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ELCA World Hunger

Do you know Enough?

I am a book lover. I am always reading, and usually that means I’m working my way through five or six books at the same time. My dad laughed at me the other day as I explained to him which category each of the eight books sitting on my bedside table falls into: currently reading, haven’t started but up next on the list, or must reread. I have an ever-growing list of books I want to read, and my work at ELCA World Hunger so far has inspired the addition of many new titles.

While my list is long, there’s one book I’m happy I gave priority to and proud to say I recently finished: Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman.

Thurow and Kilman are Wall Street Journal reporters who’ve been writing on Africa, development, and agriculture for decades. Enough is a result of their extensive reporting about global hunger and the forces behind famine. Each chapter is a compelling story and an illuminating piece of the history or current reality of hunger. The book’s coverage is expansive; rather than try to sum it up I’ll include this passage from the preface:

This book tells the story of the squandered promise of the Green Revolution and the neglect that brought hunger and famine into the twenty-first century. It is the story of Africa and the missed opportunities, the wars and megalomania, the folly and the good intentions gone bad that have left its agricultural potential largely unrealized, its people hungrier that ever before, and the entire world aching for more and cheaper food. It is a tale of self-interest and hypocrisy in the United States and Europe, how subsidies and food aid have gone awry, how geopolitics influenced by remnants of colonial-era policies and practices of the old European powers determine that some countries should bloom and others should starve, how markets failed, how warnings went unheeded, how the present crisis is engulfing us.

This is also, in Part II, the story of the new movement to reclaim the revolution’s lost promise and restore its momentum. It follows the trail from Borlaug to Bono, the Irish rock musician haunted by the chorus of the hungry he first heard in Ethiopia in 1984. From Bill Gates and his foundation colleagues, who realized that the medicine they were bringing to Africa was useless in a malnourished body, to Joe Mamlin, an Indiana doctor who became a farmer in Kenya so his AIDS patients would have something to eat. From Eleni Gabre-Madhim, who kept tilting at windmills until she brought a commodities exchange to her native Ethiopia, to Francis Pelekamoyo, whose Bible led his conversion from Malawi’s central banker to humble microlender. From a small town in Ohio to a tiny village in Kenya. From European CEOs to a couple of American sitcom-watching moms to a son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. From British church activists to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to statesmen in Ireland working to ensure that their country’s dark history of famine isn’t repeated elsewhere in the future.

The authors’ hope is to “outrage and inspire.” With this reader they certainly achieved both. I would add that they also inform. The writing is extremely accessible and engaging, and the treatment of the issues is both broad and in-depth. The authors don’t prescribe one political view over another, but do take a critical stance on some powerful groups. I gained a helpful current and historical understanding of complicated issues that was not impossible to digest and not overly simplified. Enough was a hard book to read in the sense that I felt sorrow and anger at many points, but it’s also a hopeful book. I absolutely recommend it to anyone troubled by the 1 billion undernourished people in the world.

Check out this video about one of the stories in the book, and Roger Thurow’s blog.

“At the end of the day, when in doubt, I’ll feed the hungry.” — Dr. Mamlin, page 163

Julie Reishus

Moving from Oppression to Opportunity

The Book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is written by a husband and wife team who are former journalists for the New York Times, and through their travels found an issue that had been missing from the headlines- the ongoing struggle for gender equality around the world, and what this inequality means for women in the global South.

Half the Sky focuses on four issues in which gender discrimination is hurting and killing women around the world. Here is a snapshot of the issues they discuss in detail, along with some statistics from the book about the scope of these issues around the globe.

Human Trafficking: 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and 80% of them are women and girls. They are trafficked mainly for sexual exploitation. Millions more are trafficked within countries each year.

Rape and violence: In most countries between 30-60% of women have experienced sexual or physical violence from a partner. Many women don’t report rape for fear of being stigmatized.

Maternal Mortality: In the global South there is one maternal death per minute. The lifetime risk of maternal death is 1,000 times higher in a poorer country than in a more prosperous country.

