MDG 1: Extreme Hunger and Poverty

I swear: one of these adult education MDG sessions at Church of the Holy Nativity, I’M NOT GOING TO FORGET MY CAMERA!!! The scene is set for the perfect lifelong-learner shot: the lighting’s decent in the morning, the faces are bright and anxious. I just keep forgetting the second-most important piece of equipment. (The most important, after all, is the photographer’s brain — NOT the camera!).

This Sunday the Youth of the church led the session and taught about extreme poverty and hunger. They did a great job of mixing up the story (in a good way!) by alternating between their own reflections of post-hurricane work in New Orleans, the global and local stats on poverty, and testimonials and advertisements for their annual 30-hour famine. (They’re fasting on March 7th and 8th; it’s coming right up, CHN!)

Probably my biggest “wake-up!” moment in the session was Eve Lebaron’s description of Six Flags. She painted a verbal picture of the amusement park in New Orleans as an abandoned mess – the roller coasters have moss and grass growing on them. What a tragic image of the death of fun! But it illustrates the point: for the systematically hungry and impoverished, fun isn’t even an issue … it’s an impossibility.

Here are the labels for our journals. The first is an insert for the back inside cover (or wherever you choose to put it!) with some great ways to engage. Even though they’re mostly monetary options, they’re still great causes:

• Episcopal Relief and Development – http://www.er-d.org – the Church’s outreach organization, focused on immediate disaster response and long-term sustainability.
• World Community Grid – http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org – Donate your computer’s idle time to aid in socially-conscious scientific research.
• End of Poverty book site – http://www.earth.columbia.edu/pages/endofpoverty/index/ – A website with research, practical tips, and a hopeful outlook on the future from Jeffery Sachs, an economic adviser to Kofi Annan in the formulation of the MDGs.
• Kiva – http://www.kiva.org – A micro-lending network loaning money only to those poor enough; similar to the work of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank.