Jeannie Allen of results.org will be the guest speaker at the Aug. 27 Voices of Los Alamos meeting. Courtesy photo COMMUNITY News:
Jeannie Allen, of results.org, which is a movement to end poverty, will be the speaker at the Voice of Los Alamos meeting 6:30-7:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Unitarian Church, 1738 N. Sage Loop.
How to end poverty is known; what remains is creation of the political will to do it. Results is a non-partisan movement of passionate, everyday people who use their voices to influence political decisions that will bring an end to poverty.
The Results organization gives volunteers training, support and inspiration to become skilled advocates. A small Results staff in Washington, D.C., provides the background research and determines a focus for each month, guiding volunteers to effectively advise policy makers on decisions that improve access to education, health, and economic opportunity. They hold monthly webinar meetings.
There are groups of Results volunteers is all 50 states, totaling 1,000 or more nationwide. There is an Albuquerque group that meets monthly to develop relationships with legislators locally and write letters to public officials and to editors of major publications. Results also works in 23 other countries.
Although Results is never the sole organization lobbying for a particular piece of legislation that will alleviate poverty, the organization is well networked in the national and international antipoverty movement communities.
Additionally, Results has been instrumental in:
- Results volunteers were among those who successfully advocated for the squashing of Trump’s 2017 initiative to abolish Obamacare.
- In the 1970s when Results started, every year 45 million children died of poverty-related causes. Now it is 17 million people per year who die from poverty-related causes.
- Over the last five years, the U.S has pledged $5 billion to the Global Fund to combat AIDS, TB and malaria. 20 million people (100-140 million families) are now receiving AIDS drugs. Without Results’ and others’ advocacy it would have been 200,000 people receiving those drugs.
- Results started lobbying on TB in 1997 when only about $25 million in the U.S. budget was devoted to tuberculosis research and care. Now the House Appropriations Committee has approved $302 million and the Senate has approved $275 million for USAID programs to fight tuberculosis.
- Allen has worked as a science educator for 40 years with organizations such as the National Geographic Society, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, and now NASA. Allen lives with her partner Bill Nevins south of Angel Fire, NM.
Voices monthly meetings are held at 6:30 p.m., the fourth Monday of every month at the Unitarian Church. For more information, contact Cristina Olds at wmwlosalamos@gmail.com or Elena Giorgio at elenaedi@comcast.net.
