Munkashaf ( Ray Of Light )

$50 Million to the Global Fund thanks to (APPLE) RED Products

2012-11-20T18:39:00.000+05:30

We're excited. Yesterday Apple launched their latest (PRODUCT)^RED line including the iPod Shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPad Smart Cover, iPad Smart Case, and iPhone Bumper.

When you choose Apple (PRODUCT)^RED, Apple sends a portion of the profits to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS. To date, Apple has contributed over $50 million to the Global Fund - which goes directly to work on the ground in Africa, funding HIV/AIDS grants. Every day more than 900 babies are born with HIV. By 2015, that number can be nearly zero.

One Color. One Cause. Get the latest Apple (PRODUCT)RED today.

Being Human Online

2012-10-02T00:21:00.000+05:30

Being Human is all about helping those who are less fortunate. So please remember this the next time you buy any Being Human merchandise. The proceeds from our merchandise goes to help educate the poor. Don't buy fake Being Human goods and steal from the poor, buy original Being Human goods and help the poor

Being Human Anti Piracy by Salman Khan

2012-10-02T00:19:00.000+05:30

Salman Khan speaks on 'World Autism Awareness Day'

2012-10-02T00:16:00.004+05:30

Salman Khan speaks on 'World Autism Awareness Day'

Pin it (RED)

2012-10-02T00:14:00.000+05:30

We've kicked off our first ever (RED)RUSH TO ZERO campaign giving you more ways to fight AIDS and be (RED) than ever before.

Love Pinterest? Tag your pin with #REDRUSH June 1-10 and show us how you're joining in to help deliver an AIDS Free Generation by 2015 - we'll include you on our (RED)RUSH TO ZERO board! Are you sporting your INSPI(RED) T-Shirt? Gaming alongside celebrities in The (RED)RUSH Games? Checking-in at Starbucks on foursquare? Pin a great pic and tag #REDRUSH. Get Pinning!

And we're off! 70 women drive across Europe for (RED)

2012-10-02T00:09:00.000+05:30

Guest Post by Julie Brangstrup, founder of Cash and Rocket

I’ve had a lot of experience organizing rallies in the past. For the most part, they attracted male drivers attracted to smart, fast cars. It was fun but I started to think how great it would be to do away with the testosterone and need for speed and start a road trip for women to benefit women whose lives are limited by extreme poverty.

So, I decided to get a group of powerful women together – I wanted it to be a range of women from a variety of disciplines - business, the arts, finance. I wanted to name it after my son, Cash and my godson, Rocket. Despite the sound of it, it doesn’t refer to money and speed! This road trip is about driving for a cause. And when I heard about (RED) and learned of its focus on the 2015 goal of an AIDS Free Generation, I knew that was the cause to drive for. This goal hit home with me, as a mother of six, as it did for so many of the participants on this trip. A world where virtually no baby is born with HIV by 2015 - a world in which no mother has to pass on a death sentence to her child – this marks an incredible, and for me, an extremely sentimental milestone. And we can get there.

So on June 8th, the inaugural Cash and Rocket Road Trip leaves London for Monte Carlo with stops in Paris and Milan along the way. 70 women from the worlds of business, medicine, architecture, the arts, fashion driving in 35 (RED) and Cash and Rocket-branded cars. Most of them are fundraising – we need everyone’s support so please check out www.crowdrise.com/redtour to donate.

A huge thanks to all the women participating, the partners who have sponsored including Luxup, the Park Hyatt Group. Julien McDonald, David Morris and the (RED) partners.

So, here’s to 1,100 miles, 35 cars, 70 women, 5 cities, three and a half years to an AIDS Free Generation.

Jodie Kidd on the Cash and Rocket (RED) Tour

2012-10-02T00:06:00.000+05:30

Guest post by model Jodie Kidd on her journey across Europe for the Cash and Rocket (RED) Tour, originally featured on Stylist Magazine.

June 9

'We left Paris at 8am. It was a beautiful drive out of the city and through the incredible French countryside and onto Geneva.

Along the way I was stopped for a routine police check up. They were so nice and asked lots of questions about the tour and what we were doing and I managed to get them to donate to the charity which I was really pleased about. They then wished us well for the rest of the trip.

I bumped into more police at a petrol station when I helped one of the girls who couldn't open her petrol tank. All 15 of the police tried and it was only me who could find the button to release it, which made me feel very smug. I also helped Lilly Becker when I saw her on the side of the road who was worried about her car, but it was actually just the air conditioning over heating!'

Continue reading the blog here: http://bit.ly/Ksmxul

New AIDS treatment number in Africa gives cause for optimism

2012-10-02T00:05:00.000+05:30

Guest post by Erin Hohlfelder, ONE's global health policy manager

Progress in global development can often feel incremental; we celebrate a new road built or a new infection averted because effective, sustainable development is a long-term game filled with as many challenges as successes. But occasionally a statistic comes along that reminds us that in some cases, things are (to borrow a phrase from Charles Kenny) “getting better,” and fast. Today, to coincide with the 19th African Union Summit next week, UNAIDS released new preliminary data showing that there are now more than 6.2 million people on antiretroviral treatment across sub-Saharan Africa, up from 5 million in 2010. That number sounds even more beautiful in its rightful context: it’s a more than 100-fold increase in access to treatment for AIDS since 2002, when just 50,000 HIV-positive people in sub-Saharan Africa were on treatment.

This statistic is truly a global achievement. Progress achieved this rapidly is due to a unique coalition of actors and programs that have worked in tandem over the last decade to ramp up treatment, driven by the shared belief that anyone who is in need of AIDS treatment should be able to access it, wherever they live. Donor support for mechanisms like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, which both got their starts roughly a decade ago, have been key to the scale up across Africa. Many African governments also deserve much credit for enacting national AIDS programs, devoting increased political attention to the fight, and committing their own resources to treatment and prevention programs in the last decade. UNAIDS notes that South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya led the way over the last year in driving up treatment enrollment, while many other countries including Botswana, Namibia, and Swaziland have already shown leadership by achieving high coverage levels.

As we approach the International AIDS Conference in just two weeks, we are constantly reminded that there is much work left to do in the fight against AIDS—still millions in need of treatment, and millions more who need access to effective prevention and care services. But as we set our sights toward a larger vision of “the beginning of the end of AIDS,” today’s news gives us cause for optimism. Progress is not just possible—it’s happening, and it must be sustained.

Explainer: A brief history of the International AIDS Conference

2012-10-02T00:04:00.000+05:30

Guest post by Khai Tram, Research Assistant on the Global Policy Team at ONE

Q. What three-letter acronym describes a gathering of nearly 30,000 scientists, activists, policymakers and advocates working on HIV/AIDS? A. IAC

This year, the International AIDS Conference (IAC) will be held in Washington, DC, from July 22-27. While DC hosts a lot of conferences, the return of the IAC to DC is a really big deal. In 2009, President Obama lifted the long-standing travel ban on HIV-positive individuals entering the United States, which paved the way for the IAC to return to the US for the first time in more than 20 years. The IAC is the leading conference on HIV/AIDS, providing a forum for stakeholders to discuss where we are in the fight against AIDS, what we have learned, and how do we move forward. The theme of the conference is Turning the Tide Together, emphasizing both the promising scientific developments in HIV treatment and prevention as well as the need for a global commitment to change the course of the epidemic. Speakers at this year’s IAC include former President Bill Clinton, Michel Sidibe (UNAIDS), Ambassador Eric Goosby (PEPFAR), Bill Gates, Sir Elton John and Whoopi Goldberg.

The IAC has had a long, rich history from almost the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic. It has played many roles over the years. Some highlights from past IACs include:

Atlanta, 1985: The first IAC was organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and Emory University. More than 2,000 scientists and public health officials gathered in Atlanta to share information on the emerging new disease.

Photo caption: With HIV/AIDS rapidly spreading and killing, protests were numerous at the 1987 March on Washington. This ACT-UP coalition made a strong statement about governmental policies on the disease. The AIDS Quilt was also on display at the March; this moment was unforgetable. © Linda Hollingdate Photography

Washington, DC, 1987: The third IAC hosted more than 6,000 participants, garnering widespread media attention as discourse around the epidemic took a political turn. Protests and demonstrations took place after several controversial statements from figures in the US administration.

Vancouver, 1996: The 9th IAC, attended by 15,000 participants, marked a watershed moment in the history of the epidemic. In this year, researchers reported on successful studies of highly active antiretroviral therapy, which would transform HIV/AIDS from a fatal, incurable disease to a chronic illness that could be managed with proper treatment. Needless to say, the overall atmosphere in Vancouver among scientists and activists was of hope and excitement.

IAC Durban, 2000. Photo credit: Dipity.com

IAC Durban, 2000. Photo credit: Dipity.com

Durban, South Africa, 2000: The 13th IAC was also the first one held in a developing country, underscoring the magnitude of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the disparities in treatment access in the developing world. Just prior to the conference, 5,000 scientists and doctors signed the Durban Declaration, confirming the overwhelming scientific evidence that the HIV virus was the cause of AIDS at a time when AIDS denialism was rising up from within the South African presidency.

AIDS Conference in Vienna; Photo by IAS/Steve Forrest

AIDS Conference in Vienna; Photo by IAS/Steve Forrest

Vienna, 2010: The 18th IAC was held in Vienna in part because the organizers wanted to highlight the challenges of fighting the epidemic in the Eastern and Central Europe region. To this point, the Vienna Declaration was signed by more than 12,000 scientists calling on drug policies based on science, not ideology.

Check out the IAC website for more information and continue monitoring ONE.org for more information in the upcoming weeks.

Give Nelson Mandela the Ultimate Birthday Gift

2012-10-02T00:03:00.000+05:30

Guest post by Malaka Gharib, Social Media and Blog at ONE

No one likes to forget birthdays, especially of people who mean a lot to us. So I’m here to give you a friendly reminder that it’s Nelson Mandela’s 94th birthday this Wednesday. It also marks Mandela Day, a call for people everywhere to take responsibility for changing the world into a better place, one small step at a time.

