John,

This year has been a rollercoaster ride — from the promise of vaccines to the rise of new variants. (Here's our recap retold through holiday songs!) But ONE supporters, like you, have been tirelessly campaigning, whether that was challenging misinformation on vaccines, demanding global access to doses, or protecting children's right to education.

In 2021, almost 300,000 ONE supporters took 630,867 actions – signing petitions, emailing and tweeting leaders, and sharing information with friends and family. With your help, we supported life-saving policies and budgets and pressured governments to respond to multiple crises. From everyone at ONE, thank you!

Keep scrolling to hear about some of the biggest campaigning highlights from our global community.

Tackling the global learning crisis

Before COVID-19 hit, the world had already been experiencing a global learning crisis. But at the peak of the pandemic 1.6 billion children were pushed out of school and in low-income countries, many were at risk of never returning.

We launched a global campaign to increase funding for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). We kicked off with a quiz to raise awareness and challenge people to score better than a 10-year-old. We highlighted stories of affected children and teachers around the world who sent a letter to world leaders on the importance of reading and shared their favourite books.

ONE teams and activists sprung into action in their countries:

• organising stunts in France, Kenya, and Mali to get leaders' attention at key moments.
• meeting with over 300 policymakers and delivering petitions in the US, France, and UK.
• joining artists, MPs, and 80 civil society organisations across Africa to ask heads of state to protect domestic public financing of education.

More than 85,000 people signed our petition, spread the word on social media, and sent letters and messages urging governments to invest in education. THANK YOU!

The good news is the European Union stepped up and made a record contribution of €700 million to GPE, thanks to activists and supporters like you sending hundreds of postcards to EU representatives! While the Global Partnership for Education fell short of its funding goal, $4 billion was pledged by donor governments to help get millions more children back into the classroom and learning.

Fighting for equal access to COVID-19 vaccines

A year after COVID-19 vaccines were developed, a grossly unjust approach to global vaccine distribution remains the biggest barrier to ending the pandemic.

Global access to vaccines has been a major focus: 90,979 of you called out governments for buying up the limited supply of doses, leaving much of the world completely unprotected. Thousands of you took action to support the temporary waiving of patents by sending messages and tweets to policymakers throughout the long running TRIPS negotiations, as well as spreading the word on social media.

Pandemica, our video series raising awareness of vaccine inequity, was watched 6.5 million times, and highlighted our message that if the vaccine isn't everywhere, the pandemic isn't going anywhere. ONE activists and supporters have spoken out at every political opportunity from delivering over 1,000 postcards to President Biden ahead of the G7 to organising projections at the G20 in Rome.

Sadly, as we approach our third year of this pandemic, there's no end in sight. Omicron has proven that we're now living in a world of endless variants, infection spikes, and restrictions. It's more important than ever that we hold our leaders accountable. Look out for the Global Week of Action in January which will bring together communities from over 50 countries to demand our leaders finally step up.

Responding to the global economic crisis

COVID-19 brought with it a wave of aftershocks affecting every part of society, not least countries’ economies. And while some countries had the resources to weather this economic storm, many did not.

We've seen soaring unemployment, food insecurity, and health systems pushed to the brink of collapse. In 2020, 97 million more people were forced into poverty, reversing progress toward ending extreme poverty for the first time in a decade.

For the last 20 months, we’ve been calling for a global economic response plan that works for every country. In 2021, we continued to push this message, with ONE supporters taking 70,000 actions including signing open letters, sharing quizzes, and sending messages to national leaders, calling for new innovative financing, debt relief, and greater transparency.

While we’ve made some progress, there is a long way to go. In 2022, we will be kicking off a new campaign to ensure no country is left behind.

What else we got up to in 2021

• Fighting the UK aid cuts and climate change: Supporters fought the UK aid budget cuts and sent postcards to their MPs to show their town’s contribution to aid’s life-saving impact. Thousands of you also stood in solidarity with the most climate vulnerable countries, supporting activists at COP26 and delivering a Wave of Hope at the G7 Summit.
• Getting global extreme poverty on the agenda in the German elections: We hosted numerous meetings through this year's elections and all three chancellor candidates met with ONE youth activists and signed our pledge.
• Building a better future for youth in Africa and Europe: Our young African and European activists came together to write an open letter, calling on leaders to deliver an Africa-Europe partnership that tackles both the pandemic and the inequalities that it is exacerbating. We plan to deliver the letter to leaders from both continents ahead of an important meeting they will hold in February 2022. It's not too late to add your name!
• Getting global poverty and health on the agenda of the Dutch elections: During the elections, ONE youth activists spoke with members of parliament, many of whom went on to sign our ONE vote pledge! We also got global health on the agenda of the Dutch parliament, as supporters signed petitions that we handed over to the House of Representatives - along with a vaccination booklet containing our messages.

From all of us at ONE, enjoy your holidays and we look forward to all that we will achieve together in 2022! 🎉