One livestream to rule them all: One World Together at Home

I am pretty overwhelmed with livestreams.  I started adding them to my calendar, working around the Zoom meetings with friends and families, and quickly discovered that I could spend 18-20 hours a day being virtually entertained or communicated with.  And that does not include my usual texting, emailing and posting my Twitter and Instagram feeds and Stories.  That is a pretty remarkable situation for a guy in a small Mexican town with sometimes iffy internet and phone connections.

However, this weekend there will be an event that will allow me to log on to just one livestream and see several dozen of my favorite (and not so favorite) artists, while striking a blow for good health and world understanding.  I am of course referring to the One World Together at Home Media extravaganza being produced and broadcast this weekend by Global Citizen.

I say extravaganza because the lineup dwarfs even the Grammys. From Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift to J Balvin to Annie Lennox to……it might be easier to list who is not in it.  The schedule is not being released in advance so you will have to watch the whole 8 hours, but individual artists are posting their stage times on social media so you can create a partial schedule for yourself. However, the artists on the TV special are not all the same ones on the online special, so check the website to see where your favorites are most likely to be. And of course, platforms and TV networks will vary with what country you are in.

If you are not familiar with Global Citizen or One World Together at Home, you should be.  Global Citizen is the world’s largest movement dedicated to ending extreme poverty by 2030. With over 10 million monthly “advocates”, Global Citizens have clout and may just be able to change the lives of  2.25 billion hungry people for the better.

One World Together at Home is a Global Citizen global event, something the staff at GC excel at – probably better than anyone else on the planet. It is an 8-hour digital/2-hour TV event using music and entertainment to raise funds for the World Health Organization.  The WHO is the global UN organization that is equipped and staffed to fight world health problems like Coronavirus.   One World Together has dedicated funds it raises to support frontline healthcare workers through the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund of the World Health Organization and the UN Foundation.

The WHO’s mission for COVID-19 is to prevent, detect, and respond to the pandemic. The funds  go directly to WHO’s rapid response to COVID-19.  So far, the WHO has shipped over 2 million items of PPE to 133 countries and 1.5 million testing kits to 126 countries. Participants who log into the website can take a variety of actions and earn points useable for concert tickets (when we have concerts again) and other premiums.

Given that the US government just cut about 20% of the WHO’s budget in they middle of a pandemic, the funds raised by the event are needed.  Maybe it is symbolic that, while coronavirus rages and many governments dither or worse, it is music that is coming to the rescue.

Sign up for One World Together  at Home at globalcitizen.org/en/connect/togetherathome/ and become an activist. The life you save may be your planet’s.  And you only have to remember one livestream.

Patrick O’Heffernan