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I wrote a few months ago about how Uganda is Still An Example To The World in the AIDS fight.

The ONE Campaign against global poverty has put out this notice:

In the great American tradition of helping others help themselves, we, the undersigned, ask that the U.S. Senate pass the Durbin-Smith amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget.

Dear ONE Member,

I am writing you from Kampala, Uganda. I just visited TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) Mulago, one of the largest community HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and care centers in the country. Uganda is home to one of the earliest African success stories in the fight against AIDS. The work of groups like TASO cut the number of people in Uganda living with HIV by more than half.

Today is treatment day at TASO Mulago. I took a picture of the line of people waiting. They tell us that often there are more people in line than they have medication for. The need is greater than the funding here.

This funding comes from the international affairs budget. Right now, the Senate is poised to slash the president’s 2009 international affairs budget by 4 billion dollars, which would be a 1 billion dollar cut from this year’s funding.

Thankfully, we’re not the only ones who are trying to stop this devastating cut. Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have introduced an amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget, to match the House of Representatives funding level.

Here is where we come in. We only have until Wednesday to get a majority of the Senate to support this effort. So we’ve launched a petition asking the Senate to support this amendment.

You can add your name here:
www.one.org/2009budget/o.pl?id=255-1238117-DDPrBe&t=2

Petition text:
In the great American tradition of helping others help themselves, we, the undersigned, ask that the U.S. Senate pass the Durbin-Smith amendment to restore $2.6 billion to the international affairs budget.

Increasing the size of the international affairs budget is vital to increasing the amount the U.S. gives to poverty-focused development assistance. The international affairs budget funds all the proven solutions that we call for time and again: lifesaving AIDS medications, basic education, access to clean water, and many more programs like TASO helping people to work their way out of poverty.

To save these programs, we’ve set an aggressive goal of gathering 60,000 signatures before we deliver the petition to every senator. Please add your name:

www.one.org/2009budget/o.pl?id=255-1238117-DDPrBe&t=3

The fight over the international affairs budget is the first important step to making sure that we keep our promise to help the world’s poorest people. Later in the year, we’ll work to make sure that enough of the international affairs budget goes to the programs that are making a real difference in the developing world. But that fight will be much more difficult if we don’t get a significant level of funding for the poorest among us here and now.

I was invited to a woman’s home this morning who was receiving AIDS treatment from TASO. I asked what message she’d like to send back to America. She wanted us to convey her thanks to all those people who make it possible for her to be receiving treatment.

Thank you for your voice,

Josh Peck, ONE.org

Update: the amendment we are supporting is now called the Feinstein-Smith amendment. The content of the amendment has not changed.

This blog post also gives good background and explination: Restore cut in Int. Affairs Budget (poverty assistance at risk)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Politics, Health, Action Alert, Foreign News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.