Routine discrimination: Between 60 and 101 million women are missing from around the world today. They have died due to unequal care or feticide, and at least another 2 million die from discrimination each year.

In addition to discussing these horrific problems that come along with gender inequality, the authors also provide ways to, as their title states, turn “oppression into opportunity.” The two solutions they focus on the most are educating girls and women and providing them with microloans. By educating girls and women, the authors argue that they can receive the necessary tools to stand against injustice, and are given the opportunity to participate in the economy. By receiving microloans, the book suggests that it gives women more power in society while giving them the chance to get out of poverty.

One helpful tool that Half the Sky provides is ways in which you can get involved in the struggle for global gender equality. The book provides many inspiring success stories of how individuals have overcome oppression, and also provides specific actions anyone can take to make a difference in the lives of women worldwide.

If you are interested in obtaining a study guide for this book, check out The Table!

-Allie Stehlin

Movie Monday (part deux)

Life + Debt, 2001 (86 minutes)

Life and Debt explores the impact of globalization on Jamaica.  The film provides an important perspective for groups who want to engage in fairly deep discussion around the topics of globalization, trade policy, and economic development.  The piece is certainly provocative, as it portrays an important but rather condemning view of the West and the United States and may cause discomfort among some viewers.  I was disturbed by the film (at several levels), and I was also left wondering about the current state of affairs, especially given the recent economic climate.

A discussion guide of the film is available here.  More info on Jamaica and the the work of the ELCA there is available at www.elca.org/jamaica.

Interview with an AIDS researcher

In anticipation of National HIV Testing Day this Sunday, an interview with Joseph Rower, a Lutheran PhD student currently conducting HIV and AIDS research…

What exactly are you studying right now and where?

I am a PhD student in the Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus…  The laboratory I work in, and thus my thesis work, focuses on understanding the pharmacology (essentially how the body acts on a drug and how a drug affects the body) of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV and Hepatitis.

How did you end up working in an HIV and AIDS lab?

I chose this lab because of its emphasis on clinically relevant research.  We do a significant amount of work with humans-including those who are HIV infected and taking medications-and I enjoy being able to make a direct positive impact on someone’s life.  In fact, part of my research will focus on interacting with HIV patients and determining what life is like while taking these drugs, i.e. how their daily routine is affected, what drug-related side effects do they have to manage, and getting a patient’s opinion on what successful treatment or management of HIV truly is.

What are you currently researching?

My research revolves around two drugs-zidovudine (ZDV) and lamivudine (3TC) -which have historically been used here in the US as the backbone of HIV treatment, but due to troubling safety profiles (ZDV commonly causes nausea, and has been shown to contribute muscle degradation and AIDS related dementias) they have been phased out in favor of safer drugs. However, they are still utilized in special settings (i.e. pregnant women, infants, drug resistant patients in the US, and as the standard of care in resource poor countries) and so an understanding of how to best minimize the resulting toxicities while still maintaining efficacy is crucial.  As such, my project focuses on determining what concentrations of the drug are necessary in the body to maintain efficacy while minimizing if not eliminating serious toxicities.

I’m especially interested in these drugs because of their relevancy to the resource poor setting.  ZDV and 3TC are made available to poor patients in African countries at a cost of $1 a day, whereas the newer drugs have yet to be made affordable enough for this setting, and cost up to $1000 for a month’s supply. It is crucial that we fully understand these two drugs so as to benefit those who have no other choice but to be treated with these drugs.

How does your work/research relate to your sense of vocation?

I’ve always felt called to service, starting with volunteering in homeless shelters as a youth, traveling to Mexico with my church youth group to build a house for a family, to taking advantage of the many opportunities offered at CLU by the Community Service Center.  I’ve also always felt blessed to both enjoy and be skilled in the sciences (I can thank my dad for that one).  Growing up, I always knew God was saying, “here is this gift for you, use it well”, and then when my grandfather began suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy that lacks a treatment, I knew that He was saying, “here’s how”.  He made it pretty clear that He gave me the gift of science knowledge and passion to help His children that suffer from disease.  From there doors just kept opening, the latest being this lab…

What has been the most powerful thing you have learned through your research and classes?