If you didn’t have a gift in mind, don’t fret — the Nelson Mandela Foundation has come up with a simple, brilliant way for advocates like you to celebrate Madiba during his special day: Pledge 67 minutes of your time to doing something good, in honor of Mandela’s 67 years of public service.

SIGN UP FOR THE MANDELA DAY PLEDGE HERE

If you need ideas on what to do with your 67 minutes, the Mandela Day website has some great ideas. Educate your family on HIV/AIDS (love this one — ONE and (RED)’s 2015(QUILT) is a nice place to start). Help a friend revamp their resume (particularly useful in this economic climate). Get in touch with global health organizations and see how you can help (like Rotary International and the Red Cross).

67 IDEAS ON HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Once you’ve done your action, double the impact and share the pledge on social media. Who knows — you may inspire a few friends and family to join the movement.

Leave a comment on this post and let us know what action you plan on doing for Mandela Day. And don’t forget to keep an eye on ONE’s Facebook page, Twitter feed and blog this week for more ways you can celebrate Madiba’s birthday.

What a Difference 10 Years Can Make

2012-10-02T00:02:00.001+05:30

The International AIDS Conference themed “Turning the Tide Together” closed in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Throughout the conference, we heard leaders in the fight recall how at the start of the millennium, few could have imaged we would begin to reverse the course of this disease in only 10 years, that seeing the end of AIDS would be possible in our lifetimes. Back then – just a decade ago – the tide was swiftly and increasingly moving in an awful direction. HIV/AIDS had already killed more than 20 million Africans and was threatening to take the lives of forty million more. Effective HIV treatment existed at the time, but only 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa had access to these life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Jump forward to today and the new UNAIDS report, and we see 6.2 million people now have access to ARVs in sub-Saharan Africa, and 8 million people do around the world. Over half (54%) of the global need is now being met.

We also see strong progress in the goal to virtually end transmission of HIV from moms to their babies by 2015 and deliver the first AIDS free generation in more than 30 years. 2002 saw a peak in new infections among children, with an average of more than 1,500 babies born with HIV each day around the world. That number is now down to near 900, thanks in large part to an increase in access for pregnant mothers living with HIV. We are now reaching 57% with effective treatment to prevent transmission, up from 48% in 2010, and up from only 9% in 2004.

The Global Fund announced some momentous gains, as well:

– 3.6 million people living with HIV are now receiving ARVs under programs backed by the Global Fund, an increase of 600,000 since the end of 2010.

– 1.5 million HIV positive pregnant women have received a complete course of ARV treatment under
programs supported by the Global Fund.

– The Global Fund has now helped save the lives of 8.7 million people.

Yes, the tide is turning, and it has taken a massive and sustained collective effort of national governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, faith-based organizations, and individuals who have come together and are committed to ending the AIDS pandemic. There is still much work left to do, but with the announcement of this new data, we should take a moment to remember what this fight looked like a only a decade ago, celebrate the progress made since, and then recommit ourselves to helping deliver an AIDS free generation by 2015.

The International AIDS Conference, from A to Z

2012-10-02T00:01:00.000+05:30

Guest post by Erin Hohlfelder, Global Health Policy Manager at ONE

After experiencing my first-ever International AIDS Conference (IAC), I was struggling to think about how I could possibly recap all that I saw and heard over the past week. So, I decided to go back to basics and use the alphabet to walk you through some of my experiences.

“AIDS-Free Generation”: This was the rallying cry of Secretary Clinton on the first full day of the conference. She also committed to developing a road map by World AIDS Day that would show how achieving an AIDS-Free Generation would be possible.

“Beginning of the end of AIDS”: This phrase was on nearly every high-level panelist’s lips this year. Some believed it was a key aspirational target that was achievable, while others argued it was too soon to be using it with millions of new HIV infections still occurring each year. See what ONE thinks about this vision here.

Condomize! A campaign set up at IAC to promote safe sex. During the IAC, they handed out condoms on a scale reportedly greater than that of the Olympic Village. They had some of the most loud, fun, and engaging displays throughout the conference.

District of Columbia: Home to this year’s IAC, marking the first time that the IAC has been back on US soil in 20 years. DC Mayor Gray spoke at the opening session about the progress — including no child born with HIV since 2009 and a new policy allowing DC government employees to take time off from work to get an HIV test — made in combating the District’s own AIDS epidemic, which is the worst in the United States.

Eliminating mother-to-child transmission: One major pillar of ONE’s HIV/AIDS campaign work, this goal was cited often as one piece of the puzzle that was seen as achievable (although with debates ongoing about by when).

Financing: The key questions underpinning all of the aspirational phrases at IAC were “How much will this cost?” and “Who will pay for it?” Former President Clinton reminded us in his closing keynote that, for the first time, low- and middle-income countries are now paying for more than half of the AIDS response themselves — an under-highlighted accomplishment.

Gender: An important lens through which many argued we must do a better job of seeing our investments in AIDS, as women now make up more than half of the AIDS epidemic.

Hollande: In an opening video address, new French Prime Minister Hollande went on the record in support of the vision of the Beginning of the End of AIDS, the 15 million people on treatment target, and financing mechanisms including the Global Fund, UNITAID and an FTT. Merci!

Hollande on the big screen

Investment framework: Produced last year, the IF was designed to show how resources could be more effectively channeled and targeted to fight AIDS. This year’s IAC featured many sessions that studied and highlighted how the IF is being applied in country to produce better outcomes at lower cost.

Jargon: With sessions like “Community-based adherence support associated with improved virological suppression in adults receiving antiretroviral treatment: five-year outcomes from a multicenter cohort study in South Africa” — you’d better believe there was a lot of health and development jargon flying around!

Khai: my partner-in-crime from ONE, who spent most of his days at IAC focused on science, data, and financing (at will!). You can read his blog recaps here and here.

Lost (in the convention center): The sprawling location of the IAC this year made it difficult to find sessions and even more difficult to get a true sense of the community attending. Particularly with the Global Village buried in the basement, the IAC felt distinctly quiet this year.

Marginalized populations: A main theme at this year’s IAC was the need to do much better by marginalized populations (including men who have sex with men, injection drug users, and sex workers) in the AIDS response.

“Nothing about us without us”: another rallying cry heard repeated throughout the conference, especially related to “M” above.

Ownership: the topic of ownership of health outcomes and programs was a common one. As in the financing discussions, much was made about how affected countries could and should take greater responsibility for their own pandemics, and how donors could help facilitate this transition.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis: one of many (relatively) new interventions discussed throughout the week, surrounded by many questions: how and when to use it, how to implement it in the field, how to finance it relative to other prevention interventions.

Quilt: the AIDS Memorial Quilt was out on the National Mall all week, and a number of panels were hanging in the main session room, serving as a poignant and personal reminder to all IAC attendees of the toll this disease has caused in three decades.

R&D: Many, including Bill Gates, were quick to remind us that if we want to talk about the end of AIDS, we have to double down on investments in research and development — particularly focused on a vaccine and eventually a cure.

Sex workers: Although this group was largely unable to attend the IAC because of travel restrictions, they still managed to make their presence known through a satellite conference in India and a number of vocal protests throughout the week

Turning the Tide Together: the theme for the conference, uttered approximately 47,352 times at last count.

UNAIDS data: New data from UNAIDS shows that there are now 8 million people on treatment around the world. Unveiling this was one of the brightest spots in the conference, demonstrating that the 15 million people on treatment goal by 2015 (previously seen as quite a stretch) is actually possible with the right level of continued investments.

Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: Another key prevention tool that was widely discussed in a number of technical sessions and that was oddly protested outside of the convention center.

World Bank: It was a big week for the World Bank, with new President Jim Kim returning home to his previous community (AIDS activists) and delivering a series of powerful remarks. The Bank also hosted a debate with the Center for Global Development that provided intelligent back-and-forth over the merits of AIDS financing and an outburst of tweets online.

XDR-TB: OK, the X was a tough one… but HIV co-infection with TB was on the radar at this year’s IAC, with advocates from RESULTS to Whoopi Goldberg to stuffed mascots leading the charge.

Youth: Though the conference itself never felt particularly “youthful,” there was at least great lip service to the importance of involving youth in programmatic decisions and of providing better prevention services for youth. Nigerian teenager Ebube Taylor (whose story Michel Sidibe featured in our World AIDS Day report last year) stole the show with her remarks on a panel focused on PMTCT, and — bonus Y! — Yvonne Chaka Chaka also recorded a video message for ONE members.

Zzz: what I had to do all weekend once the IAC wrapped up, to make up for my lack of sleep during the week!

Can’t get enough of the International AIDS Conference? Read our previous articles on the ONE Blog here.

Cómpralo. Únete. Actívate.

2012-10-02T00:00:00.000+05:30

'Hola' and 'Adios' mean so much more with the latest special edition collection of innovative smartphone products and services in over 15 Latin American countries from our proud partners (TELCEL)^RED and (CLARO)^RED.

To help fight for an AIDS FREE GENERATION by 2015, Claro and Telcel have committed to donate $1 million per year over the next four years to help support Global Fund HIV/AIDS programs in Africa and Latin America. The Telcel and Claro (PRODUCT)^RED mobile devices were designed to give wireless consumers throughout Latin America a chance to join forces and help fight for an AIDS FREE GENERATION.

(CLARO)^RED and (TELCEL)^RED products are available at any Telcel or Claro retailers throughout Mexico and Claro's Latin American countries as well as Sears and Sanborns in Mexico.

