The Big Land Rush

Many of the Oxfam Action Corps teams will be hosting film screenings for World Food Day 2013. One of the popular selections for this year's theme, We Stand On Common Ground, is highlighted in this blog post from our team in Iowa. 

Originally posted at http://iowansforoxfam.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-big-land-rush.html

In today's world, we have a plethora of sources for obtaining our news - television, newspaper, mobile applications, social media, text messages, et cetera. These sources often condense the relevant information into an article, 2 minute news segment, or-in the case of Twitter-140 characters! It's usually enough to relay the main message with a few details. But, that's about it.

That's why I love documentaries! Sometimes to really get at the heart of a story, you have to delve into the world that's just beyond the article. For an hour or so, documentaries transport you into the world of experts, opinions, facts, etc. Sometimes they make you happy. Many times they make you furious. The very best ones inspire you to change yourself or call for change in others.

As Oxfam supporters all over the globe gear up for awareness activities surrounding World Food Day 2013, it's important that we take a look at the issues that surround hunger. One such and often misunderstood issue is land grabs. I bet you can see where I'm going with this...

Why Poverty? has a great 1 hour documentary on their website (for free) that helps to explain the complicated issue of land grabs through the eyes of an American sugar farmer looking to acquire 200 square km of land for development in a partnership with the Mali government. That is, until a military coup takes place...

So, for World Food Day 2013...please share this film and encourage people to ask tough questions about poverty and why nearly 1 in 8 people is trapped in a cycle of constant hunger.

The latest campaign news from Behind the Brands!

Oxfam Action Corps members have been spreading the word about Behind the Brands, and the Big 10 companies are listening! 

Originally posted at http://www.behindthebrands.org/en-us/campaign-news/moving-on-up

The results are in

Over 120,000 people taking action.  The world’s ten biggest food and beverage companies.  And one groundbreaking campaign. Combine these ingredients and what do you get? The beginnings of a significant shift towards a fairer food system for all.

Today we are excited to announce the biggest set of changes to the scorecard yet: 5 of the Big 10 food and beverage companies are moving up the rankings. Because of action taken by you, Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Nestle and Unilever have all taken steps to improve their policies and practise on key issues. 

These changes prove that the companies are paying attention to you. Here are just some examples of how your campaigning has made a difference:

• Before the campaign started, only 2 of the Big 10 companies were signatories to the UN principles on empowering women – now 6 are signatories
• Coca-Cola has now publicly announced that they will ask their suppliers to safeguard water quality and prevent water pollution – essential steps to ensuring that there is clean, safe water available to everyone
• Nestle has listened to the need to recognise land rights more comprehensively and has become the first of the Big 10 to fully support guidelines that ensure their suppliers get the consent of communities prior to any land deals agreed for the sourcing of sugar, palm oil, soy and other commodities

Congratulations to you!

Although there's still a lot to do, these companies should be acknowledged for making positive changes in the way they do business. But the congratulations are due to you, the people who made it happen! When more than 120,000 people from around the world join together to speak with one voice, the brands you love have to listen.

Every petition signature, every tweet and every Facebook post creates a clamour for change that they can’t ignore. By asking your favourite brands to make their products more lovable, you are helping to make a real change on crucial policies that impact people and the planet - like access to water, women’s rights and land rights.

And your campaigning is supported by some big players in the financial sector: more than 30 investors representing $1.4 trillion in assets have signed a statement urging the Big 10 food and drink industry giants to improve their business practises.

This is just the start

The improvements brought about by your action are an important step towards a future where everyone always has enough to eat. But these food and drink giants need to do much more to ensure a fair food system for all.

Company scores are creeping up slowly – but they need to work faster at improving conditions for workers, being transparent about their sourcing, and supporting small-scale farmers. And the companies at the bottom of the scorecard have even more work to do – they’re getting left behind in the race to the top.

Watch this space

In the coming weeks we will launch the next phase of the Behind the Brands campaign to secure real progress from the Big 10. Now more than ever, we need your voice: to make the campaign bigger than before, so we can see even better improvements in the way these companies do business.

Why not share the news and ask two friends to join us for the next phase of Behind the Brands? Together, we can make even bigger progress towards a fairer food system for all.

