ONE officials announced the University of Michigan as the 2009-10 winner Tuesday. ONE at UMich will donate the $10,000 prize to Carolina for Kibera, a nonprofit that benefits a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, according to a statement on the ONE Web site.

ONE is an organization committed to the fight against poverty, disease and lack of education, particularly in Africa. More than two million people are involved with ONE, according to the organization’s Web site.

The top 11 teams in a yearlong, nationwide points challenge participated in a competition to make a video that shows their specific cause and earn public votes to determine the 2009-10 ONE Campus Challenge champion. ONE MSU focused its video on universal primary education.

“We really tried to reach out to everyone we knew,” said Samantha Meyers, a comparative cultures and politics sophomore. “We created a Facebook group and tried to get as many people as we could to vote. I was on Facebook, messaging people I haven’t talked to in years, asking them to please vote for our video.”

The ONE MSU video focused on the group’s biggest event of the year: painting the rock on Farm Lane. The event brought more than 30 new members and included a petition signing, calls to Congress, jerry can races and a challenge featuring questions from the game show “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?” with a mixture of questions on education statistics.

“We were showing people they are part of a global elite just because they finished fifth grade,” Meyers said.
“We demonstrated how important primary education is when 70 million people don’t reach higher than an elementary school education.”

Meyers said the jerry can races were meant to show the crushing physical labor many children in Africa have to endure to carry clean water to their homes, missing school in the process.

Meyers also said the group made about 200 calls to U.S. Congress members at the event, asking them to appropriate more federal money to primary education overseas.

An extension of the nationwide organization ONE, co-founded by U2 front man Bono, ONE MSU was started less than a year ago when microbiology junior Carolyn Chan attended a meeting she read about on Facebook. Although few attended the meeting and the founder of the Facebook group soon left for study abroad, the idea of working to make the world a better place instead of just giving money to charities was important, Chan said.

“There’s a lot of stuff on campus dedicated to raising money for a cause or charity, but you don’t always have to give money to make the world a better place,” Chan said. “I thought it was really important to start something like this.”

Pairing with international relations sophomore Charlie Kraiger, Chan set out to form ONE MSU and recruit students to participate in the ONE Campus Challenge. Throughout the year, the club earned points by participating in various actions and challenges around campus.

The group earned fourth place overall in the yearlong campus points challenge.

“Considering the group is not even a year old yet, finishing fourth place in the yearlong challenge, a challenge for the entire nation, is a huge accomplishment,” said Molly Griffin, a human biology sophomore.
ONE MSU is focused on building its group for years to come, Chan said.

“In one year, we signed up 500 new members,” Chan said. “It teaches people how easy it is to do something and make a difference.”