In addition, Telcel, Claro and the Carlos Slim Foundacion are putting (RED) on the map in Latin America through community events such as the recent 'La Carrera 5 y 10 KM (TELCEL)^RED.' It was great to see so many people turn out to support and raise awareness for (RED).
The power to fight AIDS in Latin America through your mobile device is here. Cómpralo. Únete. Actívate. Check out your nearest Claro and Telcel stores today and found out more at www.claro.com/red or www.telcel.com/red

The year 2015:

2012-10-01T23:58:00.002+05:30

The year 2015: it's kind of a big deal. It could mark the first AIDS FREE GENERATION being born in over 30 years. We can't think of a better way to count down to 2015 than with the all new (TOURNEAU)^RED Special Edition watches. With every purchase of the (PRODUCT)^RED watches, Tourneau will contribute 15% of the retail price to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa.

Inspired by Tourneau's TNY series, the two limited edition Tourneau (PRODUCT)^RED timepieces feature styles for both men and women. Displaying (RED)'s signature color and the highest quality of Swiss craftsmanship, the watches are available throughout Tourneau stores in the United States and online.

Start the countdown to an AIDS FREE GENERATION today. Visit www.tourneau.com/red for more details.

Every Minute, a Young women is newly Infected with HIV.

2012-10-01T23:57:00.001+05:30

Hunger Crisis in the Sahel – Make a Donation Now.

2012-10-01T23:51:00.000+05:30

Millions are struggling to find their next meal right now in the Sahel region of West Africa. We need your help to target the most vulnerable – young children and pregnant or nursing mothers – with nutritious food for the next 100 days.

Your donation of $50 can give a woman nutritious food for the next 100 days.
Your donation of $100 can ensure both a mother and her child have enough to eat for 100 days.

With the lean season upon us now in West Africa, your contribution couldn’t come at a more critical time!

Make a donation today by filling out the form to your right or clicking on the PayPal Checkout button below.

The Avril Lavigne Foundation.

2012-05-26T15:57:00.002+05:30

Over 9 million children in the United States have special health care needs. Help us provide children and youth living with serious illnesses or disabilities with the support they need to overcome their individual circumstances and achieve their dreams.

The Avril Lavigne Foundation R.O.C.K.S. Respect, Opportunity, Choices, Knowledge, and Strength in support of children and youth living with serious illnesses and disabilities.

It is our mission to:

Respect the needs of all children and youth, no matter their circumstances, and encourage others to do the same;
Create the Opportunity for children and youth with serious illnesses or disabilities to follow their dreams;
Offer Choices so children and youth see they have many options in life and not just a single path defined by their circumstances;
Provide Knowledge about what is possible to children, youth and their families through new program ideas that The Avril Lavigne Foundation will support and help expand;
Give kids and their families the Strength to face their daily challenges.

Award-winning singer/songwriter and philanthropist Avril Lavigne created The Avril Lavigne Foundation in early 2010.

The Avril Lavigne Foundation partners with leading charitable organizations to design and deliver programs, raise awareness and mobilize support for children and youth living with a serious illness or a disability.

CLICK HERE for helpful facts and information about disabilities provided by our partner Easter Seals.

I am so excited to announce the launch of my foundation, The Avril Lavigne Foundation. I have always looked for ways to give back because I think it’s a responsibility we all share. The Avril Lavigne Foundation will allow me to support the causes I really care about in a more meaningful way, and hopefully inspire you to join us. I also really want your help in shaping The Avril Lavigne Foundation, so I will be asking you guys for feedback along the way. Be sure and sign up on the site so that I can keep you updated on what The Avril Lavigne Foundation is doing. Check back for updates and new ways you can get involved!

Love,
Avril

Our Mission

The Avril Lavigne Foundation R.O.C.K.S. Respect, Opportunity, Choices, Knowledge, and Strength in support of children and youth living with serious illnesses and disabilities.

It is our mission to:

Respect the needs of all children and youth, no matter their circumstances, and encourage others to do the same;
Create the Opportunity for children and youth with serious illnesses or disabilities to follow their dreams;
Offer Choices so children and youth see they have many options in life and not just a single path defined by their circumstances;
Provide Knowledge about what is possible to children, youth and their families through new program ideas that The Avril Lavigne Foundation will support and help expand;
Give kids and their families the Strength to face their daily challenges.

Avril Lavigne Foundation T-Shirts on Black...

Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 11:27 AM

Hi Everyone, Great news! A special t-shirt I’ve designed with Live Nation to support the Avril Lavigne Foundation is now available at my shows on the Black Star Tour in Canada! For every stop on the Canada tour, I’ve had the opportunity to invite youth from local Easter Seals affiliates to attend my show. Being able to see them at my shows every night reminds me of what inspired me to create the Avril Lavigne Foundation. We’ve been working hard this year at the Foundation with our partners to design programs and mobilize support for children with serious illnesses or disabilities. I blogged about the start of the Avril Lavigne Rockstar Club in Topeka, Kansas last week – that was just the beginning of some of the great stuff we have planned for the Foundation. I hope those of you who are attending my shows in Canada will stop by the merch stand and show your support. Thanks! Xo, Avril

Apr102012

Rockstar Club Update & Letter from a Mom

by User Share:

Last month Avril visited the Avril Lavigne Rockstar Club at Easter Seals in Southern California. She made chimes, danced, and sang karaoke with the kids who participate in the Rockstar Club. Click here to view photos from our visit.

We also spoke with one of the moms whose son participates in the Rockstar Club. She wrote Avril the below letter, which we wanted to share with our supporters. Your donations to the Avril Lavigne Foundation help make a difference!

“Dear Avril,

I just want to thank you for your commitment to helping children with disabilities and your work with Easter Seals. The Easter Seals program has been vital for my son to have after-care once school is over. He goes to Easter Seals with peers with disabilities and they have activities that are meaningful to them; singing, computers, videos and most importantly music.

There is just something universal about the importance and understanding of music to the brain that these children, with cognitive disabilities, understand. My son, Timmy is nonverbal and has autism. Since 6 mos old he has always responded to music. He can read and is absolutely mesmerized and motivated by the karaoke machine. Thank you again for improving the quality of my son’s and all of the children’s experience at Easter Seals.

Sincerely,

Corky”
Apr052012

Safeway’s Support for People with Disabilities Campaign Goes Behind the Scenes with Avril Lavigne

by User Share:

Offers Exclusive Videos from the Singer/Songwriter as Thank You to Customers who Support its Annual April Campaign for Easter Seals and Special Olympics

PLESANTON, Calif. (PRWEB) April 04, 2012
Safeway Inc. today launched its annual Support for People with Disabilities fundraising campaign to benefit Easter Seals, Special Olympics and an array of organizations that help people with disabilities live fuller, more independent lives.

A Mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive..

2012-05-10T13:51:00.001+05:30

A Heart Just like Mom

I May not pray often, and I may not pray enough
but when I do, this is all I ask of you..

God please give me a heart just like hers
She loves unconditionally, no matter what, no matter who..

God give me courage to be like her
She's very brave, she makes me unafraid..

God give me wisdom just like hers
She knows everything, big and small, she's there to help through it all..

God give me strength just like hers
She's been knocked down, yet she stands strong for another round..

God give me beauty just like hers
When she smiles it gives me that feeling that everything will be okay,
and all my problems disappear for awhile....

God give me generosity just like hers
She helps the helpless, she never thinks of herself and she's so
un-selfish....

God- someday, if I'm at least half the mom she was to me, I'll know that you were listening On the day that I prayed.

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother...

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

Mother’s Day is a day for many people to show their appreciation towards mothers and mother figures worldwide. It is an annual event but is held at different dates in the calendar, depending on the country.

#Wishing Munkashaf everything happy for your birthday...

2012-03-13T15:33:00.000+05:30

Today is your day to celebrate
Your day to be the star
So let the ones you love all cheer
And say how special you are..

Birthday is the day when you born and made your first cry with shouting to the world saying you are arrived. It is the special day of everyone's life. It is the day when you celebrate the gift of you in this wonderful world. It is your special day and you are the center point of attraction. The person feel some special treatment from his nears and dears. Your friends and well wishers hug you, wish you and give you some pleasant surprises. They dedicate some of the best birthday quotes written on gift items for you. It is the best time to explore expressions and emotions.

The origin of celebrating birthday is from king's era. In historical time, calender were not developed so people were not aware of birthdays and anniversaries. After the invention of dates and calenders, people started to calculate their time of birth and they celebrate them. But this celebration was common and done on kings and royal people birthdays.

Now the time has changed. Men, women and children eagerly wait for their day of celebration. It is the time to rock and roll. Parents love to celebrate their kid's first birthday and so on.

Some of the good things and statistics about birthday are:

1. The place is well decorated with balloons and ribbon.

2. From the ancient time, the birthday cake cut by birthday boy/girl.

3. The cake is well decorated and covered with lit candles.

4. The numbers of candles equal to person's age. Birthday boy/girl blows out the candle.

5. Parent, relative and friends clap and sing 'Happy birthday to you..

6. The song 'Happy birthday to you' was invented in 1893 by two sisters, Mildred and Patty Hill.

7. Every men like to throw party on birthday and get some special treatment from others.

8. Now there is trend of Surprise parties to make person feel great and special.

It was all about birthdays. Nowadays companies register your numbers and send automated messages and birthday quotes on your mobile. Life is all about celebration and creating best moments. Never let others to know you better than yourself. Always work aggressively but peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results. Your friends and relatives feel well when you wish them on their birthdays and give them gifts. It makes relation strong and creates value. So enjoy your day of life and keep doing best. Have some purpose in life and never forget that you have taken birth in this world to add some values and create a difference.

