Make Poverty History

[MM2]

Hello,

I first discovered the Make Poverty History Campaign in early 2007. After several years of pondering my system of beliefs (which happen to be very inline with the Celestine Vision) I decided that pondering, thinking and discussing were no longer enough to develop and communicate these beliefs. It seemed like I had absorbed a vast portion of the available information that could be found within the normal online Celestine community and subconsciously I began to attract opportunities that extended beyond the online world and smaller discussion groups.

When I came across the Make Poverty History Campaign I immediately knew that it was what I had been looking for. The ideas and energy behind the campaign synchronized with the higher level truths of my belief system and the Celestine Vision immediately. Poverty also exemplified the epitome of a challenge; one that I felt I could pass away and feel satisfied about spending my entire life pursuing.

Although the title of the campaign seems naive and impractical, the goals and tactics of the campaign are extremely well thought out and focused. The campaign began officially in 2005 and was formed by the worlds largest Non-Governmental Organizations in the world. Its goals were derived from the decades of trial and error of these matured organizations and have been modernized to suite the poverty problem as it exists in this generation. In 2005 it set world records and set an unprecedented message across the globe with the Live8 concerts that planted social justice seeds in the subconscious minds of over 3 billion people.

To me, the biggest hook was that it focus' on the root problem of poverty. Its not the lack of aid, the lack of money, the lack of food, or a lack of other resources. For the first time ever, more than ever, this generation has the means to end extreme poverty. The root of the problem is the lack of political will to end it. The Make Poverty History Campaign is not about asking for your MONEY, it is about asking for your VOICE and then using our collective voice to generate that political will. It is not about charity. It is about justice.

Spiritually, the lack of political will reflects the disconnect between the masses and the reality they are trying to create. What I greatly enjoy with this campaign is that its not about throwing blame around. It is a mistake to blame the politicians for not making the changes needed to end poverty because these people who we call politicians are there to represent the interest of their people (in Democracies) and to reflect the changes that the people want in their society. If we are to blame anyone, we are to blame ourselves. The responsibility lies within us, the masses to band together and pressure these representatives to do the right thing and to manifest the change in our reality that we wish to see.

After a few months of pondering and enlightening myself on the true extent of the poverty crisis in the world, I realized that at no other point in my life would I be more capable of working towards the goals of Make Poverty History than at that moment and in the following years. Being a 3rd year University Undergraduate student, I realized that my commitments and obligations to society, friends and family would only increase once I graduated with my degree. Knowing that one of my goals is to enter Grad school to begin working on a Master's Degree in Physics so that I could begin gaining the credentials to perform high level research with the end of goal of causing a global spiritual paradigm shift, I knew that my chances of pursuing something as idealistic as Make Poverty History would be next to impossible to pursue and create real change. At no other time would I be more free to put my energy into manifesting change than in my undergraduate years (as I had no children of my own or dependents).

So in 2007 I withdrew from my 3rd year of studies to begin seriously building up a Make Poverty History student group. I began recruiting coordinators, organizing events and began meeting with political leaders. In our first year we managed to organize what turned out to be the largest student organized event on our campus on October 17th which is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. We joined millions of other people that day in breaking the Guinness World Record for the most amount of people to stand against poverty in 24 hours. We had beaten the 2006 record of 23.5 million people with 43.7 million in 2007. Our group put up thousands of posters and ran a very intense engagement strategy across the entirety of our campus.

At the same time I helped found a coalition of the 14 other social justice groups on our campus and began to coordinate projects to exponentially increase the impact social justice had in the reputation of our university. We setup an office, designed a constitution over 6 months of consensus making and through the Stand Against Poverty Guinness Record event again this year. We set the world record again over 3 days from October 17th-19th with 116.9 million people. The coalition and the Make Poverty History group used the event to network over 55 other groups across our campus and city to begin building a solid social justice network. We began using facebook as an effective means of communication and designed a petition to pressure our Students' Union to create a Social Justice Committee within their Council that would re-examine the Coca Cola contract the University signed and the exclusion of Fair Trade products on campus. The petition motivated the Students' Union executive to make it a project to design a special structure for Social Justice so as to enhance its effectiveness to work along side Make Poverty History and the coalition.