Oh man, that is a tough one…I guess on the surface it’s been amazing to dive in and try to fully understand how complex and intricately built the human body is.  Everything has purpose, and is there for a reason, just like every person makes up the body of Christ for a reason and with purpose. It’s just amazing to think about how amazingly detailed and intricate and complicated our body is, and how good our body is at what it does, with so many places that errors and mistakes could be made.

Is there an interesting fact you would like to share?

One of the first lessons I learned when I started in the lab is that everything matters.  Everything.  My work involves quantifying miniscule amounts of drug that successfully stop HIV from replicating inside a human body.  To put that in perspective, it’s like one pebble, out of an entire beach of sand, stopping the ocean from flooding the shoreline.  It really illustrates one of my favorite stories of a man who stumbles upon an enormous stack of starfish left on the beach by a receding tide.  When asked why he was throwing the starfish back into the water, as he couldn’t possibly make a difference to the entire pile of starfish, the man responds that he made a difference to the one starfish he just threw back in.  Just so, every action we make makes a difference in someone’s life, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant.

What keeps you going?

As of December 2008, the World Health Organization reported that 33.4 million individuals were living with HIV.  It’s estimated that 80-90% would be considered resource poor and unable to afford top of the line treatments.  Need I say more?

Thank you so much for taking the time for this interview!

Joseph is a member of St. Philip Lutheran in Littleton, CO, and an alum of California Lutheran University where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Math.

~Lana Lile

Thinking through EarthBound

I graduated from college about six weeks ago, and was thrilled to be done with papers, exams, projects, and school in general. But I’m a learner, so honestly you can’t keep me away from that stuff for long. I just finished watching the DVD series EarthBound. It’s an educational series about creation care, put together to help Christian communities learn about God’s call to care for creation, and figure out their role in doing so. The series is broken up into six different episodes: Created/Called, Here/There, Domination/Dominion, Me/We, Now/Forever, and Enough/Too Much. Each one is a little less than a half hour long, and explores the title topic from three angles. First, each episode raises a problematic issue in the Christian and Western traditions, then explores parts of the Christian tradition that can right these issues and deepen our understanding, and last it shows people and organizations that are doing awesome things to live out God’s call to creation care.

The DVD has a definite educational focus. It was created by a team of institutions and programs in and around the ELCA like Gustavus Adolphus College, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and the Augsburg Center for Faith and Learning. You can hear from some of the best biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, teachers, and lay persons across the Lutheran Church, which to me is pretty cool. I imagine the highly academic, “talking head” nature of the series has potential to bore some people (I wouldn’t choose this for a Friday night movie night). But since the series’ ultimate purpose is to be an educational tool, it does an excellent job of engaging watchers as learners with the capacity to really grapple with and understand the theological basis of our call to relate to the whole of creation.

I won’t shy away from labeling myself as a complete nerd; while watching I filled five pages of a notebook with my notes, and occasionally pulled out lecture outlines from my sophomore year Intro to Theology class in college to make connections, remind myself of some terms and concepts, flag my questions, and try to be a critical learner. There is a lot of compelling information packed into the 157 minutes of video, but for the purpose of this blog I’ll pull out a few ideas that got me excited.

The “Here/There” episode emphasized that salvation is not limited to life after death; God does not want to snatch us off this earth. God and the world are bound up together. It urges us to immerse ourselves in creation as a deliberative faith practice – one that I know I, and many others, find incredibly life-giving. I liked what the “Me/We” episode brought up about the radical individualism that goes along with what it traditionally means to be American. Recently I’ve been learning more and more that there is no such thing as a Christian. One cannot be a Christian by oneself, and the Christian community is not made up of individuals who can say, “My choices are mine alone and don’t affect others.” I was reminded watching “Now/Forever” that God’s timing and our timing are vastly different. Thinking short-term is exhausting! Rather than thinking we are in control of everything, we can trust in God and acknowledge that the vitality of the rest of the world is not ultimately up to us.