"A gift, with a kind countenance, is a double present."
~Thomas Fuller

"I binge when I’m happy. When everything is going really well, every day is like I’m at a birthday party."
~Kirstie Alley

"I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity."
~Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is lovely, when I forget all birthdays, including my own, to find that somebody remembers me."
~Ellen Glasgow

"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape."
~Samuel Johnson

"If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm."
~Bruce Barton

"Handmade presents are scary because they reveal that you have too much free time."
~Doug Coupland

"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."
Voltaire

"Most of us can remember a time when a birthday - especially if it was one’s own - brightened the world as if a second sun has risen."
~Robert Lynd

"We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be."
~Lauren Hutton

"We'll take the cake with the red cherry on top."
~Navjot Singh Sidhu

"If you look over the years, the styles have changed - the clothes, the hair, the production, the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself, it’s really the same."
~John Oates

"The main prank that we play with props is for people’s birthdays. The special effects people will put a little explosive in the cake so it blows up in their face - that’s always fun to play on a guest star, or one of the trainees or someone who’s new."
~Catherine Bell

"The idea is to die young as late as possible."
~Ashley Montagu

"Your life is a gift from the Creator. Your gift back to the Creator is what you do with your life."
~Billy Mills

"To me - old age is always ten years older than I am."
~John Burroughs

"You'll find as you grow older that you weren't born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up."
~William Dean Howells

"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
~Jim Valvano

"Your past is not your potential. In any hour you can choose to liberate the future."
~Marilyn Ferguson

"When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day."
~Marty Bucella

"Age is not important unless you're a cheese."
~Helen Hayes

"You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old."
~George Burns

"Don't worry about middle age. You'll outgrow it."
~Laurence J. Peter

"Youth has no age."
~Pablo Picasso

"Youth is a circumstance you can't do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old."
~Frank Lloyd Wright

"Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones."
~Benjamin Franklin

"Being middle-aged is a nice change from being young."
~Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"If we could be twice young and twice old we could correct all our mistakes." ~Euripides

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUNKASHAF AIYUBI

FROM (RED)...& TEAM

& More...

Thanks for Supporting (RED)...

#BillsLetter.

2012-02-04T18:39:00.003+05:30

In his annual public letter released this week, Bill Gates highlighted some of the greatest challenges facing humanity – fighting HIV/AIDS, eradicating polio, preventing infant deaths and agricultural development — and how innovation is the key to overcoming them.

He discusses the AIDS community's focus on prevention and treatment while work for a cure continues. Mr. Gates explains there are many ways to prevent new infections. One key approach that works well is using treatment as prevention — in other words, giving people living with HIV/AIDS early access to anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs), which has been found to greatly reduce the chance of transferring infection. The 2015 goal of eliminating mother-to-child transmission by 2015 is part of this approach — by providing proper treatment to HIV+ mothers during their pregnancy and breast-feeding, the chance of transmission can drop to 2%. The global health community's goal of reaching 90% of HIV+ mothers by 2015 would result in the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission, and the first AIDS Free Generation being born in the 30 years since AIDS was first diagnosed.

In his letter Mr. Gates also highlights the amazing progress made in scaling up treatment, thanks mostly to the Global Fund and the U.S. program PEPFAR. Mr. Gates writes, "More than 6.6 million people are alive today because they are taking ARV drugs. Ten years ago it looked as if almost all of these people would die because the drugs were available only in rich countries." Mr. Gates highlights in his letter the extraordinary work of the Global Fund, citing that between 2008 and 2010, the Fund disbursed $8 billion to fund AIDS, TB, and Malaria. In addition to supporting programs that have provided ARV treatment to 3.3 million people, this money has funded 230 million bed-nets and treatment for 8.6 million cases of TB.

The Gates Foundation is the biggest non-government supporter of the Global Fund, having committed $650 million over the last decade. In his letter, Mr. Gates said, “I am confident that this is one of the most effective ways we invest our money every year, and I always urge other funders to join us in getting so much bang for our buck."

The Global Fund is rigorous in its commitment to transparency and efficiency. Mr. Gates states in his letter, “The Global Fund does a lot to make sure its money is spent efficiently. Given the places where the Global Fund works, it is not surprising that some of the money was diverted for corrupt purposes. However, the Global Fund found these problems itself and changed the way it handled training grants, where most of the problems were … In fact, less than 5 percent of Global Fund money was misused, and with the new procedures in place that percentage will be even lower.”

This week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Gates Foundation committed an additional $750 million to the Global Fund. We are all humbled by the Foundation's generosity, inspired by their commitment to the Global Fund, and honored to work alongside them in this fight.

Read Mr. Gates’ annual letter here.

Munkashaf Aiyubi @ (RED)

ⁱ UNAIDS. OUTLOOK 30. June 2011.

A Mother with a Mission: Doris' Story

2012-02-04T18:38:00.003+05:30

Doris and Michael at home in Ghana.

Doris is HIV positive and her son Michael is HIV negative thanks to treatment that prevented Doris from transmitting HIV to her son. Doris is busy raising her healthy and active 4 year-old boy. Michael enjoys playing football and reading books. When he grows up he would like to be a soldier, but Doris would prefer for him to be a pilot.

Doris serves as an advisor to the president of Wisdom Association, a Global Fund financed support group in Ghana. When Doris shares her story with newly diagnosed patients, she says “there is hope for people living with HIV; you can go on living, having families and working.”

Doris is a seamstress and jewelry maker by trade, she teaches other HIV positive individuals how to make bracelets so they can sell them as a means of generating income for themselves and the Wisdom Association.

Today, thanks to (RED)-funded Global Fund grants, mothers like Doris are getting access to treatment and are giving birth to healthy, HIV-free children like Michael. Every time you buy a (RED) product, you're joining the fight for an AIDS Free Generation by 2015.

Michael, Doris' HIV-free son in Ghana.

Do You Want to Put Your Digital Skills to Work at (RED)?

2012-02-04T18:37:00.000+05:30

(RED) is seeking an energetic, passionate, social media obsessed Digital Intern based in New York. We’re looking for juniors, seniors, or 2011 graduates who can commit to 2- 5 days per week.   

The intern will work with the (RED) Digital Team on a variety of creative projects.   

The intern will:
· Assist with digital marketing, communications campaigns, and organization
· Create digital assets for (RED) properties and campaigns
· Update www.joinred.com via a Content Management System
· Research/utilize latest social media to engage and inform our supporters   

Intern qualifications include:
· Addicted to social media: must use Facebook & Twitter; Uses of other social media/blogs a plus
· Comprehensive digital design knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
· Love of music a plus
· Excellent research and writing skills  · Organizational abilities and keen attention to detail
· Fluency in Microsoft Office Suite
· Ability to work in an energetic atmosphere and take direction
· Discretion and a professional demeanor
· Dependable and punctual
· GPA of 3.0 or higher

The ideal candidate would be able to start from now and work through the spring semester; however, start/end dates are flexible and can be based upon the candidate’s availability.

To apply, please send a resume and cover letter in one email to InternApplication@joinred.com ASAP with the subject “(RED) Digital Intern”. This is an unpaid position.  

Visit our website to learn more about (RED) - www.joinred.com.

Meaningful Change: An AIDS Free Generation by 2015

2012-02-04T18:36:00.000+05:30

(RED)'s CEO, Deborah Dugan, blogged for the Huffington Post on World AIDS Day, December 1st, 2011.

Thirty years ago, researchers first identified AIDS, and a global health crisis was born. After more than three decades of destruction, we are finally at a turning point and on a path to winning the war against HIV/AIDS. We are now on the verge of an incredible and highly attainable milestone -- virtually ending the transmission of HIV from moms to their babies by the end of 2015. Achieving this milestone and a number of other attainable goals can mark what the global health community is calling "the beginning of the end of AIDS."

The progress that has been made in recent years to fight the AIDS epidemic has been astounding. What was once a death sentence because of inaccessibility to treatment is now a disease that can be managed, thanks to life-saving antiretroviral medication. More than six million people are benefiting from this medication, the cost of which has dropped dramatically through the efforts of the public and private sectors. For the price of a U.S. postage stamp, people who are HIV-positive can receive the daily treatment needed to regain their strength and their opportunity at life.

More than 1,000 children are born with the virus every day. The good news is that the transmission of HIV from moms to their babies can now be prevented. A multi-tiered approach involving HIV screening of pregnant women, antiretroviral drug regimens for HIV-positive pregnant women, treatment during and after labor, and infant feeding guidelines has been shown to block mother-to-child transmission in up to 98% of cases. I saw this firsthand when I recently visited two (RED)-supported clinics in Ghana: the Tema Teaching Hospital and Korle Bu Clinic. There, I witnessed the miraculous sight of HIV-positive mothers surrounded by their HIV-negative babies.

The current Global Fund AIDS grant in Ghana receives over 50% of its funding from (RED) and has helped support programs that have provided more than 7,700 HIV-positive pregnant women with ARV prophylaxis to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission and established and supported more than 800 centers for prevention of mother-to-child transmission. By making this care accessible to more pregnant women, we can virtually eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015. The first AIDS-free generation in nearly 30 years is in sight.

Leaders from across the aisle and from around the world have demonstrated political and financial will to fight this disease. Governments have stepped up with funding, as have non-governmental organizations, which are working on the ground to educate and provide preventative and acute care.

Significant work still needs to be done. There are nearly nine million HIV-positive people in need of treatment in low-and middle-income countries, including 1.4 million HIV-positive pregnant women. More than 370,000 infants and children are infected with the virus each year. New HIV infections still outpace the number of people gaining access to treatment annually.

So, we find ourselves at a critical juncture in the fight against AIDS - at a time of both great opportunity and significant challenges. Innovative financing solutions and the combined efforts of the public and private sectors as well as individuals are all the more important in this environment.

(RED) serves as a model for how the private sector can help catalyze meaningful change. To date, our partners have generated more than $180 million for the Global Fund, and over 7.5 million people in Africa affected by HIV/AIDS have been impacted by Global Fund programs that (RED) supports.

Our corporate partners have stepped up to play their part in the fight. On World AIDS Day, we are asking everyone to take action to help deliver an AIDS-free Generation by the end of 2015. Create a panel on our 2015QUILT and raise awareness amongst your friends. Buy a (RED) product this holiday season. Join ONE and press policymakers to act.

Working together, we can bring an end to AIDS. It's a remarkable, critical opportunity that we simply cannot afford to miss.

Are You the Next (RED) Digital Intern?

2012-02-04T18:35:00.000+05:30

Do you want to put your digital skills to work at (RED)?

