UN Millennium Development Goals

What can Westchester County do to help the UN and the world meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?

These goals represent real people -- a hungry old man living in a shack, a child who has to work rather than go to school, a little girl who wants to learn to read but whose family can't afford school clothes and books, a baby dying of malnutrition, a mother of four who dies in childbirth, a teenager who has suffered from malaria all his life--and now has contracted HIV and tuberculosis. A community where the water supply has dried up, a rainforest, whose biodiversity is being sacrified for ranching. Over one billion people live on less than $1 a day and barely survive.

1. Learn about the goals:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

For more information about targets and indicators -- and how we know whether we're meeting these goals, visit:
http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml

2. Interact with your Congressional representative and Senators and their staff members to bring the MDGs to their attention. Urge them to support funding for the United Nations to work on the MDGs. Congressional representatives who serve Westchester include Nita Lowey, Eliot Engel and John Hall. NY Senators are Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton. SEE THEIR CONTACT INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POSTING.

3. Contribute to www.one.org; to UNICEF at www.unicefusa.org ; to the HERO project of UNA-USA (www.heroaction.org), which works to help educate children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa and several other African countries; to www.savedarfur.org to urge immediate U.S. support for UN involvement in Darfur.

4. Post a comment to tell others what YOU are doing to help.


CONTACTING OFFICIALS:
http://www.house.gov/lowey/contact.htm
http://johnhall.house.gov/contact.shtml
http://engel.house.gov/index.cfm?SectionID=3&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=5&SectionTree=3
http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/contact/contact.html