For 2009 we have already begun planning for our Stand Against Poverty 2009 event, and have extended our networking initiative across Canada to begin networking other Stand Up events in each Province. The coalition has also begun working on its second large campus wide social justice event for the winter term and have initiated another project with local Members of Parliament to begin accurately tracking the schedules of these members in a very clear and accurate way so that we can compile their time management to clearly see what they have been spending their time doing and how much of it is going towards poverty eradication. We have also begun supporting the Global Citizenship Curriculum that the International Department of the University is attempting to forge and implement into the education system. This will allow the students and potential leaders of the future to have a greater understanding awareness of the injustices in the world so that we can begin to change them from the inside.

The goals of the Make Poverty History campaign are both global and local in scope and can be summed up in 14 words:

(For Canada)
1) More and BETTER Aid
2) Trade Justice
3) Cancel the Debt
4) End Child Poverty In Canada

Since 2005 significant steps have been taken in all steps but these goals work in tangent to the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) that must be accomplished by the agreed upon deadline of 2015 by 189 countries. Although significant steps have been made political, Canada and many of the G8 nations are not on track to achieving the goals by 2015.

As one thoughtful and spiritually open minded person, I knew that I could not cause drastic global changes on my own in 1 year, but I knew I could begin building the systems locally that could result in these changes in a relatively quick amount of time (we don't have much time left before 2015). Knowing the power of the subconscious mind and the spiritual relationships between body, mind and spirit, I focused on trying to achieve the effect described in the first Insight: Critical Mass.

In the Celestine Prophecy it speaks about Critical Mass being achieved over the concept of a spiritual revolution and a drastic change to our current way of life. Ending extreme poverty, to me, is one of, if not the biggest step we can take towards this spiritual revolution so I began to focus on achieving a Critical Mass effect on a local and plausible scale. I knew that I didn't have the resources to generate critical mass over the world, or over the country, or even over my city, but I knew that if I put everything I had towards Make Poverty History that there was a good chance the effect could be achieved over the entirety of the university campus.

Doing most of the grunt work in the initial year, I intimately connected myself to the layout and design of the campus and its buildings. I researched the student group structure, the university rules and restrictions, spoke with key figures in the campus community, discussed with professors and attempted to correspond with the President of the University. Documents were written up to keep track of a concept we recognized as being crucial to achieving critical mass through external environmental stimuli (advertising!). The concept was called Layers of Exposure. We began keeping track of statistical figures and qualitative analysis so that we had a foundation to begin improving upon each year until 2015. This began drawing out a clear picture of exactly what kind of resources and how many resources we would need to achieve critical mass.

Once Critical Mass is achieved on campus, the collective focus of the university population would naturally sustain the awareness level of social justice and Make Poverty History on the campus and provide a gateway to influence higher political figures and decision makers. It would also allow us to tap into newer resources and expand the outreach of these resources to a greater radius of minds. Eventually, with the network of groups we built through the Stand Against Poverty initiatives, the critical mass would spread to a radius that would include the entire city. The same effect may occur if we can help other groups begin doing the same in at least one major city in each province across the country. Then collectively we may be able to generate critical mass nationally and pressure our political leaders at the highest levels to make the changes globally.

Currently nearly half the worlds human population lives in poverty (under $2 USD a day). If the poverty issue is halved by 2015 as outlined in the first Millennium Development goal, and if significant steps continue with the 4 Make Poverty History goals, then we could be seeing a spiritual paradigm shift much sooner than if poverty is to remain at this unbelievable scale. As my physics studies show that technology is exponentially increasing, it is no great feat to imagine that if extreme poverty is in addition is eradicated, that a society like that described in the 9th insight is a very real possibility in our lifetimes.

Over these past 2 years, pursuing social justice through the Make Poverty History campaign has been the most challenging thing I have ever faced in my life to date. It has exhausted me and pushed me mentally, physically and spiritually. My beliefs, fears, goals, dreams, and ability to hope have all been shaken tremendously and there have been a few moments where I wish I could turn back but the experience is one that I would not trade. I have gained insight that I would not have even glimpsed if I were to have remained in school grinding out my life in the education system as it stands now.

I have had to utilize the energy dynamics described in the Insights extensively particularly with the 4th and 7th insight so that crucial opportunities were not missed. Social Justice is a very difficult thing to pursue at the current collective awareness level of our species and is very taxing on ones spirit but I am thankful that my subconscious programming and those around me have given me the strength to push on. It has been a tremendous experience being able to express spirituality through Make Poverty History and Social Justice.

I believe it would be enlightening for the collective human consciousness if more of us applied ourselves in similar ways.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

I have been talking with a guy at Carleton University in Canada and amazingly we seem to resonate very well on the issue of poverty and what to do about it. We have been discussing pursuing the Millennium Villages Initiative as a major project for our Universities.