(RED) is seeking an energetic, passionate, social media obsessed Digital Intern based in New York. We’re looking for juniors, seniors, or 2011 graduates who can start in December and can commit to 3 - 4 days per week.

The intern will work with the (RED) Digital Team on a variety of creative projects.

The intern will:

· Assist with digital marketing, communications campaigns, and organization

· Create digital design assets for (RED) properties and campaigns

· Update www.joinred.com via a Content Management System

· Research/utilize latest social media to engage and inform our supporters

Intern qualifications include:

· Addicted to social media: must use Facebook & Twitter; Uses of other social media/blogs a plus

· Comprehensive digital design knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

· Love of music a plus

· Excellent research and writing skills

· Organizational abilities and keen attention to detail

· Fluency in Microsoft Office Suite

· Ability to work in an energetic atmosphere and take direction

· Discretion and a professional demeanor

· Dependable and punctual

· GPA of 3.0 or higher

The ideal candidate would be able to start in January and work through the spring semester; however, start/end dates are flexible and can be based upon the candidate’s availability.

To apply, please send a resume and cover letter in one email to InternApplication@joinred.com ASAP with the subject “(RED) Digital Intern”. This is an unpaid position.

Visit our website to learn more about (RED) - www.joinred.com

2012 Annual Letter From Bill Gates..

2012-02-04T18:33:00.000+05:30

Throughout my careers in software and philanthropy—and in each of my annual letters—a recurring theme has been that innovation is the key to improving the world. When innovators work on urgent problems and deliver solutions to people in need, the results can be magical.
Right now, just over 1 billion people—about 15 percent of the people in the world—live in extreme poverty. On most days, they worry about whether their family will have enough food to eat. There is irony in this, since most of them live and work on farms. The problem is that their farms, which tend to be just a couple acres in size, don’t produce enough food for a family to live on.
Fifteen percent of the world in extreme poverty actually represents a big improvement. Fifty years ago, about 40 percent of the global population was poor. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, in what is called the “Green Revolution,” Norman Borlaug and other researchers created new seed varieties for rice, wheat, and maize (corn) that helped many farmers vastly improve their yields. In some places, like East Asia, food intake went up by as much as 50 percent. Globally, the price of wheat dropped by two-thirds. These changes saved countless lives and helped nations develop.
We have the ability to accelerate this historic progress. We can be more innovative about delivering solutions that already exist to the farmers who need them. Knowledge about managing soil and tools like drip irrigation can help poor farmers grow more food today. We can also discover new approaches and create new tools to fundamentally transform farmers’ lives. But we won’t advance if we don’t continue to fund agricultural innovation, and I am very worried about where those funds will come from in the current economic and political climate.

"My annual letter this year is an
argument for making the choice
to keep on helping extremely
poor people build self-sufficiency."
- bill gates

The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don’t, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.
My concern is not only about farming; it applies to all the areas of global development and global health in which we work. Using the latest tools—seeds, vaccines, AIDS drugs, and contraceptives, for example—we have made impressive progress. However, if we don’t make these success stories widely known, we won’t generate the funding commitments needed to maintain progress and save lives. At stake are the future prospects of one billion human beings.

Innovation in Agriculture

innovation in agriculture

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The private market does a great job of innovating in many areas, particularly for people who have money. The focus of Melinda’s and my foundation is to encourage innovation in the areas where there is less profit opportunity but where the impact for those in need is very high. That is why we have devoted almost $2 billion to helping poor farm families, most of which are led by women, boost their productivity while preserving the land for future generations. Those funds are invested in many areas of innovation, ranging from sustainable land management, to better ways to educate farmers, to connecting farmers to functioning markets.
We do all these things with one goal in mind—helping people like Christina Mwinjipe, a farmer I met last year in Tanzania. Christina supports her family by farming cassava, a staple crop that provides a basic diet for more than 500 million people worldwide. (When dried to a powder, cassava is known as tapioca.) In the past two years, Christina’s crop has been invaded by two cassava diseases. The leaves of some of her plants are curled and withered, and covered in the white flies that carry mosaic disease. The roots of other plants are rotted by brown streak disease. Because of these diseases, she is depleting her savings to buy cassava to feed her three children. Her oldest son just passed his examinations to enter secondary school, but she doesn’t know where she’ll find the money to pay his fees. She is not sure what she will do about food when her savings run out.

Christina Mwinjipe inspects her cassava crop
(Mapinga Village, Tanzania, 2012).

Farming is a great example of something critical to the poor that gets very little attention in rich countries. Back in the 19th century, the majority of people in the United States worked in agriculture. Now less than 2 percent of the workforce is involved in farming, and less than 15 percent of U.S. consumer spending goes to food. Farming issues rarely make the news. The exceptions are when food is contaminated, when government subsidies are being debated, or when there is a famine like the current one in the Horn of Africa.

For Christina and other small farmers—and for hundreds of millions of extremely poor people living in slums in big cities—getting food is the most pressing daily concern. And food is strongly connected to another constant worry: basic health. The lack of adequate nutrition is a key reason why poor children so often die of diseases like diarrhea that richer and better-fed children are able to fight off. Poor nutrition in childhood also prevents the development of both the brain and the body, severely and irreversibly limiting children’s ability to grow, learn, and become healthy, productive adults. Ultimately, there is very little in Christina’s life—or her children’s lives—that doesn’t depend on her cassava crop.
Despite the rich world’s distance from farming, food-related issues are important for all of us. In the 1960s and 1970s, when I was in high school, people worried that we simply couldn’t grow enough food to feed everyone in the world. A popular book that came out in 1968, The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, began with the statement: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…” Fortunately, due in large part to the Green Revolution, this dire prediction was wrong.
But the world’s success in warding off famine led to complacency. Over time, governments in both developed and developing countries focused less on agriculture. Agricultural aid fell from 17 percent of all aid from rich countries in 1987 to just 4 percent in 2006. In the past 10 years, the demand for food has gone up because of population growth and economic development—as people get richer, they tend to eat more meat, which indirectly raises demand for grain. Supply growth has not kept up, leading to higher prices. Meanwhile, the threat of climate change is becoming clearer. Preliminary studies show that the rise in global temperature alone could reduce the productivity of the main crops by over 25 percent. Climate change will also increase the number of droughts and floods that can wipe out an entire season of crops. More and more people are raising familiar alarms about whether the world will be able to support itself in the future, as the population heads toward a projected 9.3 billion by 2050.

I believe these new dire predictions can be wrong, too. We can help poor farmers sustainably increase their productivity so they can feed themselves and their families. By doing so, they will contribute to global food security. But that will happen only if we prioritize agricultural innovation.

Agricultural Research

Given the central role that food plays in human welfare and national stability, it is shocking—not to mention short-sighted and potentially dangerous—how little money is spent on agricultural research. In total, only $3 billion per year is spent on researching the seven most important crops. This includes $1.5 billion spent by countries, $1.2 billion by private companies, and $300 million by an agency called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Even though the CGIAR money is only 10 percent of the spending, it is critical because it focuses on the needs of poor countries. Very little of the country and private spending goes toward the priorities of small farmers in Africa or South Asia.

"We can help poor farmers
sustainably increase their
productivity so they can feed
themselves and their families.
But that will only happen if we
prioritize agricultural innovation."
- bill gates

This shortage of funds for research is particularly worrying because of the increasing prevalence of plant diseases, such as those destroying Christina Mwinjipe’s cassava plants. Just like humans, plants get attacked by viruses, bacteria, and fungi. They also have to defend themselves against insects or animals, but unlike humans they can’t run away from their predators. Plants have developed sophisticated systems for defending themselves that we are just starting to understand. One amazing discovery is that in some species when one plant is attacked it gives off a scent that tells other plants to focus their energy on defending themselves rather than on growing.
Because farmers plant seeds that give them the highest yields, the diversity of crop varieties in fields is quite limited. This creates a perfect opportunity for disease to spread. A famous example of this is the potato blight that spread across Europe in the 1840s and led to mass starvation in Ireland. Less well known is the southern corn leaf blight that swept through the United States in the early 1970s. Fortunately, in that case, the United States had sufficient strategic reserves to avert a crisis.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize winner and father of the Green Revolution, first got involved in plant science after he heard a professor give a speech entitled “These Shifty Little Enemies That Destroy Our Food Crops.” The Rockefeller Foundation enticed Borlaug to move to Mexico, where he created new varieties of wheat that were resistant to a fungus called wheat stem rust. It was only after he got there that he figured out additional strategies to increase wheat productivity. Borlaug was always concerned that new forms of wheat rust would emerge. Unfortunately, he was proven right in 1999 when a new and extremely virulent wheat rust called Ug99 was found in Uganda. Though Ug99 is still mostly in Africa, it has jumped the Red Sea and is now being found in Iran and Yemen, on its way toward India.

The response to Ug99 started slowly, but great work by a collection of experts, including researchers in Ethiopia and Kenya, has led to new varieties with some level of resistance. A huge effort is being undertaken to make sure that the new resistant varieties are adopted broadly before the disease moves into Asia or the Americas.
Another area where scientists need to do a lot more study is the effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. It looks like there may be varieties of rice and other crops that can deal with the higher temperatures and weather variations better than today’s plants. Some plant varieties actually benefit from the increased CO2 levels, although there is no clear data on how significant this will be. Early greenhouse studies were very promising, but field studies have shown much smaller effects. The world must invest in a variety of techniques to help poor farmers deal with weather impacts better than they can today.

