NEWSBYWELDON KENNEDY

The following post comes from Jamie Drummond, the Executive Director of ONE.

It’s over a month since famine was declared in Somalia and alarm bells clearly rung about serious food shortages across Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are in desperate need of food, clean water and basic sanitation and we are all asking: how can this be happening again? In this past month we have seen differing responses locally, regionally and globally to the crisis. Already there are lessons we must learn about how to stop famine happening again.

As Richard Dowden noted previously on this blog there are many political factors that complicate the situation in Somalia. Any lasting solution will require a regional roadmap out of the Somali cycle of failed statism. Eritrea and others must be brought around a table with other regional governments, and representatives from wide cross section of Somali civil society. Maybe this famine will reenergise the too often stalled process. However politics is not the only factor here and there are other lessons to learn.

This is a post by Erin Hohlfhelder cross-posted ONE Blog.

The good news in development often gets buried, deep below wars and debt and disaster. But yesterday, world leaders made bold new pledges to the GAVI Alliance (Global Aliance for Vaccines and Immunisations) in support of child vaccines, making the choice clear for reporters, press secretaries and live-tweeters alike: today was going to be a good news day.

In fact, in spite of tough economic times, donors collectively pledged $4.3 billion between now and 2015 — surpassing GAVI’s $3.7 billion funding gap — setting GAVI and its partners on the path toward saving nearly 4 million children’s lives in the next five years.

Thomas Drake is a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who was being prosecuted under the Espionage Act for retaining, not leaking, classified information about a data collection program that was costly, threatening to Americans' privacy rights, and wholly undeveloped. He did everything by the book, raising concerns through official channels first - including senior NSA management, the Defense Department's inspector general, and Congress.

His concerns were ignored. Drake started, legally, communicating with a reporter -- never sharing any classified information whatsoever. But the consequences looked to be severe, with prosecutors looking to make him spend the rest of his life in prison. So in response, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) ran an all-out campaign, which included a petition here on Change.org with nearly 5,000 signatures, calling for the charges against Drake to be dropped.

The Situation
Sandblasting, which gives jeans a 'worn' or used look, is known to kill workers in garments producing countries like Turkey and Bangladesh where jeans sandblasting is done manually.

When workers fire sand under high pressure at jeans, dust then enters the environment, exposing workers to silica, which causes silicosis in the lungs. Eventually, workers die because they cannot breathe properly anymore.

The Solution
Versace needs to follow in the footsteps of other brands including Levi's, H&M, C&A and Gucci and publicly ban sandblasting from their supply chain.

In May, Vietnamese authorities responded to a land rights protest by the Hmong minority group in northern Vietnam with a harsh crack down. They detained over 100 people, and hundreds more have been reported in hiding.

In response, Bruce Thao launched a petition calling on the US State Depart to speak out about this human rights violation, successfully mobilizing first hundreds and then thousands of people to speak up for the Hmong.

I asked him a few questions to help get a better picture of the situation, and it became clear that this recent crack down is just the most recent incident in a multi-generational pattern of persecution. He told me, “My parents are Hmong refugees who fled Laos during the Vietnam War. They've endured war, migration, and refugee camps. I have also worked with Hmong in Thailand and have seen first hand the level of discrimination and high levels of poverty the Hmong live in in Southeast Asia as a result of being ethnic minorities, and particularly given our alignment with the United States during the Vietnam War. I can never turn my back on my people."

We need a few reliable people for special new team of activists to help win some of the human rights campaigns here at Change.

Here’s the deal: sometimes a petition asking for a simple change is sometimes not enough to win a campaign, but with a little bit more encouragement the petition target might be convinced to do the right thing.

So we’re looking to put together a pack of people – Human Rights Heroes – who can help take things to the next level when a campaign gets stuck. The things we’ll be asking you to do range from posting on a company’s Facebook wall or tweeting at a politician to making a phone call in support of petition.

If you’re interested, then please sign on up (and make sure to check your email to confirm joining).

This is a post from Erin Hohlfelder on the ONE Blog about a campaign for child vaccines, which ONE is also running here at Change.org with 35,000 signatures and counting.

We formally launched our child vaccines campaign in the US last week. Many of you have already sent in blog comments, Facebook posts and tweets sharing your enthusiasm and passion for this cause, and we have to admit that we’re excited too. As advocates, we think the opportunity to support GAVI (The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations) in their efforts to save 4 million lives in the next 5 years through vaccinations is pretty incredible. GAVI is hosting a global pledging conference in the UK on June 13th to raise the money needed to achieve this goal — and we think the US will be weighing its contribution in the next few weeks — so that’s why we’ve chosen to focus publicly on this issue, right now.

Last week, Change.org member Lindsey Hancock’s petition, which asks that a Native American burial site not be disturbed, started to gather a bit more steam, and a few of the petitioners started to hear back for the officials they are asking to step in and stop the quarry threatening the site. So I got in touch with her and she told me a little bit more about what motivated her to step and start her first petition on Change.org.

How did you first hear about the quarry?

I first heard about the quarry after reading an article by expert Richard Thornton. I periodically receive e-newsletters from People of One Fire, a national alliance of Muskogean scholars.

What motivated you to get involved?

Two weeks ago today, the Washington State House unanimous passed a bill (HB 2036) for increased protections for prison guards. They were following the lead of the state Senate who had passed the companion bill (SB 5907), earlier in April.

But now, the bill is now sitting on Governors Chris Gregoire’s desk waiting for her signature.

After prison guard Jayme Biendl was murdered earlier this year, Gregoire was quick to act, calling for in independent investigation. She was when on hand to endorse the recommends of the National Institute of Corrections. Now the bill turning those recommendations into law is just sitting waiting for her signature.

To help encourage Governor Gregoire to put pen to paper, please take just a second to tweet at her. Just click here to send a tweet, or copy and paste this one here:

Dear @GovGregoire please sign the bill for increased prison guard safety into law http://chn.ge/mkjQAj

More than 140,000 Change.org members have petitioned McDonald’s to dismiss the employees who encouraged two women as they violently attacked a transgender woman in a Baltimore location. But pressuring for punishment for these individuals doesn’t address the deeper issue at hand: McDonald’s needs to establish better policies for the inclusion of transgender people at all levels of their operation.

So today, to help keep up the pressure on the petition effort and also ask McDonald’s to address the underlying issue, we’re asking everyone to send a creative Follow Friday tweet to McDonald's encouraging them to adopt policies that will help prevent another incident like the one in Baltimore in the future.

Please take a second to send this tweet:

#FF @McDonalds but only to see if they adopt policies to protect transgender employees & customers http://chn.ge/fPkkhm via @change