Save the Children Thumbprint Event in NYC

By Divina

On September 20^th , Emmy award-winning actress Claire Danes and your equally fabulous Dancinghotdogs editor and mommy expert, Divina, joined millions of people in Grand Central Station as they used their thumbprints to petition for the end of child mortality due to preventable and treatable causes. The United Nations summit takes place this week to review this and many other issues in the Millennium Development Goals.

I stopped by after Claire had left, but left my print none the less.  Check us out using our thumbprints for healthier tomorrow.  I love Claire from My So Called Life, (and still think Jared Leto is so hot.)

Save the Children is calling for an action plan to be agreed to by all governments, to reach the Millennium Goal of cutting child deaths by two thirds by 2015. Hitting this target would save the lives of 15 million children by 2015. It would involve improving children’s access to basic health care, nutrition, water, sanitation and education.

"This is a make or break opportunity," said Save the Children’s global CEO Jasmine Whitbread.  "Proven, low-tech and inexpensive solutions exist to stop children dying. What we need is the will – from politicians, the public, aid agencies, companies, EVERY ONE – to make it happen on a global scale. We know what works; we need world leaders to turn their promises into a plan."

As well as lending their thumbprints to the visual petition, supporters of the EVERY ONE campaign have contributed in a number of different ways.

• In Italy Italian Serie A team, Fiorentina, recently donated 250,000€ for the EVERY ONE campaign and will feature the logo on their official shirts for the season. Go Fiorentina!
• Hundreds of supporters made their mark in Australia at the UN Conference on Health held in Melbourne on 30 August – 148,000 Australians have now signed up to the campaign.
• Last week the Nistarini women’s college in West Bengal , India, 500 college students signed up for the campaign and committed to document real case studies in nearby villages and spread awareness.
• Over 41,000 people recently signed up and used their thumbprints to press for change at a series of events across Bangladesh .
• In Colombia well-known stars led a public campaign by adding their thumbprint to the campaign, leading to over 3,000 supporters
• In Denmark a knitting explosion has seen tens of thousands of people taking direct action to save children’s lives by knitting caps for newborns.
• In Egypt over 600,000 people have taken action by signing petitions or campaigning in the streets.
• In Ethiopia over 15,000 people have already taken action for the campaign, taking part in rallies, meetings and Ethiopia’s first ever half marathon.
• In Canada , almost 6,000 EVERY ONE supporters helped push the Canadian government to use its Presidency of the G8 to focus the development agenda on maternal and child health. The G8 leaders committed $5 billion and committed to saving the lives of 1.4 million children, 64,000 mothers and the distribution of modern methods of contraception to 12 million couples
• In India , community mobilisation campaigns, celebrity engagement and corporate partners has resulted in 104,000 thumbprints
• The UK team has lead a major national initiative involving celebrities, media and events which has lead to over 635,000 thumbprint supporters to date.

The campaign has also been backed by notable people around the globe such as Hugh Laurie, Kevin McKidd, Sally Field, Mark Ruffalo, Laila Rouas, Amanda Holden, Dame Judi Dench, Annie Lennox and Bollywood stars Kunal Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Shabana Azmi, Gurinder Chadha, Onir, and Amrita Raichand.

For more information, please visit www.everyone.org for the global EVERY ONE campaign and www.goodgoes.org in the U.S.

About Divina Rodriguez

Divina is a wife, a Mami of 2 boys under the age of four and a full fledged social media butterfly with a Masters in Communications. She writes along with her husband, Eddy, about entertainment, technology, family products as well as their life in CT. In addition to DancingHotdogs.com, Divina unlocks the magic on www.TheDisneyFiles.com and is a founding mother & partner at Trumpeting Media, a social media consulting company that is dedicated to using social media for social good.

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