MORGANTOWN — A Morgantown couple is in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26, advocating for the fight on global poverty and disease.
Billy Williams and his wife, Jamie, will meet with lawmakers, including Rep. David McKinley and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin, today to encourage them to vote to keep funding levels for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria the same.
The meeting will be during the ONE Campaign’s annual summit, which brings volunteers from across the country to Washington, D.C. Billy said this will be the fifth year the two have spoken with lawmakers about the issue.
“We’ve always been very welcomed when we go and treated kindly,” Jamie said.
One of the most exciting parts of the trip is realizing as an American, a constituent can meet with their representatives in congress, Billy said. That’s something people in many parts of the world will never get to experience, Jamie said.
The two will also express support for a fully funded foreign affairs budget, Billy said. Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis has said the more money spent on diplomacy, the less money needs to be spent on the military.
Billy said he’s sometimes asked why West Virginians should care about fighting global poverty when there are issues at home.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “We don’t just care for our neighbors across the street, we care for our neighbors around the world.”
Additionally, fighting poverty across the world is in the interest of national security, Billy said. Extremist groups, such as IS, prey on those in extreme poverty and use conditions to recruit people.
Jamie said there has been so much work done in the global fight against HIV and AIDS, but it’s still a crisis.
According to information from the ONE Campaign, 20,215 lives have been saved by West Virginia taxpayers since the Global Fund’s creation in 2002. In total, 27 million lives have been saved.
Traditionally, America has funded a third of the replenishments for the Global Fund, said Sean Simons, U.S. and Canada press secretary for the ONE Campaign. For the 2021-’23 cycle, the fund is seeking $14 billion globally, he said.
“The U.S. has really been the leader on this issue around the globe,” Simons said.
President Donald Trump said on the campaign trail he supported keeping America’s traditional funding amount for the Global Fund, but his first two budgets had cuts to global HIV programs, Simons said.
Simons said in his most recent State of the Union Address, Trump talked about ending HIV at home and beyond — something he hadn’t brought up before.
“We’re hopeful that his administration will live up to his rhetoric,” Simons said.
Jamie said she believes the fight is an issue West Virginians care about and encouraged people to call their representatives, make it clear they care about the issue, and encourage them to vote for a fully funded Global Fund.
