Write a letter to Congress over winter break!



Finals are over, snow is on the ground. You know what that means... time to write letters to Congress!

 I’ve fallen out of the habit of regularly contacting my two senators and U.S. representative because studying for exams took over my life for a while, but I’m excited to get back into it.
If you've outgrown letters to Santa (or never had that tradition),
write to Congress instead!
Writing letters is an easy way to get your voice heard. Congressional staff keeps track of how many people speak up about each issue, and what side they are on. For controversial issues that are big in the news, you probably already know which way your elected officials will vote (for example… impeachment). But for lesser-known or bipartisan issues like global health, it doesn’t take many letters to sway a member of Congress, or at least get their attention.
Writing a letter shows that you care enough to put in the time and effort, rather than signing an online petition in a matter of seconds. That doesn’t mean it has to be difficult! Today, I’m going to share how I write letters to Congress.
My friend and I asking Congress to support global education for kids

 Now, some general tips-- Your letter can be any length, but between half a page and one full page is standard. You can write about a personal story, include some statistics, reference a current event, or anything else you want to say. 

 My letters usually follow an outline called EPIC format, which goes like this:

 E stands for “engage”. This is the part where you explain why the issue matters to you.

 Dear Senator Blunt,

 I’m a high school student in your state, and I am fortunate that my family has always been able to provide proper nutrition for me to grow up healthy and do my best in school. I’m writing to you because worldwide, too many kids are not getting the same chance they deserve.
P stands for “problem”.

Today, 22% of the world’s children under five years old are chronically stunted or malnourished.


 I stands for “inform”, which is where you will present your solution and how it will help.

The good news is, we have the potential to beat childhood malnutrition and save millions of lives, lifting families out of poverty and stabilizing countries. In December 2020, Japan will host a Nutrition for Growth Summit. U.S. leadership is critical.


 C is the “call to action”.

What do you actually need your member of Congress to do? How should they vote? Is there a bill they should sponsor? It's okay if you don't know about an exact bill or its code, but try to make it as specific as you can.

Will you help create momentum in Congress for this issue? Please cosponsor S. Res. 260, a bipartisan global nutrition bill.

Sincerely,
[name and address]




Make sure you sign with your name and address so they can confirm you have the right member of Congress. When you’re done, I usually just google the closest office location for my senator/representative and send it there. You can google who your state’s senators are, and find your representative here. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to lobby a member of Congress

Image
Lobbying is one of the most intense and effective advocacy actions! And it's no wonder- a face to face conversation with your member of Congress gives both parties the opportunity to be heard and understood, and speak in depth on their positions and room for compromise. There’s an idea many people have in their heads of a cartoonish, fancy-suited man with a briefcase sneaking around Capitol Hill and bribing politicians to represent his interest. I, too, think of that image with extreme distaste. Yes, there are paid lobbyists, but that’s not what I mean by a "lobby meeting" with volunteer constituents . “Lobbying” as a general concept gets its name from people who used to wait around in the lobby of the office building, hoping to snag a few minutes or even precious seconds of a lawmaker’s time to promote their cause. [A panorama taken while my family waited to meet with Senator Blunt. My mom appears three times in the shot, among the crowd waiting in the lobby.] These ...
Read more

Tuberculosis in the MCU

Image
Spoilers for  The Falcon and the Winter Soldier  episode 3! This probably won't make sense anyway if you haven't watched the show, so you've been warned... So, I've been back in the Marvel fandom for nearly 12 weeks, since the first episode of WandaVision. Meanwhile, I never stopped doing global health advocacy. While Monica and Sam become my favorite characters more and more every day, the tuberculosis epidemic is becoming more and more urgent. What can the two tuberculosis references in MCU canon teach us about the real-life epidemic? Image description: my attempts at doodling the COVID-19 virus and tuberculosis bacteria Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne, infectious disease caused by bacteria that usually attack the lungs. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the number one infectious disease killer in the world, taking 1.4 million lives in 2019 and sickening 10 million . And it took a long time for COVID-19 to surpass TB- not until November 2020! TB is still bigge...
Read more

Sunrise Launch Party

Image
Today, I hosted a launch party for the Sunrise Movement at my house. What’s a launch party , you say? To kick off a year of action for the Green New Deal and make sure that climate change is the number one election issue in America, it’s going to take a bigger movement of young people than ever before. That’s why across the nation, Sunrise held over 2500 “launch parties” within one week! Young people gather in living rooms, campuses, and libraries across the country to learn about the Green New Deal and pledge to participate in strikes this Earth Day. As active as I’ve been over the years, I’m still an introverted sixteen-year-old, and until today, I’d never hosted my own event by myself. Somehow, I took a leap of faith and ended up leading a meeting with nine other people, my first action as a part of Sunrise. Here’s the story of how that happened... Thursday, January 2: I get an email in my inbox from Sunrise, asking me to host a launch party. It’s about tim...
Read more