Liz Schrayer :
If you were a teenager in the ’80s, you remember “We Are the World” – a song that became the fastest-selling American pop single in history. It’s hard to forget the iconic images of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen, among others, wearing their big headphones and singing together to raise awareness about a hunger crisis in Africa that would claim the lives of roughly one million people that decade. I still remember sitting with my friends – like so many other teenagers – moving the needle on our record players over and over again, belting out the words as we became aware of a place we had never seen and a tragedy we had never known. Millions of dollars were raised for famine relief.
Sadly, the reality of today is that there is far too much competing noise for a simple 45 record to break through about an even more widespread famine. A recent poll by the International Rescue Committee found that an astounding 85% of Americans are unaware that 20 million people – more than the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia combined – are living on the verge of starvation in just three African countries plus Yemen.
We have news on 24 hours a day. We live with unprecedented connectivity. And yet we don’t even know that simple fact. That is disturbing.
But that same poll also bears some good news: Once they learn about the famine crises, the vast majority of millennials see it as one of the world’s most pressing global issues – not dissimilar to my generation when we heard that powerful song. And history has shown that Americans overwhelmingly want to help at time of need, whether facing a daunting humanitarian crisis on our shores or abroad. It’s in our DNA. More than half of American families, for example, contributed to the Haiti relief efforts after the 2010 earthquake – more people than tuned in to the Super Bowl during its peak viewership – an astonishing display of America at its best.
But with so few even aware of one of the most devastating humanitarian emergencies since World War II, the reality of both the promise and the limits of America as that “shining city on a hill” is at our doorstep once again.
Thankfully, there are leaders and lawmakers stepping up. The UN’s World Food Program chief David Beasley and Ambassador Nikki Haley have been raising the alarm bells in Washington and around the world as the crisis has escalated. On Capitol Hill, Senators Todd Young and Ben Cardin led a bipartisan effort earlier this year to urge a forceful response to this looming humanitarian emergency – and Congress and the Administration recently announced hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding.
The non-profit and private sector communities are also mobilizing. Last month, eight of America’s largest international relief organizations – including CARE, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Plan, Save the Children and World Vision along with partners Google, PepsiCo, Visa, and Twitter – launched a collective fundraising and awareness campaign, the Global Emergency Response Coalition. This initiative marks a new model for American generosity.
(Liz Schrayer is President and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition).
If you were a teenager in the ’80s, you remember “We Are the World” – a song that became the fastest-selling American pop single in history. It’s hard to forget the iconic images of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Springsteen, among others, wearing their big headphones and singing together to raise awareness about a hunger crisis in Africa that would claim the lives of roughly one million people that decade. I still remember sitting with my friends – like so many other teenagers – moving the needle on our record players over and over again, belting out the words as we became aware of a place we had never seen and a tragedy we had never known. Millions of dollars were raised for famine relief.
Sadly, the reality of today is that there is far too much competing noise for a simple 45 record to break through about an even more widespread famine. A recent poll by the International Rescue Committee found that an astounding 85% of Americans are unaware that 20 million people – more than the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia combined – are living on the verge of starvation in just three African countries plus Yemen.
We have news on 24 hours a day. We live with unprecedented connectivity. And yet we don’t even know that simple fact. That is disturbing.
But that same poll also bears some good news: Once they learn about the famine crises, the vast majority of millennials see it as one of the world’s most pressing global issues – not dissimilar to my generation when we heard that powerful song. And history has shown that Americans overwhelmingly want to help at time of need, whether facing a daunting humanitarian crisis on our shores or abroad. It’s in our DNA. More than half of American families, for example, contributed to the Haiti relief efforts after the 2010 earthquake – more people than tuned in to the Super Bowl during its peak viewership – an astonishing display of America at its best.
But with so few even aware of one of the most devastating humanitarian emergencies since World War II, the reality of both the promise and the limits of America as that “shining city on a hill” is at our doorstep once again.
Thankfully, there are leaders and lawmakers stepping up. The UN’s World Food Program chief David Beasley and Ambassador Nikki Haley have been raising the alarm bells in Washington and around the world as the crisis has escalated. On Capitol Hill, Senators Todd Young and Ben Cardin led a bipartisan effort earlier this year to urge a forceful response to this looming humanitarian emergency – and Congress and the Administration recently announced hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding.
The non-profit and private sector communities are also mobilizing. Last month, eight of America’s largest international relief organizations – including CARE, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, Plan, Save the Children and World Vision along with partners Google, PepsiCo, Visa, and Twitter – launched a collective fundraising and awareness campaign, the Global Emergency Response Coalition. This initiative marks a new model for American generosity.
(Liz Schrayer is President and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition).