Dr. Abdel Ismail inspects rice varieties being tested for flood tolerance
(Laguna, Philippines, 2008).
©IRRI, Ariel Javellana

For example, when I was in India in March I met with about 20 rice farmers who had recently switched to a new rice seed called Swarna-Sub1, which is both very productive and can survive in flooded fields. Their rice fields get flooded every three to four years, and in past flood years they ended up with almost no food to eat. Now, these farmers can feed their families no matter the weather. Currently, 4 million tons of rice are lost to flooding every year in Bangladesh and India. But as farmers in the region adopt Swarna-Sub1, they will grow enough extra rice to feed 30 million people.
Fortunately, there are reasons to believe that the chronic underfunding of research in agriculture is starting to change—and that there will be more breakthroughs like Swarna-Sub1. One approach that looks promising is innovative partnerships with private companies where the companies donate proprietary assets in which they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as their expertise, to help make appropriate varieties available royalty-free to poor farmers. Other key partners are rapidly growing countries like Brazil and China, which bring not only new resources but also deep experience in helping poor farmers at home. Brazil is a leader in soybeans, cassava, and tropical soils. China is a leader in rice and farmer education. This year the foundation entered into model agreements to work with both countries.
There is also an extremely important revolution—based on understanding plant genes—taking place in the plant sciences. The tools that enable this revolution were created to help cure human diseases. The field of agriculture is just now in the process of figuring out how to take advantage of these tools, but it’s clear that they will greatly accelerate the pace of plant research. It is hard to overstate how valuable it is to have all the incredible tools that are used for human disease to study plants.
Historically, increasing the productivity of a crop meant finding two seed variants, each with some desirable and undesirable characteristics, and crossing them until you get a combination with mostly the good characteristics of the two parents. This required actually growing tens of thousands of plants to see how they develop in different growing conditions over time—for example, when water is plentiful and when it is not.

Now the process is quite different. Imagine the analogy of a large public library with rooms full of books. We used to have to use the card catalogue and browse through the books to find the information we needed. Now we know the precise page that contains the piece of information we need. In the same way, we can find out precisely which plant contains what gene conferring a specific characteristic. This will make plant breeding happen at a much faster clip. The private sector has moved the fastest to use new approaches, but academic groups, including a Chinese group called BGI that has more sequencing capability than any other group in the world, are catching up.
When I was in Tanzania meeting Christina Mwinjipe, I also met Dr. Joseph Ndunguru, a plant scientist leading a project to fight the mosaic and brown streak diseases that are attacking Christina’s cassava crop. Dr. Ndunguru is part of a new generation of African scientists building up the capacity to do innovative science in Africa. Dr. Ndunguru was offered a high-paying job in South Africa, but he chose to keep working for the Tanzanian national program. I asked him why, and he replied that the work he was doing with the national program was the best way he could connect state-of-the-art science with the needs of the local farmers.

Dr. Joseph Ndunguru researches crop samples in his lab
(Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2012).

When I talk about innovation, it can be abstract for some people. But the direct link between the challenges Christina faces when her crop is destroyed and the solutions that Dr. Ndunguru is working on every day makes it very concrete. Disease-resistant cassava is an answer to Christina’s prayers, and I look forward to the day when Dr. Ndunguru’s work is done and I can go back to Tanzania and see Christina’s field thick with healthy cassava plants. That is why I say that innovation has been and will continue to be the key to improving the world.

Global Health

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Most of the foundation’s resources go to global health issues, and our guiding principles for those investments are the same as for agriculture: Innovation is the means, and equity is the end goal. When Melinda and I started this work more than a decade ago, we were inspired by the conviction that “all lives have equal value.” So one of the first things we invested in was vaccines, which protect all children who receive them, no matter how rich or poor they may be. In short, vaccines work. Two years ago, Melinda and I called on the global health community to make this decade the “Decade of Vaccines.”
The organization responsible for helping poor countries introduce new lifesaving vaccines is called the GAVI Alliance. Last summer, GAVI hosted a meeting to get pledges from donor countries and organizations. The goal was to raise at least $3.7 billion over five years, and we knew it wasn’t the ideal time to be asking for that kind of money. Throughout the spring, we really didn’t know if we were going to make it. Finally, a few weeks before the conference began, the pledges started trickling in—and they were consistently at the top of the range we’d expected. On the last day, we were tallying up the numbers as they came in to see what the total would be. GAVI ended up receiving $4.3 billion in pledges.

Children wait to be vaccinated with a brand new vaccine that protects against meningitis A
(Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 2010).
©PATH, Gabriel Bienczycki

Because of that money, the poorest infants in the world will start receiving the same vaccines that infants in rich countries receive. Due to donors’ generosity and to significant price reductions from vaccine manufacturers, GAVI is now supporting two relatively new vaccines, rotavirus (to prevent the leading cause of diarrhea) and pneumococcus. By 2015, these vaccines will prevent 190,000 diarrheal deaths and 480,000 respiratory deaths—not to mention improving the overall health of hundreds of millions of children. The money that has been pledged to GAVI will save 4 million lives by 2015.
That’s why I think of June 13, 2011, the date of the pledging conference, as a historic day for global health equity. It was an emotional moment for Melinda and me. We were happy that our foundation played a role in helping the world reach that milestone. But what really moved us was the fact that so many partners share our vision of an equitable world and are willing to put money behind it, even in these tough times. When people know the kind of impact their generosity has, they are not only willing but eager to help.
There were other huge milestones in global health last year. There were also a few setbacks. In this section of my letter, I will talk about those milestones and setbacks, the challenges that lie ahead, and the solutions that excite me most.

Vaccines

"Because of that money, the
poorest infants in the world
will start receiving the same
vaccines that infants in rich
countries receive."
- bill gates

There are still years of work to be done to introduce the diarrhea and pneumonia vaccines into every country. Moreover, global coverage of basic childhood vaccines is around 80 percent, which is good compared to many other health interventions but leaves one out of five children unprotected. We need to recreate the high-level political focus that this issue received during the 1970s, when dedicated effort brought us from just 20 percent coverage to 80 percent coverage in most countries in just a decade.
When I spoke at the World Health Assembly last May, I announced that I was creating the Gates Vaccine Innovation Award. We were pleased to receive 117 nominations encompassing a lot of amazing work. Vaccines are the only high-technology product that needs to be delivered to every single child. To miss zero children, it takes an incredible amount of ingenuity, and that’s why we created the award.

Melinda meets with Dr. Asm Amjad Hossain, the recipient of the first Gates Vaccine Innovation Award
(Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2012).

I am pleased to announce here that the first award will recognize the work of Dr. Asm Amjad Hossain, a district immunization medical officer from Bangladesh. In 2009, Dr. Hossain was assigned to two districts where immunization rates were 67 and 60 percent, respectively. In 2010, they were 85 and 79 percent. These rapid improvements were the result of Dr. Hossain’s innovative approach to running an immunization program. He instituted a process of registering pregnant women with their expected date of delivery, location, and phone number, so vaccinators knew when children were born, where they were, and an easy way to contact their mothers. He provided annual schedules for vaccine sessions to make vaccinators more accountable to the community and had the vaccinators put their phone numbers on the children’s immunization cards, so parents with young children could get in touch with a health worker. These may seem like small innovations, but they show how looking at old problems in new ways can make a profound difference. Improvements like these are spreading to other locations because of the commitment and creativity of Dr. Hossain and many others like him. Delivering lifesaving vaccines takes the dedication of many well-known players like GAVI, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF; government officials; and perhaps most importantly hundreds of thousands of heroes on the frontline like Dr. Hossain.

Polio

The foundation’s top priority remains helping to complete the eradication of polio, perhaps the best-known vaccine-preventable disease in the world. I spend a lot of my time learning about the disease and being an advocate for doing what it takes to end polio. At the start of 2011, poliovirus was still spreading in three areas: 10 countries in Africa (with viruses that originated primarily in Nigeria), Afghanistan and Pakistan, and India.

Polio vaccinators crossing the Ganges River on the last day of the polio campaign
(Bihar, India, 2010).

Now India has reached a huge milestone. The country had only one case in 2011, which was recorded on January 13 in West Bengal. So on January 13, 2012, India celebrated its first year of being polio free. The challenge in India was mind-boggling. It’s hard to imagine how you would design a polio campaign that reached every Indian child. More than a billion people live in the country. Massive numbers of families migrate constantly to find work. One of the largest states, Bihar, is flood-prone. In some cases, the vaccine didn’t work as well as it had in other parts of the world, probably because of malnourishment, diarrhea, and other illnesses. But the government kept raising awareness and improving the quality of its campaigns, even in the toughest locations. The Indian government deserves special credit for this achievement.

Girl receives polio drop in the Fulani settlement in Mashakeri Village
(Kebbi, Nigeria, 2011).

In 2012 we need to keep India and all the other places that are polio free from getting re-infected. The biggest focus for 2012 will be improving the polio vaccination campaigns in Nigeria, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I recently visited Chad and Nigeria to meet with leaders there, and it’s clear that we have high-level political support. Still, deploying high-quality vaccination teams and educating parents so that every single child is vaccinated will take a lot of work. In Nigeria our biggest problems are low-quality campaigns and the fact that some parents don’t trust that the vaccine is safe. In Pakistan these problems are compounded by the security situation.
It will be challenging to continue raising the approximately $1 billion per year it takes to run the global campaign. Last year the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Rotary International provided substantial contributions. Rotary continues to be the heart and soul of polio eradication, supporting the program directly while also taking on a larger role in encouraging other donors to give more. A new partner, FC Barcelona, is spreading the message of polio eradication to millions of football fans across the globe.
We are continuing to invest in studies about how polio spreads and trying to model where we need to intensify the vaccination campaigns. We are also working on new vaccines. Finding every last poliovirus requires good tools along with trained and motivated workers in every single country.
These are enormous obstacles, but the success of the polio eradication program in India and 90 other countries gives me confidence that we can triumph in these final challenging countries and end polio once and for all.

AIDS and the Global Fund

The AIDS community has three big goals:

Reduce the number of people getting infected. By 2015, the goal is to cut infections to 1 million per year, which would represent a 68 percent drop from the peak a decade ago.
Provide drugs for everyone who needs them, so those with AIDS can live longer and more productive lives. Last year, 1.8 million people died of AIDS.
Find a cure. Although there are people working toward a cure, it is viewed as so difficult that we can’t count on ever having one.

