A five diamond hotel in downtown Salt Lake City may seem like a strange place to a begin a fight against global poverty, but when it is a step in rallying a global movement around the United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda of eradicating poverty, Utah is not a bad place to start.
We were not the only ones asking, “why Utah?” at the Global Poverty Project’s Utah’s Night for Global Citizens ball at the Grand America Hotel on August 24th. But as Lindsay Hadley, chief development officer for the Global Poverty Project, said, “Why not Utah?” As the state leads in volunteerism—with 144 million hours chalked up in 2012—“Utah is defining what it means to be a global citizen.”
The Global Poverty Project main goal is to eliminate extreme poverty—in which 1.2 million people live on less than $1.25 per day—worldwide by 2030. "We believe that we can literally do that, which is kind of a narrative we don't hear a lot about. We all know that poverty exists and there are people having needless suffering, particularly when it comes to extreme poverty," Hadley continued.
The organization has a good grasp of what works to raise awareness of the challenges and issues surrounding poverty globally—and over the past three years has raised $10 billion for action and education campaigns, according to Hugh Evans, Global Poverty Project CEO and Founder. Efforts to solve extreme poverty has reduced the rates of poverty from 58 percent of the world’s population in 1998 to 25 percent of the population today.
But for Evans—a man whose first experience with extreme poverty was sleeping on a concrete slab in the Philippines as a teenager—it is not enough to merely reduce poverty. Through initiatives aimed at bringing together hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, engaging them on these issues, turning them into “Global Citizens”, and by “mobilizing everyday people to take powerful actions for lasting change,” he hopes to find a way to close the gap.
This is what the Night for Global Citizens was meant to be—not only a fundraiser but also a momentum builder for the Global Citizens Festival during the United Nations General Assembly week, when attendees have the opportunity to bring these issues to world leaders’ attention and urge them to make commitments they would not otherwise think about. The Global Citizens Festival reached capacity at 60,000 people in Central Park for the both 2012 and 2013 events, and in 2012 raised $1.3 billion.
And Mr. Evans has no intention of making the Festival his organization’s end goal. “A concert will not solve the world’s problems,” he said. “We need to make this a 365-day-a-year project.”
Utah’s Night for Global Citizens was attended by several celebrities, including star of “Taken” and “Lost” Maggie Grace, country singer Josh Kelley, and TV and radio show host Larry King, who said of the cause, “To me, there is no reason for anyone to be hungry… No one anywhere in the world should be without food.” Also part of the night’s featured organizations was Backyard Broadcast, a Utah-based group working to bring attention to the intersecting roles of child prostitution and poverty in the United States.
Top photo: From left to right—Hugh Evans, Founder and CEO of the Global Poverty Project; Shawn King and Larry King, TV and radio host; and Nate Hurst, global director of strategy and chief of staff for HP's Sustainability and Social Innovation team.
Second photo: The team of Backyard Broadcast, a Utah-based organization working to bring attention to child prostitution in our own backyard.
Photos copyright Erin Gadd, Pink Daffodil Photography.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2013 print edition.
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Utah’s Night for Global Citizens Brings Momentum to Fight Against Poverty
November 4, 2013
A five diamond hotel in downtown Salt Lake City may seem like a strange place to a begin a fight against global poverty, but when it is a step in rallying a global movement around the United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda of eradicating poverty, Utah is not a bad place to start.
We were not the only ones asking, “why Utah?” at the Global Poverty Project’s Utah’s Night for Global Citizens ball at the Grand America Hotel on August 24th. But as Lindsay Hadley, chief development officer for the Global Poverty Project, said, “Why not Utah?” As the state leads in volunteerism—with 144 million hours chalked up in 2012—“Utah is defining what it means to be a global citizen.”
The Global Poverty Project main goal is to eliminate extreme poverty—in which 1.2 million people live on less than $1.25 per day—worldwide by 2030. "We believe that we can literally do that, which is kind of a narrative we don't hear a lot about. We all know that poverty exists and there are people having needless suffering, particularly when it comes to extreme poverty," Hadley continued.
The organization has a good grasp of what works to raise awareness of the challenges and issues surrounding poverty globally—and over the past three years has raised $10 billion for action and education campaigns, according to Hugh Evans, Global Poverty Project CEO and Founder. Efforts to solve extreme poverty has reduced the rates of poverty from 58 percent of the world’s population in 1998 to 25 percent of the population today.
But for Evans—a man whose first experience with extreme poverty was sleeping on a concrete slab in the Philippines as a teenager—it is not enough to merely reduce poverty. Through initiatives aimed at bringing together hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, engaging them on these issues, turning them into “Global Citizens”, and by “mobilizing everyday people to take powerful actions for lasting change,” he hopes to find a way to close the gap.
This is what the Night for Global Citizens was meant to be—not only a fundraiser but also a momentum builder for the Global Citizens Festival during the United Nations General Assembly week, when attendees have the opportunity to bring these issues to world leaders’ attention and urge them to make commitments they would not otherwise think about. The Global Citizens Festival reached capacity at 60,000 people in Central Park for the both 2012 and 2013 events, and in 2012 raised $1.3 billion.
And Mr. Evans has no intention of making the Festival his organization’s end goal. “A concert will not solve the world’s problems,” he said. “We need to make this a 365-day-a-year project.”
Utah’s Night for Global Citizens was attended by several celebrities, including star of “Taken” and “Lost” Maggie Grace, country singer Josh Kelley, and TV and radio show host Larry King, who said of the cause, “To me, there is no reason for anyone to be hungry… No one anywhere in the world should be without food.” Also part of the night’s featured organizations was Backyard Broadcast, a Utah-based group working to bring attention to the intersecting roles of child prostitution and poverty in the United States.
Top photo: From left to right—Hugh Evans, Founder and CEO of the Global Poverty Project; Shawn King and Larry King, TV and radio host; and Nate Hurst, global director of strategy and chief of staff for HP's Sustainability and Social Innovation team.
Second photo: The team of Backyard Broadcast, a Utah-based organization working to bring attention to child prostitution in our own backyard.
Photos copyright Erin Gadd, Pink Daffodil Photography.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2013 print edition.