At the moment our Make Poverty History group is working with the SUSJ coalition on throwing a dance marathon and at first I was turned off because a dance marathon has been done before and I do not feel as though throwing fundraisers will make real change and that this dance marathon had no global significance or political influence to make lasting change. With only a year left to work while out of school, the Millennium Villages seems to be our best bet lifting people out of poverty so that they can support themselves without no strings attached from capitalist exploitation.

Also, the Millennium Villages cost around $350,000 to run for a year but this amount of money is enough to raise 5000 people out of poverty. This is only $60 per person whereas current aid, microfinanace and other methods are around $300 per person! These villages are our best chance at showing the worlds governments what our world would look like if our governments actually kept their promises towards the 8 Millennium Development goals! There are currently 78 Millennium Villages around the world and all of them are experiencing triple their normal yields, nearly every child in the village goes to school, infrastructure is in place to create lasting jobs and a stable body. We are going to work with universities in the united states and in Canada to try and get EVERY university in North America to pass a Dedicated Fee Unit of about $6 per year to sponsor a village and send a message to our politicians that if they won't do it and commit to the 0.7% commitment of gross national product as foreign aid to build these villages and nations in light of the Millennium Development Goals, then we as the leaders of the next generation will.


We also found out that the ivy league universities in the states have already formed a network called the Millennium Network between their universities. They are working on a concept called Live 09 along side the Millennium Villages idea. We will also be trying to get all the universities to throw concerts like the Live 8 concert in 2005 where we would raise money and awareness to further give to the MV project. This is perfect! Because now we can make our pointless dance marathon into a live 09 project that will then have global significance as it contributes to the Millennium Villages across the world.

In addition, word has been received from the head organizers at the United Nations Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) that the international community has decided to work on the Stand Against Poverty 2009 GUINNESS WORLD RECORD event that will be occurring in October 8.5 months from now! Perfect!

I called the organizer at Carleton University and we have decided to work together on the Stand Against Poverty 2009 event as well and our main goal is to spread the event across Canada and have its number of people 3 times higher than last year by getting every school board, university and college to hold a stand up and contribute to the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people to stand up against poverty worldwide! Its a hefty feat but suddenly seems possible now that there are two of us willing to put all our passion towards it!

As of Friday we also sent out the first invitation to our University's President to have her deliver the Poverty Pledge and have the University begin taking bigger steps towards eradicating poverty and generating the political will to end it.

More to come later.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[Jillian]

It was just after reading the Passion Test in December of 2007, I grabbed the phone called World Vision and became a sponsor for Beautiful Lydia who lives in Uganda, she has aids and shes 6 years old.

I pay world vision with part of the babybonus I receive for my 4 children. Your absolutly right, it's not just the fact we can't end poverty with just Aid. It's about reaching the root cause.

Two movies stand out in mind-One is "The Happening" it makes everyone open their eyes to how we are treating our Earth and just recently watched was "Blindness" it makes you see with your heart and not your eyes.

If awarness, I mean Real consciousness of Poverty is not felt with empathy,sympathy and Passion for Justice, well perhaps complete world Hunger will be the ultimate demise in order for us to truly end Hunger and Poverty, we won't have the choice anymore, it will be global, it will become everyone's problem.
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sweetsurprise

[MM2]

HUGE news as of 3 days ago: Carleton was SUCCESSFUL in getting a levy through to sponsor a Millennium Village!

This is a monstrous breakthrough and now Make Poverty History at the University of Alberta is going to implement a fee and work with the largest post secondary institutions in Alberta:

1.University of Calgary
2. University of Lethbridge
3. Grant MacEwan College
4. King's College
5. NAIT

to get them to implement annual levies as well for the MV's. The reason why these levies are so powerful is because it generates a large and reliable source of funds for these very expensive villages and it links the future generation of leaders (university students especially) with Global Citizenship. It also means that students are taking on the burden of paying for these extremely successful villages rather than relying on slow bureaucratic politicians and government run arounds to get it. Once enough people see how these villages are practical and extremely cost effective per person in the village, the more pressure will be placed on the government to take action and follow suite with their 0.7% GDP commitment to EFFECTIVE foreign aid.

Also, invitations have been sent out to the President of the University of Alberta to attend and the first emails have been sent out to high schools in recruiting them to throw a Stand event in an attempt to double Canada's contribution to the Guinness World Record.