Festival Diaries Part 1 - Outside Lands

The Oxfam Action Corps have had a busy summer of outreach at festivals, concerts, and farmers' markets. Check out this great blog post from our San Francisco action corps team on their time at Outside Lands

via http://sfbay-oxfamactioncorps.blogspot.com/2013/08/festival-diaries-part-i-outside-lands.html

Festival Diaries Part I - Outside Lands

It's always a special feeling to be a part of the small group that gets to see what's behind the curtain. At our first day at Outside Lands, we got to do just that. Arriving before the gates officially opened, we wandered across Golden Gate Park's lush fields passing the eager vendors and awing at the eerie void left by the lack of people crowded around porta potties. We slowly made our way to the Oxfam booth conveniently located next to one of the festival's most dance worthy stages. It began to feel a lot like the calm before a storm.
From the swelling crowds, we were lucky enough to meet amazing people from across the globe some of whom were familiar with Oxfam's work and others who were eager to learn more by participating in one of our many booth games including our latest Bay Area Action Corps invention,World Hunger Pong, inspired by the collegiate, Olympian level sport that we're all familiar with Beer Pong. Except instead of beer, we provided striking facts about the hunger epidemic including the fact that hunger kills more people than AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined. We also spoke to countless people about the Behind the Brands campaign and how the top ten food and beverage companies in the world are performing when it comes to transparency and the treatment of farmers, workers, women, land, water and climate. Adding strength to the 115,000 people who have already joined the movement to change the way these companies do business, concert goers helped Oxfam move closer to its 125,000 signature goal. If you haven't yet joined the movement, its not too late: www.behindthebrands.org

This year at Outside Lands, the Oxfam Bay Area Action Corps reached hundreds of people all while having a great time and listening to some of today's most influential artists, including Sir Paul McCartney himself and long-time Oxfam activist Thao Nguyen of San Francisco's very own Thao and The Get Down Stay Down.
It's no secret that the Bay Area is home to some amazing festivals and members of the Oxfam Bay Area Action Corps are lucky enough to take part in some of the best of the best.

Members of the Oxfam Action Corps have the unique opportunity to join forces with people passionate about making world hunger obsolete. Together we work to inform concert goers about the devastating conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and injustice around the world. Stories are shared, friends are made and minds are enlightened.

If you're feeling like you missed out? Never feel that way again. Be a part of our next concert event by emailing us at sanfrancisco@oxfamactioncorps.org.

We'd love for you to join the Oxfam Bay Area Action Corps family for the Treasure Island Music Festival, Ra Ra Riot's upcoming show at the Fillmore or Ben Sollee's intimate performance in Oakland. 

Behind the Brands Targeted Action

Visitors to the Behind the Brands website will find that it now features  top asks for each of the targeted 10 companies. Each company is called out for the #1 area  across the 7 measured fields (land, water, women, climate, transparency, farmers, & workers) where they need to improve their score.  The 'take action' tab specifically calls for General Mills, who scored the lowest on transparency, to stop the secrecy. The only statistics on its ingredient sourcing available to the public are about palm oil. It's time for General Mills to publish its ingredient sourcing so consumers can know if their favorite brands are being produced ethically.

The good news is that your support for Behind the Brands is not going unnoticed - Unilever recently made public commitments to sign the UN Women's Empowerment Principles, to work to increase economic inclusion and employment opportunities open to women, and to help build their capacity in areas such as financial literacy. Additionally Coca Cola, whose poor performance on land rights and support for small scale farmers kept it from the top of our scorecard, made new public commitments to sustainable agriculture! Coming off the success of the first Behind the Brands initiative to the top 3 chocolate companies (Nestle, Mars, & Mondelez) to commit to ensuring women cocoa farmers in their supply chains are treated fairly, this news is proof that the power of you is working.  

Please join in and help improve our food system. Make a buzz by tweeting the messages below and asking your followers to do the same!

For Twitter:

Who will be top of the #BehindtheBrands scorecard at the next update? Make it your favorite brand http://bit.ly/YUIkn6 

Hey @GeneralMills, my @Cheerios would taste better if I knew where they came from! Publish your ingredient sourcing! #BehindtheBrands 

Well done @Unilever for committing to do right by women & thanks to all #BehindtheBrands supporters for helping make it happen!  http://bit.ly/18Dnlva

Kudos to @cocacola on new commitments to sustainable agriculture! Why not build on that now by joining industry efforts to support small farmers #BehindtheBrands http://bit.ly/12FZJkW

Boston Action Corps Highlight!

Check out this great post from one of our Boston Action Corps volunteers on  recent concert outreach for Food Aid Reform!

(via http://bostonoxfamactioncorps.blogspot.com/)

Fitz and the Tantrums Help Food Aid Reform

June 28th, Oxfam Action Corps volunteers had the exciting opportunity to collect petition signatures for Oxfam's Reform Food Aid Campaign.  Did you know it takes on average 4 to 6 months for lifesaving foodstuffs to make it to countries with starving populations? Half a year is a long time to wait for basic necessities.  Luckily Oxfam is working to raise awareness and change the way the United States gives food aid to countries around the world. By growing crops locally we can empower native farmers and double the amount of food that gets to people who need it. Fitz and the Tantrums understand the importance of food justice, and their fans are big supporters as well!

