Children, Mercy Corps, International Rescue Committee, Habitat for Humanity International, and the American Red Cross are finalists in Community Development and Relief, and charity:water is a finalist in the Environment and Wildlife category. Best of luck to everyone—and don’t forget to vote!

You can see the list of full finalists here.

Mark your calendars! This June 2-4, our friends at InterAction invite you to attend Forum 2010: Moving at the Speed of Change. At this multi-day event in Washington, DC, participants will connect, engage and influence with more than 100 experts from around the world and over 1000 professionals from more than 250 NGOs, corporations, foundations and governments. Join in discussions on a whole host of issues, from budget appropriations and military communications to global data mapping and the MDGs in 2010.

To register for the forum and learn more about the exciting schedule of events, click here.

Excerpt below, but be sure to click through to the article for some amazing photos:

Walking through these settlements, you also can’t help but notice how many women are alone. Some were likely single moms before the earthquake. But many have probably been widowed or separated from male family members by the chaos of the situation. They tend to keep to their dwellings to care for their families and are too often overlooked or miss out on distributions of food and supplies.

My colleague Robyn Yaker (left), who is spearheading the International Rescue Committee’s programs to increase aid and security for women and girls in Haiti, tells me that in a disaster like this, women and girls are uniquely affected. “They’re exposed and that makes them more susceptible to sexual violence, and they have a harder time accessing supplies, which puts them at risk of exploitation when they try to get them.”

This why the IRC is putting women and girls at the center of its relief efforts in Haiti, to ensure that vulnerable women like Minouche feel safer, have a voice in the design and placement of latrines, showers and other facilities they want and need, and have access to vital information, supplies, and other services, including psychological and clinical care for survivors of violence. “They have a right to live their lives in a dignified way, regardless of their circumstances,” Robyn says.

Last week I made my eleventh visit to Chad, one of the most compelling and impoverished countries in the world. Life is harsh for the people of Chad and it is especially precarious for the children. In the capitol of Ndjamena, I met four-year-old Clako Ali, who lives with her grandmother in one of Ndjamena’s teeming, squalid alleyways. The child has a smile I won’t forget. Her grandmother described a happy, active little girl who is smart; Clako would do well in school.

But last October, polio stalked the streets and alleyways of Ndjamena and found little Clako in their one room hut. Today her legs are withered and useless—without bracing and crutches she will never stand or walk.

Her grandmother worries about the future. How can Clako attend school, and as time passes, how will she assume a woman’s tasks—fetching water, wood, cooking, farming and caring for children. And anyway, what man would ever want to marry Clako Ali?

I was with UNICEF in a vaccination campaign to fight a disease I know too well. My own son, adopted from India, is paraplegic because of polio. When I first brought him home to the United States, it was hard to find a doctor who had any experience with polio because we have had the vaccine since 1955. Polio disappeared from the developed world and our consciousness decades ago.

Today, it exists only in the poorest countries on earth, because the world does not care enough about its most vulnerable children.

Polio is the shameful legacy of destitution and global indifference.

-Mia Farrow

So in commemoration of International Women’s Day this week, I want to pay tribute to the resiliency of these women, and highlight the collective possibility they embody — if freed from the back-breaking and time-consuming burden of collecting water.

Providing women with access to a nearby source of clean water frees up their days to earn an income or engage in other more productive activities – which can help significantly elevate their status in the community.

Nakwetikya is a great example of this. As part of a committee formed to look after a well supported by WaterAid in Ndedo, Tanzania, she has witnessed a dramatic shift in attitudes toward women in her community:

“Before we formed a [water] committee and prepared ourselves as a community, men just saw women as animals. I think they thought of us as bats flapping around them. They had no respect for us and no one would allow you to speak or listen to what you had to say. When I stand up now in a group I am not an animal. I am a woman with a valid opinion. We have been encouraged and trained and the whole community has learned to understand us.”

You can read more stories like Nakwetikya’s at http://action.globalwaterchallenge.org/womensday.

-Tanvi Nagpal, Director of Water and Sanitation Initiatives, Global Water Challenge

On April 21 and 22 in Washington, DC, we’re hosting an Action Summit to End Malaria, our very first event that brings people from across the country together to advocate for an end to this horrific disease.

Malaria was eradicated in the United States 60 years ago. But tragically, malaria is still a leading cause of death for children around the world. With enough focused attention, we could be the generation that actually does away with a disease that has killed generations of people – many of them children under five.

So join us this April in Washington, DC. We will train advocates from across the country to use their voice to draw awareness and drive change around a cause. We’ll hear from a friend in Zambia who knows the threat of malaria first-hand, from a leader in the Administration and from a child advocate and pastor from Dallas, TX with a passion for tackling poverty and injustice.

In addition, the event will include training for face-to-face meetings with elected leaders, a Night of Nets event (a model of an artistic, experiential, interactive evening gathering anyone can host in their church/community) and an afternoon of outside-the-box creative activism opportunities near the nation’s capital.

Let’s join forces to descend on Capitol Hill and let our legislators know that we won’t remain silent while more than 2,000 children die every day from this preventable disease.
The means to end malaria is cheap and available, but we need your voice to make it a reality. Learn more and register here.

-Kelli Day, World Vision’s Advocacy Manager

“Do you know a lot of famous people?” my nine year-old daughter asked when she read the concert poster for Help Haiti Live.

“No. No I don’t. But I know people who know people who know famous people.”

The crumbling of Port-au-Prince left approximately 20,000 Compassion International Haitian families without food, shelter, clean water and in need of counsel and medical help. I thought about strapping my guitar on and playing a small show to raise a little money for relief efforts, but then a wild idea hit me while scrolling through my address book: why not reach out to all those crew guys, managers, light techs and artists I’ve spent a few minutes with here and there over the last decade and pull off something even bigger?

With Compassion’s approval to use several of their staff, some small funds and their logo, we started making a simple ask: Will you sing to benefit Compassion International’s disaster relief fund—in only six weeks?

Lots of artists and managers turned us down—some multiple times. But Alison Krauss and Union Station, Mat Kearney, Jon Foreman, Jars of Clay, NEEDTOBREATHE, Big Kenny, Matt Wertz, Brandon Heath and Dave Barnes all said “yes.”

This past Saturday, these artists took the stage at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN. They performed for a sold-out crowd in front of donated hi-def cameras and microphones—and an on-line audience watched a live stream at HelpHaitiLive.com. We even ran an on-line auction, featuring donated items from Dave Matthews Band, Miley Cyrus, Gibson guitars and more.

With over $500,000 in services and production equipment donated to the night, expenses were kept as low as possible and 100% of net proceeds from ticket sales, on-line donations and auction profits were given to Compassion’s disaster relief fund.

I’m not on Compassion’s payroll as an event organizer or donation generator. I’ve never even been a concert promoter before. But the earthquake on January 12th moved me to do whatever I could for Compassion’s families in Haiti. And all I had was a list of people who know people who know famous people.

Thank God for address books and Compassion’s trust.

-Shaun Groves, singer/songwriter