Progress is slow with getting a crane into quad though.....

Thanks for the encouragement Jillian! I haven't had a great deal of time to watch movies but I have heard of "The Happening" but not "blindness" which I'm not sure I will get a chance to watch for a while.

Also, the Millennium Campus Network is having a meeting where the Executive Director will decide whether or not to try and get all groups in the network to start working on levies for the Millennium Villages.

A strong start has been made to develop a point system for the SUSJ coalition to start getting people to work properly and cohesively. There have been some concerns but it has a concrete start and a few numbers have already been reported so that we can begin to measure and gauge our awareness campaigns to start improving them instead of just wasting money on them!
_________________
Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Since the last message I have message kelly twice to help speak with James Redfield on using the Global Prayer Project in tandem with the Stand Against Poverty event in October. So far I have not received a reply but kelly, or one of the admin, have moved the Social Justice thread higher up which is great!

I understand why kelly and James are hesitant to jump on board with Make Poverty History but I would still like to discuss it further and address some of the concerns.

-------------------------------------------------

Also, we have begun cracking down on our Executive members and Volunteers. We have begun implementing a system to track volunteer hours and to have coordinators log their hours on Google Documents. We have our Appreciation Coordinator who will look over these logged hours and begin nominating our star volunteers for awards. Hopefully this will begin setting up a sustainable and effective system of reliable volunteers. This is a big step. We are also requiring that members and volunteers of our Make Poverty History student group must dedicate 4 hours each month to initiatives of the group.

We also had an executive meeting that planned out the entire next year and have begun discussing our pumpkin drop with Engineers Without Borders and expanding the Millennium Campus Network. Everyone seems to be on board with making a North American Wide MCN instead of a Canada and United States version. We feel that seperating the MCN will cause less co-operation.

BIG THING: new structure of group and dedication system.
_________________
Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Good news: The president of our University is thinking of coming to the Stand 2009!

We also found out who we need to talk to about getting our crane and Pumpkin Drop into the heart of our University Campus (right in the middle where everyone can't miss it!).



Also, the new system for our group appears to be working. We're going to be launching a big engagement initiative to attract a few more people to fill the remaining coordinator positions we have.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Huge steps forward!


Official date of the Stand 2009 has been verified worlwide: midnight October 15th to midnight October 18th. Our event will be on Friday, October 16th.

Had a meeting with the 2 rotaract representatives and they were very skeptical about implementing the $10 fee that students would have to pay towards a millennium village. They went home that same night and I got a phone call a few hours later from them saying that they saw why I was so many people are pumped up about it! They said they couldn't take their eyes away from reading about it for 4 hours and that they were still reading and just wanted to tell me the news!

Also, one of these two are on the students council that we will, next year, have to convince to pass our petition! They will push from the inside as hard as we wiil push from the outside. They also said it would be no problem getting Rotaract on board for this.

Also, an email inviting Jeffrey Sachs to come and speak about the Millennium Villages himself has been sent out with very personalized and detailed content that might engage him and put preference on attending the Stand on October 16th.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Yesterday we made the first direct contact with representatives from Millennium Promise which is where our money will be going from the Millennium Village referendum we will be holding in the 2009-2010 year. Here are the numbers after looking up the other Universities in Canada that we will reach out to and try to join us in holding these referendums:

Western Canada (the UofA will reach out to these)

35,000 1. University of British Columbia
34,617 2. University of Alberta
26,000 3. University of Calgary
23,480 4. Simon Fraser University
19,763 5. University of Saskatchewan
19,743 6. University of Victoria
11,684 7. University of Regina
8,100 8. University of Lethbridge
3,962 9. University of Northern BC
182,349
132,349 Estimated Undergraduates
100,000 Lowest Estimate to pay fee.


Easter Canada

67692 University of Toronto
39258 Universite de Montreal
38219 Universite de Laval
37915 York University
32787 McGill University
32000 University of Western Ontario
30391 Concordia University
30000 Universite de Sherbrooke
27603 University of Ottawa
23839 Carleton University
21607 Queen's University
21029 University of Waterloo
20500 University of McMaster
17000 Memorial University
16000 University of Guelph
15800 Dalhousie University
9569 Wilfred Laurier University
9000 University of New Brunswick
8560 St. Mary's University
7556 Trent University
4200 St. Francis Xavier University
4100 University of PEI
3604 Acadia University
2800 St. Thomas University
2275 Mount Allison University
2188 Bishop's University
525492

300,000 # estimated undergrads Pay fee
$3,000,000 from eastern

So $4,000,000 raised in total= 13 villages from Canada alone.

