Welcome to the family!

by Gina Olivieri, Grassroots Engagement Manager RESULTS Australia

On Sunday, August 31 2014, I welcomed a brand new addition to the RESULTS family. Not a baby, but a brand new group of enthusiastic advocates – RESULTS Melbourne!

Starting a new group is always an exciting and challenging process of networking, promoting, on-boarding, inviting, organising, rehearsing and preparing. It takes a lot of work to get a group of people together in the same place, at the same time, to talk to them about their role in ending extreme poverty.

Then you have to convince them to say yes to writing to their political representatives, and putting their passion for ending poverty out into public view by writing letters to the editor of their newspapers.

Not always an easy sell, believe it or not.

I am always in awe of the people who come along to a group launch event, perhaps after only hearing about RESULTS in passing – arriving with an understanding of the problem of poverty then putting their hand up to be part of the solution.

It takes a lot of guts to be a RESULTS group member. You really are signing up to ‘put yourself out there’ and challenge your comfort zone. Talking to members of parliament is not something many people choose to do with their spare time.

But it is what’s necessary to bring about the kind of changes we’re after; to create the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty, and to empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.

The next RESULTS group to be launched will be RESULTS Perth – October 2014. If you are interested in joining this group or any other please contact info@results.org.au 

From Clicktivist to Advocate

Today marks 500 days until the target date to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. As the momentum speeds up, what can we do to assist? Nicole So decided to get more involved and effective in doing her bit to help meet these important goals. Here she tells of her journey from 'clicktivist' to advocate. 

by Nicole So, Citizen Advocate

Less than a year ago, I knew nothing about advocacy.

This time last year, I was nothing more than a clicktivist. A person that cared enough to share a heart-breaking picture of a child living in poverty via my Twitter account, but didn’t quite know what else she could do.

I found RESULTS through a job advertisement for Global Health Campaign Manager. A position that I did not have the experience or qualifications for which to apply, but something about this word, advocacy, grabbed my attention.

Defined by Dictionary.com as ‘the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active espousal.’

OK, that didn’t clear anything up...

Upon further research I realised:

• Words with Friends point value for advocacy is 21 points!
• Google images relates advocacy to people holding hands and/or megaphones.
• Advocacy in Portuguese is advocacy.

None of these amazing fun facts actually helped me understand advocacy better. When I finally clicked through to the RESULTS website I had a lot of questions. The biggest one was who can I contact to ask more questions, the website had so many words, flashing images, and tabs. It was overwhelming to know where to start. So, I retreated to my safe place - Facebook.

Thankfully, RESULTS has a Facebook page or my journey in advocacy could have ended right there. This is the first post that I saw:

I am not sure what intrigued or terrified me more, the idea of speaking with my local member of parliament, who happens to be the Hon. Joe Hockey, or travelling to Canberra with strangers. I stared at my screen, stupefied, for five minutes before I sent this short email to Gina the Grassroots Engagement Manager:

Hello,

My name is Nicole. I am interested to help speak to MPs in Canberra about poverty.

Please let me know more information.

Thank you.

Regards, Nicole

When my mum said, ‘don’t get into a car with strangers’, I think she meant to say, ‘except if the driver is the CEO of a non-profit organisation who is driving you to Canberra to talk to MPs about poverty’. If not, sorry mum.

That was in September 2013, fast forward to June, 2014: I am in the foyer of the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia at the RESULTS 2014 International Conference. It is 9:00am, but my body thinks it is 11:00pm, so I rely on unrelenting enthusiasm to keep me vertical.

Plus caffeine.

The first workshop was titled ‘Who Do You Want to Be in the World?: Leadership Tips for Everyone’. I sat sheepishly at the end of a row, towards the back. Close enough so that I can see the screen without my glasses, but far back enough to melt into a sea of faces. I wasn’t sure that I had anything important to contribute, but I was wrong. Turns out, as a Citizen Advocate, I am the most important part.

Sam Daley-Harris, the founder of RESULTS opened the day with a powerful speech, reminding all of us that ordinary citizens can do extraordinary things. A part of our potential and privilege as citizens of a democratic nation is the freedom to engage and connect with our government. This is something that not enough of us are taking advantage of. The power to change the world for the better, was hidden in the idea of advocacy the whole time.

Next, Rev. Lisa Marchal captivated me with the story of her journey to working with RESULTS (US). It began with a humble recollection of her first encounter with a Person Living with HIV and the stigma she witnessed amongst her friends and family. She emphasised the necessity for a good personal story to not only teach someone how to act - but to inspire them to act. A good story can communicate morals and values through emotions and can bring global issues to a personal level. I wanted one of those, a story to bewitch, and to embolden change.

I have been to conferences before, ones where people talk at you, where you’re expected to write notes quietly, and not interact. This was not one of those. The minutes went by and I felt the community atmosphere grow. Each session was peppered with audience participation, and we were encouraged to give feedback and ask questions. I felt like I was a part of something bigger, like a cog in a well-oiled advocacy machine.

After each speaker, I was sure that my glass was too full of inspiration, I could not possibly have room for more. But the conference just kept handing me a bigger glass.

Perhaps, it was between:

• former Prime Minister and Board Chair of GPE, Julia Gillard passionately advocating for universal quality education;
• or the dizzying scrimmage to get this photo with President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Kim after he spoke fondly of his experiences with RESULTS;

That I stopped to ask myself, How did I get here?
 
Well, the ingenuity of aeronautical engineering had a hand, but it was advocacy. Advocacy got me from Sydney, Australia to Washington DC, USA.

It empowered me as much as I use it to empower politicians to act on alleviating poverty.

Less than a year ago, I knew nothing about advocacy.

Now, I am a Citizen Advocate, and I know what it means. It means that I am one of many big-hearted people around the world in the RESULTS family, who care enough to speak loudly about the global issues that matter, for the betterment of those who are voiceless.

And Google images was right, advocacy was about holding hands and a megaphone.

So, thank you to my friends at RESULTS (Australia) who held my hand and helped me find my voice, but especially to Gina who gave me a megaphone.

First steps

The launch of the Sydney City group

By Gina Olivieri, RESULTS Grassroots Engagement Manager

Recently I had two experiences that showed me just how long, but rewarding, the journey is to become an advocate and build champions.

The first was in Canberra, meeting with an MP. We were hoping our meeting would result in him taking some sort of action, and were confident as he has a reputation for being ‘on board’ with various social justice issues. But we were pretty shocked when he said he could make a ten minute speech. That afternoon! Luckily we were prepared and could provide information and answer questions to help the speech get prepared in time.

The second was launching our new Sydney City group. A crowd of people gathered to hear how they could make a difference by building relationships with their MPs and talking to them about issues that matter to them. At one point, we asked “who knows the name of their MP?” About half of the room did. For the other half, learning the name of their MP represented the first step on the journey to being an advocate.

It’s that same first step we have all taken - leading to writing letters, meeting MPs, helping hone parliamentary speeches, or even appearing in the media to talk about an issue. An MP giving a ten minute speech on an issue that’s important to us – that wasn’t pure luck. Somewhere along the line, an advocate took the first step of finding out his name.

What step will you take today to become an advocate?

Sam, Alan Griffin MP and Gina