Your ONE victory for Africa: G8 doubles aid!

Oh joy!!!! i got this e-mail today and I HAD to post it. I'm so very happy :)
Thanx to all of u who joined, and congrats! (Happy moment when MoN thinks the world CAN (and must) be changed, just hope the feeling lasts) (PS: I didn't pay attention to the parts where it refers to me as an american -from the US, cuz I am an american, since I live in SouthAmerica....- just forget the parts where it refers to people as if we were all american if that bother u)

This is a big thank you to all 1.5 million of you who joined together as ONE to do something extraordinary.

From the 500,000 letters you sent to President Bush to Live 8 in Philadelphia to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, you called on eight men to do more to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty, and they heard your call. In Scotland this past Friday, overcoming the shadow of a tragic day in London, President Bush joined G8 leaders in an unprecedented deal to cancel debts and double aid to Africa.

For African nations fighting poverty and corruption, this means a $25 billion increase in aid and wiping out 100% of their debts. With this funding, Africa can halve deaths from malaria, put millions of children into school, and 10 million people across the world will have access to lifesaving AIDS drugs. Behind each of these numbers is one person, one life that will be changed forever.

For the first time ever, everyday Americans like you joined together to take a seat at the negotiating table, asking the world's most powerful leaders to do more to help the world's poorest people. Because you signed the ONE Declaration, wore the white band and forwarded emails to friends about ONE, you made a huge step toward making poverty history. We've come so far and still have far to go.

Keep the momentum going, email 3 friends about ONE today.

This agreement is a real victory for Africa - but promises made of words will only become promises for a generation if we keep watching, asking and acting. Much more needs to be done in Washington DC to turn these commitments into lifesaving programs, and the world must take new steps to make trade fair. More meetings will take place this year in New York and Hong Kong where a comprehensive debt-aid-trade deal can be reached and end global AIDS and extreme poverty in our time.

We can be that great generation. As ONE, let's keep up the positive pressure and make 2005 the year we joined together to make history.

Thank you,

The ONE Team

P.S. You can learn more about the details of the G8 deal by checking out the ONE.ORG G8 page.

What I learn at school, Part I ~ Lo que aprendo en la U, Parte I

In my Educational Psychology class:

"The decency of the woman is soluble in alcohol"

-Antonio Skármeta

En mi clase de Psicología Educacional:

"El pudor de la mujer es soluble en alcohol"

-Antonio Skármeta

Hey! G8!

(Escribí este post en inglés en pos de la difusión dado que la mayoría de las personas que leen mi blog son angloparlantes y no hispanoparlantes a la vez. No tengo tiempo para publicar en español esta vez y de verdad lo siento mil. Si les interesa mucho hagan click aquí para que se hagan una idea :) Mil disculpas!)

I know I said I was gonna be away. I also know that I had almost promised myself today my eyes would be fixed on the pages of my books. But here I am, posting, cuz I'm overwhelmed... I'm mentally and spiritually restless.

When I got to my friends' place last night one of'em was watching MTV. She was watching the special broadcast of the Live 8 series of concerts. 9 concerts around the world, 150 artists, gathered with just one purpose:

Make poverty history

The G8 is meeting this 6th of July in Scotland and the idea of the Live 8 is that we can all (everybody who wants to) demand from them the end of poverty.
This morning when I woke up and went downstairs my friend Amalia told me Live 8 was about to begin. We had MTV tuned on all day, watching the different concerts (that had actually been on July 2nd) in those different nations. There were no ads, just campaign, 100%. I can't even remember all the different mottos, but I remember they were very powerful:

G8 be great
G8 the world is watching
Enough is enough
We don't want your money, we want your name
They've given their names. Give yours now. Sign the Live 8 list

My heart ached so many times as I watched the TV... this was yet another time when I have agreed with Cypher (The Matrix): "ignorance is a bliss"... I didn't know a child dies every three seconds, of extreme poverty. I didn't know 50000 people die every day of extreme poverty. In Africa. How can the place where u'r born determine u'r right/chance to live?
But also my heart was happy and received a shower of joy when I saw all those people united for the same cause. Not asking for money, not asking for charity, asking for justice, for our brothers and sisters.
Another movie I though of while watching Live 8 was The Lord of The Rings, The Two Towers. I remembered that part when Sam tells Frodo about heroes and how they've all held on to something to go on, and Frodo asks what are they holding on to. And then Sam told him: "That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for."
I got this shower of love and hope today and I'm so thankful for it. It was so needed.
There is some good on this world and today I saw on TV millions of people believing and fighting for it. I'm now one more :)
If u wanna be a fighter also sign the letter for Bush from One here, u have time till the 5th I guess.
IDK if it's too late to sign the Live 8 list, but in case u wanna give it a shot (c'mon! it won't take long) u can visit their site.