I could keep going but want to keep this a quick read, so if you’re interested, you can borrow the DVD from ELCA World Hunger and look for a film discussion guide coming soon in the Books and Media discussion group on the Table. As always, comment with your thoughts because I’d love to have a conversation!

Julie Reishus

What Not to Eat

 

I recently watched the documentary Food Inc. and it blew my mind. This documentary goes deep into the United States food industry to show viewers where our food actually comes from. This movie aimed to show how the way food is grown and produced is hidden from consumers, and the realities of the origins of everything we eat shocked me.

One point the documentary argues was that our food comes from what we picture in our mind to be a typical American farm. The film states that much of our food does come from farms, but large corporations often own the animals on those farms, and thus have the power to control how our meat is grown and produced. The result of this is overpopulated farms, with animals living in unhealthy conditions (both for them and for us once we eat them!). Cows are fed corn when they are meant to eat grass, leading to a build up of E. coli in their system, which then is cleaned with ammonia. Chickens are grown in a manner that leaves them too large to walk. Also, many people who work in food producing factories are mistreated and underpaid, and the farmers who grow the food often end up with debt from standards that the corporations force them to uphold. Food Inc. argues that this system is harmful to our animals, our health, and the people who work hard to put food on our tables.

Another important topic the documentary discussed was the government’s relationship with the food industry. The government heavily subsidizes corn, wheat and soy, which can be harmful to our health, especially for those in poverty. Food Inc. points out that we can buy a double cheeseburger for 99 cents, but we cannot buy broccoli for this price. They argue that the reason for this is that calories in the double cheeseburger are cheaper due to heavy government subsidies.

The documentary goes in depth on many other issues related to the food industry, and toward the middle of the film I began to wonder if there was anything in the refrigerator that I would be able to make myself for dinner! Thankfully, they showed success stories of farmers and producers who grew their products organically and safely and still were profitable. They stressed the importance of buying foods grown locally to reduce your carbon footprint. They also discussed past successes in the food industry, such as the push from consumers that led Wal-Mart to stop selling milk products with rBST. They are confident that if consumers treat their dollars as votes, we will be able to tell the food industry what we expect from our food, and the system then will change to benefit our environment, our animals, our workers, and our health.

Food Inc. is an eye-opening documentary that depicts one point of view of the food industry, and I would recommend it to anyone. I learned a lot and now think about food in a different way. While it does give some suggestions about how you can have a positive impact on the food industry, I was still left with questions about how I should act on this issue, so if you watch it I suggest going to their Web site for more ideas. Also check out their blog.

So, I leave you all with some questions. Have you thought much about how your consumption affects your health, other human beings, animals and the earth? Has it changed how you eat? Do you have suggestions for those who wish to take action on these issues? I would love to hear ideas from all of you.

-Allie Stehlin

Movie Mondays!

Here at ELCA World Hunger we’ve been watching films on hunger and poverty and preparing study guides for your use.   Over the summer I will be highlighting some of the films that you may want to use for an adult forum or Wednesday night film series or just to watch and ponder on your own.  I will post a summary of the film with links to the film’s Web site and the discussion questions every Monday.  Happy viewing!

Human Footprint (2008)

Human Footprint explores the consumption patterns of an average person in the U.S. from birth to 77 years 9 months in a variety of interesting visual ways. The filmmakers follow two typical people in the U.S. through each stage of life, focus on a sample of consumer products relevant to that life stage, deconstruct some of the products into their raw material components, and build models that represent the average per-person lifetime footprint. The quantities of goods that are consumed by the average U.S. citizen in a lifetime are shocking. A pile of 3,796 diapers on the front lawn (made from 1,898 pints of crude oil and the pulp of 4.5 trees), 19,826 eggs dumped from a truck, 5,054 newspapers (made from 43 trees), and 28,433 rubber ducks lined up to represent the average number of showers taken (using 700,000 gallons of water over a lifetime).

