VOA常速英语2016--抗击旱灾——提升意识与筹集资金同等重要

抗击旱灾——提升意识与筹集资金同等重要

More than 12 million people are believed be at risk in the Horn of Africa and the advocacygroup ONE wants to raise awareness¹ of the crisis as a first step to action. We're not askingfor your money, we're asking for your voice. That's really what the primary mission of ourorganization is: to be a kind of political force for the world's poorest and be a voice for thosewho don't have one in congress. Kimberly Hunter, is the U.S. press secretary for ONE, She saysraising awareness of issues and getting the word out to its members is the group's primarytask. The group's website says it has two-and-a-half million members? The ONE campaign isconcerned with helping² to erase³ the United Nation's $1 billion budget deficit⁴ and supportingprograms to end hunger and poverty around the world. Sheila Nix is the group's U.S.executive director of ONE. A lot of our members come from the faith community, orstudents, or returning veterans, or women, and those voices are really important for membersof congress to hear from, especially from their local districts. So our ONE members have beenvery effective in working with some of our other partner groups to achieve some of thesegoals. And Nix adds that ONE also encourages programs that will help prevent futuredroughts. In the long term, these situations can be prevented for the most part with someadequate investments in agriculture to help countries survive drought issues? You'll even seethat in Kenya and Ethiopia the situation is not as bad as it might have been because ofinvestments in better agriculture practices and early warning systems and we'd like to makesure that, especially in these times of budget cuts, that those kind of programs don't get cut.ONE is a strong supporter of a U.S. initiative to address hunger and poverty called Feed theFuture, which was launched in May 2010. Nix and the head of the World Food Program, JosetteSheeran, recently joined the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Dr. RajShah, in a conference call with ONE members. President Obama in 2009, together with worldleaders at the G20, announced a major effort to Feed the Future to make sure that weinvested in agriculture and the long term solutions to these types of famines and food riots. It'simportant that the world lives up to those commitments. While the voice a ONE's co-founderBono is important in getting the word out, Nix says it is its members that have become afighting voice advocating for people in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa as thedrought worsens. Nix believes the voices of the group prove that efforts to raise awarenessabout the famine are just as important and effective as efforts to raise money.

据称，非洲之角有1200万人民处于危险之中，而倡导互助组织认为，第一步应该是提升人们对危机的意识。我们需要的不是投资，而是听到你们的声音。这确实是我们组织的主要任务，即：成为贫苦人民的一股政治力量，成为不能发声人民的呼声。

金柏莉是ONE的新闻发言人。她表示，提升公众意识以及让公众了解到最新消息，是该组织的首要任务。该组织官网上写道，其有250万成员。致力于协助美国消除10亿美元的赤字，并帮助减少全球饥饿和贫困。希拉是ONE的执行理事。我们的很多成员都来自信仰社群，亦或是学生、退伍老兵、妇女等，听取他们的声音，尤其是他们当地社区的声音，对于我们来说很重要。为了实现这些目标，我们与合作伙伴进行了卓有成效的合作。希拉补充说，除此之外，ONE还致力于鼓励一些预防旱灾的项目。如果能对农业进行充分投资，以帮助诸多国家躲过旱灾，那么长远来看，旱灾是可以预防的。在肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚，你甚至能看到情况并没有那么糟糕，因为在农业生产和早期预警系统方面已经做了一定的投资。而我们想要确保，对这种项目的投资不会削减，即便是在财政赤字时期。ONE是美国未来粮食安全项目的拥护者，该项目创立于2010年5月，致力于解决饥饿和贫困。最近，希拉和世界粮食计划署的领导人乔赛特同美国国际开发署领导人拉伊同ONE的工作人员进行了电话会议。2009年，奥巴马与G20峰会的各国领导人宣布要为未来粮食安全项目作出重大努力，确保对农业的投入，以及长期解决饥荒和食物紧缺的问题。世界各国履行这些承诺的行动十分重要。希拉称，虽然ONE的合作伙伴对于传播消息也有非常重要的作用，但为索马里和非洲之角深受旱灾侵扰的人们传达声音的还是ONE的工作人员。希拉认为，ONE的摇旗呐喊证明了提升公众意识与筹集资金同样重要。

1 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

4 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。