The Challenge of Nov. 8
By Charles F. MacCormack | November 3, 2006
Next week will mark an important day for children living in poverty in the U.S. and around the world. That day, of course, is November 8. While the country's attention will be trained on November 7, it's the Wednesday after when the excitement of Election Day gives way to the sobering challenge of making the world a better place for kids to live. With the well-being of children invoked by politicians of all stripes throughout the campaign season, will they be remembered when the polls close?
Save the Children works in over 50 countries around the world and here in the U.S. creating real and lasting change for children in need. Sometimes the headlines reflect our responses to emergencies – Hurricane Katrina or the recent violence in Lebanon, for example. More often, we are responding to an ongoing crisis or recovery effort that has long since fallen off the front page, or supporting long-term health and education efforts that seldom register any mention at all.
As advocates for children in need, how do we sustain the energy and momentum around singular, momentous events, and transform them into lasting, sustainable change? Eglantyne Jebb, who founded the first Save the Children Fund to help children in the aftermath of World War I, was keenly aware of this challenge. "The world is not ungenerous," she remarked, "but unimaginative and very busy." If it was true in 1919, it is certainly true today in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, mobile phones and the Internet.
The ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has captured the attention of many Americans and political leaders. Can we transform this concern into action for the 43 million children around the world denied an education because they live in a country affected by war and conflict?
We watched, collectively outraged, as the most vulnerable among us bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Can this disaster compel us to better serve the 2.6 million children living in pockets of rural poverty across the U.S. in Appalachia, the Southwest, and Mississippi River Delta?
Millions of Americans opened their hearts and their wallets to the victims of the South Asian tsunami. Can they also help us turn back the silent wave of preventable and treatable diseases that claim the lives of 30,000 children every day in the world's poorest countries?
The world is not ungenerous, and there is encouraging evidence that the possibility of doing more for children is capturing its imagination. Efforts such as the ONE Campaign – now with over 2.4 million members – are building an engaged American constituency to ensure global poverty is a priority for elected officials. While the one-year anniversary of Katrina has come and gone, poverty and inequity in America has stubbornly refused to be scrubbed from the national agenda – an indelible water mark on our collective psyche.
No single vote is likely to tip the balance of an election, nor a single donation likely to change the world. But these moments of participation are critically important because they make us all stakeholders. A donor to the next emergency overseas is a potential advocate for more foreign assistance for health and education. A volunteer for local disaster relief may write the letter to the editor that gets others involved. A first-time voter in next week's election may become the pesky constituent that sends her Congressman an email and expects a reply – the kind of American that can help us create real and lasting change for children in need, long after Election Day.