Bono and Social Activism:IN THE NAME OF LOVE (Part 2)

[Jamila]

In September 1985, just 2 months after the magnificent LiveAid concert, Bono and Ali went to work in an Ethiopian refugee camp sponsored by World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org) to experience first hand the horror of famine which had spread over that ancient land.

They spent nearly two months there - Ali taught school to the children and Bono composed little songs for the children to sing (one song was actually about brushing your teeth!)

Near the end of their stay in the camp, a frail man approached Bono and asked him to take his small son to Ireland with him. The man told Bono that in Ethiopia he felt that his son would have no future but, with Bono, his son would surely live.

Moved beyond tears and in utter amazement at this father's Love for his son, Bono didn't know what to do. He never took the little boy to Ireland with him and Ali, but Bono took with him something more.

Bono took home with him THE LOOK IN THE EYES of an exasperated father who loved his son SO MUCH that he was willing to give him up for a better life elsewhere.

It was then and there that Bono vowed that he would one day FIND A WAY TO HELP AFRICA. And he did....

 

[Jamila]

Bono joined joined the international Jubilee (Drop the Debt) movement in the late '90s to highlight the unjustness of rich countries keeping poor nations paying on old debts which these nations had already paid NINE times over the original loans. The international Jubilee movement wanted rich countries to simply cancel these old debts to allow poor nations to use this money to provide their people with clean water, public education, nutritional and health services, etc.

Jubilee took its main basis for forgiving old debts from the practice highlighted in the Old Testament of all creditors cancelling the debts owed to them by the poor every seven years - the Jubilee year.

But it became apparent to Bono that there were other challenges that Africa was facing. Unfair trade restrictions that African nations faced and the emerging AIDS pandemic in Africa were also issues that needed to be addressed to help secure a better Future for Africa.

So, in 2002, Bono helped to start DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, AFRICA) - http://www.data.org. And, most recently, The ONE Campaign (http://www.theonecampaign.org) was launched to put Africa's challenges and ways to ensure her Future into the American political policy arena.

to be cont'd....