We arrived at the Paradise Rock Club right at 6 PM and met some of Fitz's bandmates and his tour manager, Kenny.  Some of the biggest Fitz and the Tantrums fans had been there since 1 PM! Before the show began, people in line outside and having drinks at the venue were alreadyexcited to sign the Food Aid petition! We had about 30 signatures before the bands played their first song.  Two of our supporters were already huge fans of Oxfam - instead of a wedding registry, they had friends and family donate to Oxfam using our Oxfam Unwrapped wedding gift ideas (and you can too)!  Once the show started, we set up our Oxfam table by the merchandise area and greeted the concert goers!  People who were waiting in line for merchandise from the awesome opening act, Ivy Levan were excited to hear more about food aid and sign the petition. 

At 10 PM, Fitz and the Tantrums came on and they were definitely a crowd-pleaser.  They played hits off their new album, More Than Just a Dream, and mixed in some of their best songs from Pickin' Up the Pieces.  Everyone danced along to Out of My League and Rich Girls.  The band was so great that the audience got them to come back out for a 3-song encore and everyone sang along to my favorite song, MoneyGrabber.  As the band started finishing up, people lined up again to get signatures and photos.  We used this line once again to our advantage and even got Fitz and the Tantrums to sign! We collected 90 signatures at the concert, listened to some great music, and handed out lots of Oxfam information.  It was a great concert and we are so happy to have Fitz and the Tantrums support Oxfam's amazing mission!

Our biggest tip to future concert liasons is to use LINES to your advantage. People waiting to get into the concert, to buy a t-shirt, or to meet the band, are just future petition-signers you haven't met yet!.


Francesca Villa
Oxfam Action Corps Volunteer

Make a Call Today! Promote Life-saving Food Aid Reform!

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BREAKING: House to vote on food aid reform any moment Call your U.S. representative now to ask them to support reforms that will deliver aid more quickly and more effectively to save more lives. Just call 1-888-404-5166 now to connect with your member of Congress for free! There's very little time, and this is VERY important: The House is about to vote on an amendment to the farm bill that would radically improve the way the US provides food aid. Oxfam has been working on fixing our government's broken food aid policies for years, and we've never had a chance like this. This amendment would feed 4 million more people a year at no additional cost to taxpayers. But for this amendment to pass, we need your U.S. representative's support. Seize the moment with us – make a call to reform food aid now! To make your call, just dial 1-888-404-5166 and follow the prompts to connect to your Representative. Then, tell the staffer: "My name is____, and I'm a supporter of Oxfam America, calling from _______ to ask that my Representative vote YES on the Royce-Engel Food Aid Reform Amendment to the Farm Bill. It's bipartisan, and the amendment will save lives and money – it will ensure that the US government has the flexibility it needs to provide lifesaving emergency food assistance where it's needed most, in the fastest and most cost effective way. Will my Representative be supporting this amendment?" If your call doesn't go through on the first try, that just means momentum is building and so many people are calling that the line is busy – wait two minutes and then try again! This is our chance to fix a huge problem with US government food aid – and help it reach millions more people. Will you make a ca;l? Thanks in advance for your time – your words will make a HUGE difference in this fight. Sincerely, Oxfam America Advocacy Fund Want to keep this work going? The Oxfam America Advocacy Fund is powered entirely by supporters like you. Every dollar goes towards fixing the laws and policies that keep people in poverty – contribute now.

Reforming US Food Aid: Petition Deliveries in Full Swing!

Changing the way that the US distributes foreign food aid has been a priority for Oxfam America for years. For too long, US food assistance has come in the form of American wheat and produce shipped overseas and flooding foreign markets, taking several weeks to arrive and then competing with goods from local small-holder farmers.

This year President Obama proposed an overhaul of this system where 45% of US food aid would be delivered in the form of food bought in local markets to give to impoverished people in the region. This way, not only would hungry people get more food assistance, faster, but American dollars would help stimulate local economies and enable them to bolster US trade in the future.

Unfortunately, not everyone seed food aid this way, so this week the Oxfam Action Corps has begun paying visits to their local congressional offices to explain the benefits of Obama's proposal and tell their senators and representatives that food aid reform matters to them.

In just under two weeks the Action Corps has visited 26 offices! Including democrats, republicans, supporters, opponents, and potential champions! A special shout-out is deserved to our San Francisco team who had a member-level meeting with Representative Thompson, who agreed to co-sponsor the Royce-Bass Bill, way to go SF!

There are still offices to visit, calls to be made, and petitions to sign so we are not satisfied yet! Get involved today by calling your representative and explaining why reforming food aid matters to you. For more information email actioncorps.oxfam@gmail.com and sign the online petition: here