I have not looked into the United States.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

I spoke with kelly the other day and attended my first Global Prayer Project prayer.

Kelly asked how I thought James and the Celestine Community could help with Make Poverty History and I spoke of the Stand 2009 and using the spiritual networks across North America to help boost the numbers and engage more people in the Millennium Development Goals and Millennium Villages.

She pointed me in the direction David Korten who is using his spiritual and academic knowledge to make real social change to bring about a true Earth Community instead of being reigned by the current Empire entity. This reminds me deeply of the 9th insight, and I resonate strongly with David. I sent him a message through his messaging system but I received an autoresponse saying that they were very busy and may not respond to my message. It looks like engaging the spiritual community in ending extreme poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals and developing the political will to end extreme poverty is going to be very challenging. It may even be more challenging than engaging regular communities.

I don't know how I'm going to convey why the spiritual community should adopt the MDG's, Make Poverty History and the Millennium Villages. When I tried to convey them to kelly, it came off as ordinary and nothing special but these 3 things are the best chances we have at achieving a critical mass that will help bring about a spiritual paradigm shift.
_________________
Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

I was kicked out of the celestine chat today. It looks like I was a little too honest and straight forward. I should have made my comments with the other person in private conversation first given the level of the chatroom, and this is why I would agree with the moderators decision to ask me to leave. In a way it was good that I went into the general Celestine Vision room, but at the same time I feel like I'd prefer the other rooms.

None-the-less, things don't look all that hopeful on the Celestine front. My persistence at the extreme poverty topic is being seen as a control drama. I don't think I should mention it in the chatroom anymore and should reduce it in the forum except for this thread. It seems like it will cause too much agitation given the current awareness levels.

Looking at the Synchrolinks though, things look good. CV and James have done a fairly good job networking with the spiritual community and more ground based organizations like Amnesty International.

I was also invited to the Celestine Gathering on June 5, 6,7th. Seems like the perfect opportunity to find out James ideas on MPH, the MDG's and the CV in general with how it mixes with the current state of things. I guess being kicked out of the chat is the sign I was looking for to decide when I should take a break from the "online CV" community and get back into more tangible things. Maybe work towards getting to the gathering. Hopefully I didn't get blacklisted. My patience and my intentions faltered today. I'm embarrassed. It won't happen again when I come back.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Earlier I had said that kelly had pointed me in David Korten's direction. I had never heard of this man until then.

But I have heard of a book called "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" which was recommended to me 3 times this past year, and upon reading its preface, the author mentions and makes explicit thanks to David Korten by saying:

"to David Korten who not only read and critiqued it but also made me jump through hoops to satisfy his high and excellent standards;"

Still no reply from David though. I'm reading the book to help add more depth to my understanding of the problem with our current foreign aid system. I thought this occurance with David Korten was synchronistic and worth mentioning.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[truth]

Hi MM2,

Now I get the dig about me not caring about extreme poverty - I didn't see this thread until today...

I learnt on Monday that 70% of the poorest billion live in either countries coming out of or currently in the midst of civil war. For me, the answer to poverty is peace and inspiration.

I think what you have done is fantastic - keep up the good work. However, I believe an insight is required into what the whole world has to offer the movement - we, each and every one of us, want peace and we all want to be inspirational, we just haven't yet learnt how to do it as effectively as we would like. Now, that means that those who are called to action, must live and breathe that belief, otherwise we'll get sucked into confrontation mode... it's not an easy path to tread, in fact it is much easier to try and bulldoze through how we think life should be. The problem is our thoughts are limited to what we think we know, whereas our hearts have a direct connection to all of life's possibilities.

The whole universe is on our side, believe it and live it.

[MM2]

Rallying for peace, at least on a practical level, appears to be too large and general a goal to pursue effectively at this time. It is why the movements in the 60's and 70's had such a hard time because in order to have peace we have to satisfy many many conditions which, at best, slows down progress immensely given that we have limited resources.

But it appears also like this is the first time in history that we have the resources to truly end a more specific issue that will vastly improve our chances of achieving peace and that issue is extreme poverty. We may not have the resources to generate all out peace and harmony, but it appears like we now for the first time have the full resource set and capability of ending extreme poverty.

