Famine is man-made.
Act now: Famine is the Real Obscenity.
These are the words of the ONE campaign, the nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa, by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that are saving lives, helping to put kids in school and improving futures.
Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers.
Of desperate importance now is the need to fight the famine in Somalia, which has killed 30,000 children in just 3 months.
ONE have launched an online petition to get the US government to act on the Somalia situation by fully funding the Feed The Future initiative it launched years ago.
You can help ONE’s work by signing the online petition here.
Bono wrote about the campaign on the ONE Facebook page.
“I’ve been known to drop the occasional expletive, but the most offensive F word to me is not the one that goes f***. It’s F***** — the famine happening in Somalia.
Drought, violence and political instability have invited in the grim reaper on a scale we have not seen in 20 years… more than 30,000 children have died in just three months. The pictures from Dadaab look like a nightmare from centuries past. Yet, this is the 21st century and these pictures are real and, on the whole, unseen. The food crisis in the Horn of Africa is nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe, but it is getting less attention than the latest Hollywood break-ups and make-ups.
ONE’s new film The F Word: Famine is the Real Obscenity isn’t a typical emotional emergency appeal. It’s about focusing the media spotlight on the tragedy unfolding. It’s about building political support in the US and around the world for interventions that will stop the suffering today and break the cycle of famine in the future. Most of all, it’s about taking action — because famine is man-made.”
