So. I post the following letter to
ONE
(ONE is an organization founded by several good
minded people including our man Bono.)
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Good morning Alicia at ONE in Germany,
I am a ONE member based in Southern Germany.
Like most people, I go through life just trying to
juggle the comings and goings of daily life; job, family connections, getting
in the groceries, getting enough sleep - `Yikes, I forgot to hang up the washing,
no fresh socks for the morning´ etc.
(I just can never imagine how people who are
presidents and world movers and shakers - both the good and the bad ones, have
only the same 24 hours in a day that I have.
I mean after doing all the above, how and where do they find the time
and the energy to do all that other world shaping stuff.)
I wonder if I may be of further assistance. Stuff in English. I don´t really know how - considering I still have to juggle all the other getting through life stuff mentioned above. But if you have any ideas where I may be of assistance, do let me know.
By the way, I teach English
conversation classes in Konstanz. One of my students a very learned man - is
clearly not a rock music fan however:
He never
heard of Bono!
Nor U2!
Sorry to Bono und
da boys!
But the student, who shall be known only as `Mr. G.`, thinks Bono would be an excellent name for a pet monkey!
(Even more sorry to Bono!)
So off to bed now for me.
R...
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And I get this letter back….
Dear Rosaleen,
Allow me to introduce myself: I recently joined ONE to
support the team in terms of Campaigns and Special Projects ….When I read your
letter to One.org, I could understand your issues very well. It is really tough to get anything done
outside the circle of things we do every day. Therefore volunteers in any organization
have my whole admiration…
Regarding your suggestions I had some ideas:
I thought it would be awesome if you could tell
your English class about ONE, what we do and what we want and how they can
participate, maybe get a signature or two and of course their eyes for our
current campaign “Ich schaue hin!”. If we had two or three photos of your
presentation and the class, we could create a blog post and you could feature
it on your blog (which I took the liberty of browse through).
All the best from Berlin, hope you have a good day!
Take care!
René
And so I do talk with my English classes about ONE, what it does and what
the organizations aims are etc.
And hey presto… There I am the first ONE ´Volunteer des Monates´
See link below for more
wild and exciting details.
And this because I
happened to mention that a student in my English class never heard of U2 and thought Bono was somebody´s pet monkey!
Now on to the really important stuff - the organization ONE
…a
hard-headed movement of people around the world fighting the absurdity of
extreme poverty.
Poverty
in any form is a terrible thing. Extreme poverty is an intolerable thing.
That’s why we started ONE.
Our
three million members around the world take action. They click petitions, make phone calls, write
letters, attend rallies – to demand solutions from their governments. Your
voice alone may struggle to be heard, but our voices together are hard to ignore.
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…. The ONE German language website: http://www.one.org/de/
Go on,
check out ONE today.
If you do, and you let me know, I promise to call you and
sing you ` Happy Birthday` on your
birthday.
…. Or better again. If you do check out ONE, and let me know, I will promise to
call you and NOT sing you ` Happy Birthday` on your birthday!