Nineteen-year-old Bayeza Manzini speaks to soccer players about the benefits of circumcision
(Matsapha, Swaziland, 2010).

There are many ways to tackle the first goal: reducing infection. These methods can work individually and in combination. One approach is to convince people to avoid risky behavior. Education efforts are important, and they are getting more targeted, but their impact is uncertain.
A second approach is male circumcision, which reduces HIV transmission by up to 70 percent. Funding for circumcision is finally being prioritized, since the cost is quite low and the protection is lifelong. Over 1 million men ages 15–49 have been circumcised in 14 Southern and Eastern African countries with large AIDS epidemics, but that is only 5 percent of the total number who could benefit from the procedure. Even in the ancient practice of circumcision, innovation has the potential to make a big difference. The new PrePex and Shang Ring devices simplify the procedure and make surgery unnecessary. The first studies suggest that these devices are both safe and effective. (I will keep this letter G-rated by leaving out the pictures of how the devices work.) Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, and Tanzania are starting to show leadership by getting the message out to all young men that it is important to get circumcised. Kenya has made the most progress, circumcising 70 percent of eligible men. I will be very disappointed if, by 2015, any fewer than 15 million young men have chosen to protect themselves and their partners by getting circumcised.
A third approach to prevention is to come up with an injection or pill or gel that reduces an uninfected person’s chance of becoming infected. The final results of studies of a number of these tools were reported in the last 18 months. In studies where the patients used the tool as they were supposed to, the results were quite good. However, in most studies the levels of usage were low and thus the overall results were disappointing. This has the field thinking hard about how you could motivate better adherence or create a tool that requires less effort from the patient. One example in early development is an injection that lasts 30 to 90 days. I think we will solve the adherence problem, but we are going to have to get medical scientists, social scientists, community representatives, and regulators working together. We have to develop and test overall delivery systems, including communication, support, and incentives, in ways that go beyond what a medical trial alone typically does.
A fourth approach, called treatment for prevention, is to give antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to people with AIDS earlier in the course of their disease, greatly reducing the chance that they will infect others. This is already done for pregnant mothers to reduce the chance of infecting their babies during delivery or through breast-feeding. The field has a goal of getting drugs to 90 percent of HIV-positive mothers by 2015, virtually ending mother-to-child transmission. The main problem with treatment for prevention is that most people who are infected with and transmitting HIV don’t know they are infected, so you wouldn’t know to give them drugs. In order to realize the full potential of treatment for prevention, we need to encourage widespread HIV testing, which will require developing a reliable, inexpensive saliva test that can be used privately.

"More than 6.6 million people
are alive today because they
are taking ARV drugs. Ten years
ago it looked as if almost all of
these people would die because
the drugs were only available
in rich countries."
- bill gates

One further approach to prevention is an AIDS vaccine. On this topic, this year’s news is very similar to last year’s. The scientific understanding of the AIDS virus—its shape, how it enters cells, and how we can use antibodies to block it—has advanced more than expected. However, plans for conducting trials of different constructs are still not as aggressive as they should be, given how game-changing a vaccine would be. It is still possible to have a vaccine within 12 years, but it will take some luck and better planning.
It is exciting to have so many prevention approaches available, and to be making progress on most of them. Funding continues to be a serious concern, but I am optimistic that the field will develop combined approaches to significantly bring down the rate of infection.
Meanwhile, there has also been amazing progress on the second major goal for the AIDS community: scaling up treatment. This is due mostly to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and to a U.S. program called PEPFAR: the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. More than 6.6 million people are alive today because they are taking ARV drugs. Ten years ago it looked as if almost all of these people would die because the drugs were available only in rich countries.

Between 2008 and 2010 the Global Fund gave $8 billion for AIDS (57 percent), malaria (29 percent), and tuberculosis (14 percent). Other than PEPFAR for AIDS, the Global Fund is the biggest donor for all three of these diseases. It provided the money for 230 million bednets, which have been key to the 20 percent decline in malaria deaths over the past decade. It also provided treatment for 8.6 million cases of tuberculosis. I am not doing a section on malaria or TB in this year’s letter, but there has been good progress in both diseases, with the Global Fund being key to this.

Zabibu Athumani and her son rest under an insecticide-treated bednet
(Bagamoyo, Tanzania, 2011).

The Global Fund does a lot to make sure its money is spent efficiently. Given the places where the Global Fund works, it is not surprising that some of the money was diverted for corrupt purposes. However, the Global Fund found these problems itself and changed the way it handled training grants, where most of the problems were. Unfortunately, news of any corruption makes many citizens think the entire program is mismanaged and a huge portion of the money is being wasted. Some of the headlines that talked about two-thirds of specific grants being misdirected fueled this impression. In fact, less than 5 percent of Global Fund money was misused, and with the new procedures in place that percentage will be even lower. Our foundation is the biggest non-government supporter of the Global Fund, committing $650 million over the years because of the incredible impact its spending has. I am confident that this is one of the most effective ways we invest our money every year, and I always urge other funders to join us in getting so much bang for our buck.
Between 2011 and 2013, assuming that all donors honor their commitments, the Global Fund will disburse $10 billion. This is a $2 billion increase, but not nearly the $12–$14 billion that is needed and was hoped for. Citizens of donor countries should know about the difference their generosity has made. The cost of keeping a patient on AIDS drugs has been coming down, and it looks like getting it to $300 per patient per year should be achievable. That will mean every $300 that governments invest in the Global Fund will put another person on treatment for a year. Every $300 that’s not forthcoming will represent a person taken off treatment. That’s a very clear choice. I believe that if people understood the choice, they would ask their government to save more lives.

Family Planning

Melinda has focused a lot of her foundation time on family health issues, including maternal and infant health, nutrition, and family planning. In 2012 and beyond, she will really emphasize family planning—giving women the tools they need to plan how many children they have and when they have them. She will be talking much more about how having the ability to plan changes the lives of women and their families and improves whole societies. Last year, Melinda met with mothers in Korogocho, a slum outside of Nairobi, Kenya. She was touched by one woman who explained why she wanted to be able to space her births further apart: “I want to bring every good thing to one child before I have another.”

Melinda meets with a mothers’ group in the Korogocho slum
(Nairobi, Kenya, 2011).

One amazing thing is that parents’ desire to bring every good thing to their children can have a huge impact on national economies. Melinda spoke at the World Bank about how developing countries have a chance to benefit from something called the “demographic dividend.” The idea is that as parents bring their family size down, countries can invest more in educating young people. When those young people reach working age, they boost productivity and economic growth. South Korea and Thailand are two recent examples of how countries that understand and capitalize on these principles can rapidly transform their economies.
Over the next 40 years, the global population is projected to grow at just .8 percent per year. It just passed 7 billion and will reach 9.3 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations’ medium estimate. However, the populations of most poor countries, which have the hardest time feeding and educating their citizens, will more than double between now and 2050. If we compare population by continent now and in 2050, we see that Africa will more than double in population (from 1 billion to 2.2 billion) while Asia and the Americas will grow by 25 percent and Europe will hardly grow at all!

Looking at the numbers at the country level gives an even starker picture. To take just one example, Nigeria, which has the biggest population in Africa, will grow from 163 million to 392 million—an increase of 140 percent. This will likely make the lives of people in that very poor country even more difficult.
Melinda and I believe, though, that if the right steps are taken—not just helping women plan their families but also investing in reducing child mortality and increasing nutrition—populations in countries like Nigeria will grow significantly less than projected. Almost all the foundation’s global programs focus on goals that will help with this.
Globally, more than 200 million women say they don’t want to have a child within the next two years but aren’t using contraceptives. If families that wanted to wait a longer period between births or have fewer children had access to the right tools, two things would happen. First, those families would have an easier time facing the challenges of poverty. Second, as national population growth rates came down gradually, governments would be able to better meet the needs of all their people.
A significant number of women indicate that they would use modern family planning tools if they were available. Unfortunately, the funding to buy these tools, to make them cheaper, and to provide high-quality information to poor families has been lacking.
The tools that are likely to have the highest adoption rates in sub-Saharan Africa are implants or injectables, not the oral contraceptives that are popular in the United States. Indonesia has made implants broadly available, and more than 1.7 million women are using implants today. The foundation has helped fund quality assurance for a lower-cost implant, Sinoplant II, which is registered today in more than 17 countries and costs 60 percent less than the alternatives. We also think that injections can be made cheaper and longer lasting and put into a format that women can administer themselves. There are a large number of steps required to get new tools not only approved and manufactured but also understood so that women can make informed choices about contraception. Our goal is that every woman should have the ability to choose when she wants to have children. The result will be healthier mothers and children and more prosperous nations.

U.S. Education

SECTION

Our work in U.S. education focuses on two related goals: making sure that all students graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and that young adults who want to get a postsecondary degree have a way to do so.
On the K-12 side, our top priority is helping schools implement a personnel system that improves the effectiveness of teaching, because research shows that effective teaching is the most important in-school factor in student achievement. There are a lot of great teachers in public schools, and a lot of teachers who want to be great but don’t have the tools they need. If we could make the average teacher as good as the best teachers, the benefit to students would be phenomenal.

"If we could make the
average teacher as good
as the best teachers, the
benefit to students
would be phenomenal."
- bill gates

A personnel system includes hiring; giving specific feedback; helping employees improve; and creating pay schedules, benefit plans, and termination procedures. There is consensus that the current personnel system in public schools doesn’t work. Every element of today’s system is criticized. However, there isn’t a strong consensus on what to change. Many states are moving away from guaranteed tenure with pay based solely on seniority and what degrees you have. But most of the alternative measures do not include much investment in teacher evaluation, which makes them very dependent on how good the principal is and how well student test scores measure teaching effectiveness.
I still find it hard to believe that 95 percent of teachers are not given specific feedback about how to improve. Even more important than a pay schedule that rewards excellence is identifying and understanding excellence so that teachers know how they can improve. In all the meetings I have had with teachers around the country, and in the surveys we have done, it is clear that most teachers want more feedback and will use it to improve, even if the financial rewards for performance are comparatively modest.
The most compelling example I have seen that this concept can work in a way that is great for both teachers and students is the school district of Tampa, Florida that Melinda and I visited this past fall. A key element of the agreement between the teachers’ union and the superintendent was to assign 2 percent of the teachers to become peer evaluators. These teachers were trained to observe classroom teaching and provide feedback on 22 different components. The principals have also been trained in this approach. Every teacher gets in-depth feedback from both the principal and the peer evaluator.

