Dear Avaaz,
It really is unbelievable what this movement gets done, in
an *ordinary* week!! Just try scrolling down to get a
snapshot…
7 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF AVAAZ...
Colombian Deputy Minister receives Avaaz
petition delivery last week :)
We may have won our campaign to stop Colombia’s massive
deforestation!
The team and members brought a million-strong petition (and
several cute kids) to a key minister this week, and got 42
election candidates signed on to our 5-point forest pledge!
After satellite pictures we obtained showed massive
deforestation in Colombia, the President flew over the land we
were campaigning for, and it looks like we’re going to win! Here's
an update (in Spanish) from Ana Sofia.
Who wouldn't want to protect this?
We might help win the largest ocean reserve in the
Atlantic!
Last week we met with the key official pushing this
ocean-saving plan at the Ministry of Environment in Brazil. As
we entered the room, they were looking at the final draft of
the project and the official told us: “We need Avaaz to win
this! When are you launching this campaign?!” The minister
actually wanted our help to win over the rest of the Cabinet
and the President! Video
update from Diego (in Portuguese) here.
Our fake far-right leader on his fake tour
of southern Italy got over 100 media hits!
We worked our hearts out to stop a far-right win in
Italy!
With a fascist-led coalition close to winning the election
on Sunday, we were flat-out for a month -- reaching millions
of voters in close races over email, on Facebook, and in the
media, asking them to cooperate across a splintered
opposition, and vote for the candidate most likely to defeat
the far-right. Our polling showed our impact, and Avaaz was
constantly attacked in the right-wing press (e.g. here
and here)
and our Senior Campaigner Luca got threatening phone calls.
The election largely turned on the South, so last week we
also staged a hilarious fake tour of the South by the
far-right leader -- who once said Southerners smelled worse
than dogs -- that generated over 100 media articles! Examples
here,
here
and here,
and here’s an update
from Luca (in Italian). The media likes to hype the
fascists, but the result was a clean sweep of the south and
the far-right coalition is FAR short of the majority we
feared!
We got Monsanto backpedaling on their monster subpoena
We tried to get Monsanto’s lawyers to listen to reason when
their subpoena demanded every record we had that mentioned
them, but they told us to get lost! So with the donations of
135,000 members last month, we hired top-notch lawyers to file
an official challenge. Last week, Monsanto’s attorneys agreed
NOT to seek members’ private data. That’s HUGE! But we’ve
still got to defeat the rest of their awful subpoena.
...And we’re at the centre of their monster merger
attempt
Monsanto and Bayer are trying to merge into a
megacorporation, and Avaaz is the only civil society group
that received official “third party” status in the EU
regulator’s process. Our team and lawyers we hired (after
members donated for it!) have been filing complicated briefs
and meeting with regulators -- the signs are not good that we
can win this, but we’re pushing hard! Watch
the update from Nick here.
Our mobile billboards outside Senator
Rubio’s office in Florida.
We seized the moment in the US on gun control
After the awful school shooting, the Avaaz team, led by
Emma, Nell and Dalia, mobilised in 24 hours to point the
finger at top gun-lobby money recipient Senator Marco Rubio.
Playing off the famous movie, we ran 3 billboards outside his
office and he was forced to respond to them! The billboards
got a crazy amount of media attention across the US and the
world -- e.g. CNN,
Washington
Post, Huff
Post, Libération,
Il
Post. Now we’re planning another massive demo for next
week, with thousands of shoes on the front lawn of the Capitol
building, representing kids killed by guns. Here’s
a video update from Dalia.
African leaders about to sign our petition to ban ivory!
Bert and Sarah are deep in planning right now for an
Avaaz-led session at a big summit next week where African
leaders, led by Botswana -- home to more elephants than
anywhere else -- will sign our petition to the EU to ban
ivory! This is huge because the EU claimed African leaders
didn’t want them to do it! Now they’re out of excuses :). See
a video update from Bert here.
Ivory “antiques” we bought last week for
testing…
And we're getting ivory tested in a lab!
We received another shipment of ivory “antiques” last week,
paid for by Avaazer donations, that we’re sending on to be
tested at Oxford University. If we can prove that they're not
in fact antique but from recently killed elephants, we'll
really knock down all Europe’s excuses and press them to join
the rest of the world in banning all ivory! A huge step in the
race to save elephants from extinction. Check
out our latest acquisitions with Spyro here.
We’ll bring Bernie, our giant inflatable
bee, to Brussels for the final vote.
We’re gearing up for Europe’s final battle to save the
bees
We’re in the final mile to win a permanent ban on
bee-killing poisons in Europe! Antonia is talking to EU
politicians and scientists in Germany, Belgium and the UK to
organise a briefing for decision-makers, and over the weekend
Dutch Avaazers pressured their government to fall in line with
this viral
campaign. We’re also getting a new study underway. The
final vote could be as soon as March 22nd! Video
update from Antonia here.
An example of a photo in our Yemen photo
exhibition at the US Senate this week. (Photo by Yahya
Arhad/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
We may finally have a way to stop the horror in Yemen
Nick’s been in meetings for weeks getting ready to help
launch an awesome left-right coalition in the US against the
war in Yemen! It launched a bill last week that could lead to
the first time in 50 years that Congress stopped the President
waging a war! We’re flying witnesses in, and hosting a photo
exhibit from Yemen for Senators this week. Our
video with children from Yemen has over 6 million views!
And in London, we’ll greet the Saudi crown prince this week
with a massive die-in. Video
update from Nick here.
Fadi had to drive through tear gas to meet
Ahed Tamimi’s family...
We’re fiercely advocating on behalf of Ahed
Tamimi and Palestinian children in detention
Last week Fadi drove through clouds of tear gas to sit in
Ahed’s living room and plan a children’s march with her
family, after 9 more children in the village were arrested.
Then he persuaded the minister of education to support the
march! We’ve also recruited 38 famous lawyers and judges to
sign an open letter to Roni Nuna, the Israeli military
commander. And our donations continue to support Ahed’s and
other Palestinians’ legal defense. See
a video update from Fadi here.
We’re investigating Trump around the world
The evidence is mounting that Trump is as dirty as they
come, especially relying on laundered or corrupt funds to bail
out failing businesses. US investigators are pursuing, but
Trump’s corrupt empire is global, so Alex, Alaphia and Meetali
are investigating his dealings in 9 countries and advocating
with authorities to follow suit. Last week we flew an expert
to meet with prosecutors in a key country (they don’t want to
be named yet) who are close to launching a probe!
A still image from a video we funded to
expose and shut down a slaughterhouse.
We’re gunning to shut down more slaughterhouses!
The undercover investigations we all funded got 2 huge
slaughterhouses closed! Even McDonald’s is suing one after
footage of cows writhing in pain came out (SWR,
Focus).
And we got another one closed and investigated in December (Süddeutsche
Zeitung, BusinessInsider).
We’ve been talking with the investigations teams last week to
scope who’s next! Check
out Antonia’s update here.
We’re getting traction for a new vision of how to save
the world
We attended a major strategy meeting of hundreds of top
environmentalists in London this week. Alice was asked to
speak in the final plenary, and helped inspire the group on
the bold new vision and goal of protecting half the earth for
nature. She schemed with allies and strategised key
scientific studies to fund and ministers to persuade (we’ve
already met ministers and officials in Paris, London, Bogota
and Brasilia). And we got results yesterday from a poll we ran
showing 2/3rds of the UK public support this vision! Watch
an update from Alice here.
We're failing to run a campaign on Syria :(
Last week Rewan and Allison did their best to launch
campaigns on the carnage on Syria, with one focusing on an
unprecedented vote of the UN General Assembly, and another on
threatening Russia’s World Cup, but our community didn't love
them enough to get the green light. If Avaaz members don't
LOVE a campaign, it doesn't happen, and because the standard
is so high, about half the time our campaigns don't make the
cut! E.g. Another campaign that failed last week was an open
letter to the CEO of Monsanto. We’ll keep trying!
We pressed governments to tackle fake news
effectively
Diego, Laura and Ricken had meetings with officials with
both the French and Brazilian governments who are drafting
laws to deal with the massive threat to democracy posed by
fake news and disinformation campaigns, which 85% of Avaazers
are concerned about. We shared results of polling Avaaz
members on solutions, and sent them memos on the solutions
most popular with Avaazers that both fix the problem and avoid
government overreach. You can read our Brazilian memo here.
A poster for our meatless campaign.
And believe it or not, SO MUCH MORE!!! --
- Lisa emailed the 530,000 Avaazers who signed our “Eat
less meat” pledge with next steps. 94% are keeping their
promise!
- European Parliament members circulated our
Monsanto email to 189 MEPs! They invited Avaaz to come speak
to them about this and other issues like fake news.
- Nana went to the Brazilian congress to interview
women leaders and make a video for our campaign
encouraging more women to run for office in elections this
year.
- Christoph and René continued our campaign to help get a
strong platform and coalition for the new German
government, including targeted advertising and messages
from members.
- Alex and others are intensively lobbying MPs in the UK
Parliament on an amendment to require a vote on the next
Brexit deal, and also aiming for a second
referendum.
- Etc. :)
...ALL IN JUST ONE WEEK :)
And seriously, that's a pretty normal week.
It's a shame that Avaaz members can only see a tiny sliver
of all this. But please know that the team is incredibly
grateful for this ridiculously wonderful movement -- ALL of
this is thanks to ALL of us -- Thank You!!!!!!
With huge gratitude,
Ricken, Pascal, Marigona, Camille, Martyna, Fatima, Danny,
Lisa, Spyro, Meetali, Alice, Emma, Ana Sofia, Christoph, René,
Patri, Pati, Alex and the rest of the Avaaz
team