The great thing about focusing on ending extreme poverty is that is is much more easily measured than peace. It is easy to quantify and qualify than peace. This means we can set out more tangible tactics and timelines as well. If we were to focus only on peace, then that means we would have to end extreme poverty, all the civil wars in every country, fighting drugs, terrorism, collusion, corrupt governments and every other issue known to man that is not generating peace. In truth, extreme poverty and poverty in general is the ROOT of the majority of all these other issues. Many people sell drugs out of desperation especially in foreign countries. Corrupt governments persist because the public is too poor to afford education, or have the time to educate themselves. Instead they are distracted by materialism to fill the gap that poverty leads. Poverty leads to disparity which leads to violence which leads to terrorism.

We need to be intelligent about how we go about generating change in todays world. The Make Poverty History Campaign and the Millennium Development Goals embody this modern intelligence and thoughtfulness. It is tailored for our current societal awareness levels and is based off learning from mistakes of the past. Choosing to focus on ending extreme poverty is the single best way, given our resources, to make an impact and to begin generating peace. We need to make this a focus and not let go.

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On another note, I finished reading Confessions of An Economic Hitman today and it confirmed much of what I have read in the past about the players "behind the scenes". David Icke, although much more radical, also does a good job revealing the structure of the Empire that Confessions of An Economic Hitman and David Korten speak about in his book The Truth Shall Set You Free. These men and their words only solidify why the MPH campaign and the MDG's can succeed. They are designed to succeed given what we know about this empire and the system we are all a part of (which is also described in the 2nd insight by James Redfield).

After reading the book I research the author John Perkins more and found that he has an organization similar to David Korten's. Its called OMEGA with the following contact in formation:

877.944.2002 or email us at registration@eomega.org

I am interested to know Mr. Perkins opinions on the Make Poverty History Campaign and the Millennium Develoment Goals and to see if he and David Korten would be willing to use their connections for the Stand 2009 event.
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UPDATE:

Last week the United Nations Millennium Campaign sent out their first official notice across the globe that Stand 2009 is indeed going to occur in full force with more specific details about what our outreach goals are. They seem to be more focused this year. Serious. They have already updated the website for 2009:

www.standagainstpoverty.org

EXCITING!
_________________
Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

Our University President has confirmed her attendance at our Stand event and she has also agreed to deliver the universal Poverty Pledge.

Outreach has begun to schools all across Canada as well and we are met with surprising enthusiasm so far!

Had a meeting with the Chaplains chair to help reach out to all the faith groups in our city. Meeting went very well.

Negotiations with Facilities Management and Infrastructure at the University are finally continuing after I attended one of the University President's addresses to the public and spoke up about communication issues between her staff and students. A meeting is being setup to continue exploring the possibility of bringing the crane into the heartland of our campus.

The International Centre at the University has offered a professional helping hand and meetings with them are setup for next week.

Our volunteer system is ripening. All coordinators are creating their own gmail accounts to add clarity and organization to their positions. The exec positions and constitution has been updated so that executive members now have the coordinators divided up between them to guide and help.

Still no reply from David Korten or CP. The spiritual community is thus far the least responsive.
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Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.

[MM2]

I finished reading Jeffrey Sachs's "The End of Poverty" and had a sudden idea. For the past 2 years I've had the idea that we need to get the University itself to DO something to help end extreme poverty and help promote the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

It turns out Jeffrey Sachs left Harvard University to be the director of the Columbia Earth Institute...a very interdisciplinary based institute to apply our knowledge in all fields to ending global problems like extreme poverty. Here at the Unviersity of Alberta, we have already engaged our Students' Union by having them officially create a Social Justice Committee within their structure, but the University is almost doing nothing.

BUT the University has been building a new state of the art building on campus: the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS).

Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science: University of Alberta
http://www.science.ualberta.ca/ccis.cfm

It dawned on me that we could use the momentum of the Millennium Villages and Make Poverty History to encourage the University to apply a more specific focus to the CCIS vision in that, like the Earth Institute, it will use its unique knowledge to end extreme poverty and create sustainable development and work towards 9 areas of sustainability that the Earth Institute states on its main page: climate and society, water, energy, poverty, ecosystems, public health, food and nutrition, hazards and urbanization.

The Earth Institute: Columbia University
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/1791

This will also help make the University of Alberta one of the top 20 by 2020 universities in the world (a bold goal stated by our University President). There is a strong synergy here.
_________________
Pessimists find difficulty in every opportunity. Optimists find opportunity in every difficulty.