Students at Thomas Jefferson High School conduct an experiment in a chemistry lab
(Tampa, FL, 2011).

Tampa has been doing this for three years now, and it is already making a big difference. Teachers told us they value having feedback from two different sources—the principal who knows the school the best and the peer who knows the challenges of their specific job. The first round of evaluation revealed that many teachers need help engaging the students to prompt critical thinking and problem solving. The district started to organize its professional development around these findings, and the teachers have seized that opportunity to become more effective in the classroom.
When Melinda and I met with students, they told us that they had seen a big change during their time at the school. The success here required great work by Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia, Classroom Teachers Association President Jean Clements, and all of the teachers. I was particularly impressed with the peer evaluators. They all said they understood great teaching far better, having done the peer evaluation job. Some of the peer evaluators will go back to teaching and others will go into schools of education to help make sure new teachers have better preparation.
After seeing how valuable peer evaluation is, I think it should be part of every public school personnel system. Dedicating 2 percent of teachers to do this work is a large investment. It can mean raising the average class size by 2 percent or spending 2 percent more money. With budgets as tight as they are, most states will not add extra money for evaluation so we will have to make the case that it is worth the small increase in class size (of fewer than one student per class on average). Without this investment I don’t think an evaluation system will get enough credibility with the teachers or provide enough specific feedback to help teachers improve. Looking at test scores is also valuable for most subjects, but test score data mostly just identifies who is succeeding—it doesn’t show a teacher what needs to change. I see the willingness to make this investment as a test of whether people are serious about an evaluation system that really works.
Accelerating the development, discovery, and use of innovative educational technologies is another high priority for us. We have seen a tremendous amount of progress in this area recently, but it is really just the beginning. More needs to be done to equip teachers with the tools and information they need to make learning more personalized and engaging.
Social networking is one of the most promising areas, because it helps teachers and students connect in ways that naturally augment what’s going on in the classroom. Services that use social networking, like Edmodo, are really starting to take off because teachers can manage all aspects of the classroom using a platform with which most people are comfortable.

I’m also excited to see more and more schools “flip” the classroom so that passive activities like lectures are done outside of class and in-class time is used for more collaborative and personal interactions between students and teachers. Khan Academy is a great example of a free resource that any teacher can use to take full advantage of class time and make sure all students advance at their own pace.
Great work is also being done by companies that are thinking beyond simply digitizing textbooks. CK-12 Foundation, Udemy, and Ednovo have great teacher- and community–generated content. A simple example of how powerful the community can be in this area is TeachersPayTeachers, a marketplace that facilitates the sharing and exchanging of lesson plans and other materials developed by teachers themselves.
We’re also just starting to see how impactful gaming can be in an educational context. MangaHigh and Grockit are successfully delivering fun, competitive, game-based lessons that drive greater engagement and understanding. Zoran Popovic, at University of Washington’s Center for Game Science, is taking this even further through some amazing work creating games that automatically adapt to each student’s unique needs based on their interactions with the computer.
Many of these new tools and services have the added benefit of providing amazing visibility into how each individual student is progressing, and generating lots of useful data that teachers can use to improve their own effectiveness.
But how do most teachers figure out what’s available and right for them? There’s not yet a good answer to this question. Good technologies remain unused, and teachers spend too much of their own time and money. That’s why I’m launching a project this year to build an online service that helps educators easily discover and learn how to use these new tools and resources. I think there’s no limit to what a teacher with the right tools and information can do.

Foundation Updates

SECTION

Jeff Raikes gives polio drops
(Kebbi, Nigeria, 2011).

Jeff Raikes continues to do a great job leading the foundation as CEO. Tachi Yamada, who ran our Global Health program, and Sylvia Mathews, who ran Global Development, moved on to other jobs, and we thank them for their great contributions. Jeff recruited Trevor Mundel to run Global Health and Chris Elias to run Global Development. We are very excited about the experience and talent they bring to the foundation. Our third group, the U.S. Program, which focuses primarily on our U.S. education work, continues to be ably run by Allan Golston.

My dad speaks to the construction team during an opening celebration of our new campus
(Seattle, WA, 2011).

In June the foundation moved to a new campus. The campus is designed to facilitate collaboration, including space for meetings with lots of partners on key foundation topics. Melinda worked closely with the architecture firm NBBJ to mold the design to fit our work. Already our employees are seeing the benefit of being in one location where they can collaborate with each other more easily, and they say they really value being able to convene grantees and other partners on site.
My father, William Gates, co-chair along with Melinda and me, continues to provide inspiration and guidance for a lot of our work. In June, he gave a speech to 10,000 Lions Club members who gathered in Seattle for their annual convention. The streets were closed for their parade, and then my dad spoke about the Lions’ impressive work fighting measles. Ten years ago, 2,000 people died from measles every day. Now, that number is down to 500. My father, who has always encouraged me, loved encouraging an arena full of people to keep saving children’s lives.

Giving Pledge

The Giving Pledge, which entails wealthy individuals and families making a simple pledge to give away a majority of their wealth during their lifetime or in their will, has already grown to 69 people, which is more than we expected when we started. As we began 2011, we heard from several people who said they plan to take the pledge very soon. We’re hopeful that many others will follow. It’s inspiring to read people’s rationale for making the pledge; you can find their letters at www.givingpledge.org.
We brought the group of pledgers together in May for the first of what will be an annual gathering to learn from each other. The event was a great success. A lot of people found they had goals in common, so even as the Giving Pledge celebrates the diversity of giving, it has helped spur collaboration. We’re starting to see the fruits of that effort, as members of the group are now looking at co-funding projects.

Warren, Melinda, Azim Premji, and I talk about philanthropy
(Delhi, India, 2011).

When Warren Buffett, Melinda, and I were in India in March, we sat down with around 60 wealthy families to hear from them about Indian philanthropy and share our experiences. Azim Premji, one of the pioneers of philanthropy in India, joined us for the panel discussion. Warren’s energy and humor were in strong evidence. When talking about whether it would be better for the wealthy to use their money to create jobs, Warren noted that even Santa Claus creates jobs by employing the elves and reindeer!
One thing that really struck me in both the Giving Pledge meeting and the India get-together is that a key factor holding people back from being even more generous is finding philanthropic endeavors that make them feel like they are having a significant and unique impact. It has me thinking a lot harder about how we can use the web to make it easier for givers of all sizes to connect to causes and see the results of their giving.

Why I’m Optimistic

Early in 2011, President Sarkozy of France invited me to write a report for the G20 and present it in person at their November meeting in Cannes. This was a huge honor, since it is the first time a philanthropist has been asked to speak to this group. The organizers weren’t even sure what country to put on my badge since I wasn’t coming as part of the U.S. official delegation. They decided to put “Invitee” on my badge, making me briefly the head of government of Invitee!

Speaking with French president Nicolas Sarkozy before a plenary session of the G20 Summit
(Cannes, France, 2011).
©AP, Charles Dharapak

My report focused on how the G20 can help ensure that the poorest are not forgotten, as rich countries deal with significant economic and budget challenges. The report, “Innovation with Impact: Financing 21st Century Development,” is on gatesfoundation.org. It starts by describing how much life has improved for the poorest over the past 50 years. Part of the reason is the aid contributed by rich countries. A lot of media attention focused on my suggestions of a modest financial transaction tax, increased tobacco taxes, and a carbon tax to support aid commitments. None of these ideas has universal agreement, and none will solve the problem alone, but they can make a big difference if even just a few countries adopt them.
Overall, however, I tried in the report to paint a picture of the incredible diversity of resources available for development. It’s not just rich countries giving aid that are having an impact. I described what poor countries themselves are doing to speed their own development; I pointed out how rapidly growing countries like Brazil, China, and India are bringing new experience and expertise to development; and I discussed some ways in which the private sector can get involved in improving the lives of the poor and helping countries develop. I am excited because innovative partnerships that capitalize on the comparative advantages of all these players can accelerate progress, speeding the transition beyond aid for many poor countries.

"We are convinced that when
people hear stories of the lives
they’ve helped to improve,
they want to do more, not less."
- bill gates

The G20 conference itself was a microcosm of the challenges that leaders face, with the Eurozone crisis taking a lot of their time. I was impressed that the leaders took 90 minutes to discuss my report and related issues, and I hope they will set aside time for development when they meet in Mexico for next year’s summit.
Following my presentation, a number of the leaders shared specific suggestions for addressing these issues. David Cameron said it would make his country’s leadership on giving .7 percent of gross domestic product by 2013 in tough times easier if more countries would do the same. I got the strong impression that the leaders themselves are very sympathetic to the case that aid budgets should not be cut even as governments reduce their spending. However, this will be possible only if their constituents understand that aid, which is less than 1 percent of the budget in most countries, has a significant impact on people’s lives. I have tried in this letter to make that case. Whether it’s fighting plant disease, treating people with AIDS, or getting a measles vaccine to a child in a remote area—modest investments in the poorest make a huge difference.
Unfortunately, many people believe the opposite—that money spent on development is wasted, or that it doesn’t get lasting results. Melinda and I will spend a lot of time in the coming year explaining why they’re mistaken. The relatively small amount of money invested in development has changed the future prospects of billions of people—and it can do the same for billions more if we make the choice to continue investing in innovation. We will repeat that message over and over in our speeches and interviews, and on gatesfoundation.org and gatesnotes.com, because we are convinced that when people hear stories of the lives they’ve helped to improve, they want to do more, not less.

Bill Gates

Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

January 2012

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