MDG 1: Extreme Hunger and Poverty

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Feb 21 1
  • Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL

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.


Millennium Development Goals

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Feb 4 0
  • Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL

I try not to admit this, but I “fly by the seat of my pants” more than I should. This morning I led the Adult Forum (adult education) with Terry Johnson at my church. We’re starting a three-month series on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. I didn’t know exactly what I’d say, but I knew Terry and I would have trouble limiting all we’d planned. The 45-minute session was way too short for the wealth of the MDGs … which is why we have nine more Sundays to work on them.

I didn’t know what I’d say, but I did know what we’d hand out. Our series is trying to make the MDGs practical and inescapable. We want to constantly be thinking of them and always have ways we can act (and think of new ways to act!). So we’re using journals. They’re a little low-tech — perhaps even a little old-fashioned — but these journals are great!

CHN has taught me the magic of labels. The parish forwent creating permanent name tags by using disposable, one-use address labels. People don’t have to worry about turning in their name tag before they leave or remembering to bring it back the following Sunday. They just stick a new label on each week. Well, the same logic works for our curriculum. We didn’t want to create content or worksheets or anything that was formulaic; none of those would have worked. People think, write, and reflect in different space. If their journals were to make an impact, the structure needed to be customizable. Enter the sticky labels.

We started with the cover. The bland non-dimensional images from Episcopal Relief and Development weren’t going to work. Last Thursday I wasted two hours as I held my head and hoped for Photoshop inspiration. (I’m sure it looked pretty funny to Bettie working in the office beside me). Then came this logo. 20 minutes later, I left CHN just after the last journal cover printed.

I love the logo: broken world; shadowed countries in the “2/3 world”; hopeful highlight below the borders. Hopefully the logo works. 😀

In addition to the cover, they each got “stickers” with the eight MDGs and these reflection questions:

More to come … and I’m excited. As Terry said at one point in the session: “Adam, they’re salivating!” Our congregation is so ready for this … !!!