Posts Tagged ‘Avaaz community’
1 student + 1 petition = staggering
It’s staggering what one person can accomplish these days with the help of the internet.
Take Christine, a UK student at Leeds University. She was shocked when she heard that Syrian students at her school might be expelled and even deported back to the nightmare in Syria because they couldn’t pay their school fees, some because their families had been killed or impoverished.
Christine stepped in and actually saved hundreds of students at dozens of universities from this fate! (And what is the full name of Christine?)
She did it by getting together with some friends and starting a petition on the Avaaz community petitions website.
The petition was good, sensible, and emotionally compelling. She only sent it to a few friends, but they sent it to more, and it soon blew up on twitter, with over 45,000 people signing!
The Avaaz team helped Christine get the story on TV and in major newspapers, and government ministers pushed schools to waive fees and launched a plan to make sure no student ever faces expulsion because of war back home again.
This stuff is powerful, it’s the next generation of Avaaz, where any one of us can start campaigns in our communities, nations and even globally.
The potential of this to change the world is why our community is now offering up to $10,000 in support of the best petitions started by our members to make the biggest impact possible.
Imagine not only getting thousands of people behind a cause, but also having $10,000 to fund the best way to win – anything from dozens of radio ads to funding a rally to building a giant billboard or float. The new simplified petition site means it takes just a minute to give it a shot, on literally anything you know needs to change:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?cl=3406468130&v=30133
(Or click here to get started in Arabic)
The students’ victory was a ray of hope for Syrians at a time when their fate is so uncertain — caught between a brutal dictator and the whims of heads of state playing politics. It’s also a powerful reminder that when a small group of committed community campaigners are supported by the amazing Avaaz community there’s no limit to what we can achieve together.
Getting started is simple, and only takes a few minutes.
Then once your petition is up and running, you can watch it spread from friends and family, and into the hands of passionate supporters around the world. The Avaaz community will vote to choose the ten best petition ideas with the potential to dramatically change our communities, cities or countries, and the campaigns get up to $10,000 in financial support to supercharge their call.
Many of our recent victories came from campaigns started by Avaaz members, from giving Syrian students the right to continue their studies abroad, to helping stop a company from abusing migrant workers in Bahrain. All these just took a few minutes to get started — together, the Avaaz community can multiply our impact a thousand times over.
With hope and excitement for all we can achieve together,
Pascal, Emily, Oli, David, Emma, Ricken and the whole Avaaz team
More Information
Here’s the original Avaaz petition calling on UK universities to stop expelling Syrian students:https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_UK_universities_from_expelling_Syrian_students/
Minister tells universities to defer fees for Syrian students (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/04/defer-fees-syrian-students-universities
Syrian students face fees crisis (BBC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21129735
Syrian students ‘should study at UK universities for free’ (Telegraph)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9905799/Syrian-students-should-study-at-U…
Syrian Students In UK Face ‘Deportation, Torture, Death’ As Cannot Pay Tuition Fees (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/14/syrian-students-face-deportation-death-torture-tuition-fe…
Australia Great Barrier Reef: Australia mining industry want to do what to the Reef?
Posted on: August 3, 2013
They want to do what!? To the Great Barrier Reef?!
The Great Barrier Reef, the largest living organism on Earth and home to a quarter of all the species that live in the world’s oceans, has slowly been dying for years. It’s lost half its coral in the past three decades and that rate is only accelerating.
Climate change is one cause, but so is Australia’s booming mining industry. The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that “if current trends continue, the unthinkable could happen: the Great Barrier Reef could die.”
David Sievers posted for Avaaz.org:
 The Great Barrier Reef is at risk of being dredged to make way for a mega coal project.  |
It would be hard to make this stuff up. Australia’s legendarily irresponsible mining industry has a new plan: while the planet faces catastrophic climate change, build the world’s largest coal mining complex, and then build a shipping lane to that port straight through the greatest ecological treasure we have – the Great Barrier Reef!
This is a terrible idea with devastating consequences, and the investor group Aurizon that’s backing it know it. They’re getting cold feet, and we might be able to push them over the edge, and kill the project. One of the main potential funders has even donated to climate activism!
If one million of us express our head-shaking disbelief at this crazy project in the next few days, we can help get Aurizon to pull funding and maybe even persuade the Australian PM to step in. This is what Avaaz is for, let’s raise a voice for common sense: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/australian_coal_disaster_global/?bFAfecb&v=27561
And yet, the mining industry plans to build massive new ports at a complex called Abbot Point in Northeast Australia (right by the reef) to make it easier to get the coal it’s mining out to the world. Not only would that mean doubling the number of ships that pass by the reef each year and ripping up to 3 million cubic meters of material from the fragile seabed.
If all the coal from the proposed mines this would enable is burned, it would be three times Australia’s current climate pollution — hurtling us faster towards the point of no return.
The investors are meeting now to decide what to do and the Australian Environment Minister will choose whether to approve the project in the next two weeks. Our voices can signal to all of them to block this disaster, especially to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd if he hopes to maintain his global reputation in the lead-up to his re-election bid.
They’re all deciding what to do now. Sign this urgent petition and share it with everyone you know to stop the Great Barrier train wreck:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/australian_coal_disaster_global/?bFAfecb&v=27561. The Avaaz community has been fighting to save the unparalleled beauty of the reef for years.
David, Alex, Emily, Lisa, Oli, Marie, Ricken, Alice and the whole Avaaz team
PS – Many Avaaz campaigns are started by members of our community. It’s easy to get started – click to start yours now and win on any issue – local, national or global: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23917
MORE INFORMATION:
Great Barrier Reef Under Threat (TIME) http://www.avaaz.org/time_great_barrier_reef_article
‘Death By a Thousand Cuts’: Coal Boom Could Destroy Great Barrier Reef (Spiegel) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/australia-debates-how-to-protect-the-great-barrier-reef-a-900911.html
GVK’s Australia coal project ‘a quagmire, not an investment’ says report (The Times of India) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/GVKs-Australia-coal-project-a-quagmire-not-an-investment-says-report/articleshow/20651363.cms
Report- Stranded: Alpha Coal Project in Australia’s Galilee Basin (IEEFA) http://www.ieefa.org/report-stranded-alpha-coal-project-in-australias-galilee-basin/
GVK rejects claim Alpha is ‘stranded’ (The Age) http://www.theage.com.au/business/carbon-economy/gvk-rejects-claim-alpha-is-stranded-20130619-2oj96.html
Abbott Point Coal Mine Map (Greenpeace) http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/what-we-do/climate/resources/reports/Cooking-the-climate-Wrecking-the-reef/
Adonis Diaries 