A discussion guide to the film is available here.

What I learned at City Hall

It’s late and I just got home from a City Planning Commission meeting. Admittedly, I stayed late chatting with Commission members. I went as a member of the public as I was interested in their topic of the evening: housing. What I really got out of the meeting, however, had less to do with housing – although historic preservation and urban sprawl was rather intriguing – and more to do with the strategies of development. It made me think about advocacy, education, relief and development. Here’s why…

The town in which I currently reside is also the town that I grew up in. It was once a roaring 1920’s timber town and currently is in need of some development and economic upswing. Charmed by tall evergreens and a winding river, its environmental aspects keep your enjoyment, but it’s development is essential to the well being of its inhabitants. So there I sat, attending a government commission meeting (made up of volunteers) and thought: this, in a way, is like advocacy. This is where the public comes to voice their opinions and where the recommendations are made to generally plan the city. The Planning Commission affects things like housing, zoning, traffic and commercial/industrial/residential development to name a few. Then there was me. The local sitting in, fascinated, learning all about ordinances and stakeholders and all of the small things that go into making downtowns pretty and housing affordable that I would have never thought about. I was being educated. After the meeting we chatted about jobs, local skills and the economy. My town is on track for being awarded a large state project, but really, this project’s designated end (it is slated to last about five years) makes it more so a relief to the area than a true development. So that’s why we were at the Planning Commission meeting; to talk about the future, and ways that the area can develop in the long term while the relief strategies are aiding us in the mean time. The real kicker was realizing that none of this happens without money. Grants, developers willing to spend good amounts of hard-earned cash, city taxes and more are needed to revitalize a community. It’s the same idea in my community as it is in places around the world.

There, staring me in the face, were the four things that ELCA World Hunger also uses to make development happen at home and around the world. Sitting in that living example, it became very clear to me that each part of the process is key to the end goal. I will continue to learn more and more each day about the root causes of hunger and poverty, advocate on behalf of those who need my voice, help in necessary relief efforts and opt for sustainable development whenever possible. I’ve also realized just how vital any donation that I can give is to getting the job done.

Cigarettes and cultural/social change

I really appreciated Mark Goetz’s June 11 post, “Ziplock Bags and Deliberated Choices” about decisions that we don’t make ourselves but let the dominant cultural “flow” determine for us.

Swimming upstream is hard work. Ridicule is usually involved, as Mark has discovered as a washer and reuser of plastic bags. But take heart, Mark! Your commitment can help turn around a culture.

Mr. and Mrs. Barham were the parents of my best friend Janet. Today they would be Abe and Val, but in 1970, one didn’t address one’s friends’ parents by their first names. One also took for granted that smokers could light up whenever and wherever they pleased: grocery stores, movie theaters, offices, everywhere but church!

In California in 1970, it was more acceptable to march against the Vietnam War than to ask someone to extinguish a cigarette. When a dinner guest drew out a pack and asked my anti-war, non-smoking parents, “mind if I smoke?” they were too polite to refuse.

The Barhams weren’t. Early members of GASP—the Group Against Smoking in Public—they put up signs, passed out fliers, and lobbied city hall and state government to begin considering the rights of non-smokers. For teens like Janet and me, trying to fit in with the prevailing culture, their passion and commitment were really embarrassing. I would shrink down low in the car whenever they stopped to pick up a new batch of supplies.

Forty years later, the clouds of smoke that once fogged restaurants and church social halls have been banished forever. And the Barhams did this! Their willingness not just to resist but be considered wackos invited others to question and eventually dismantle one huge cultural assumption and replace it with a new one. Now the rights of non-smokers are upheld by a whole system of laws and customs and behaviors that relieve shy people of the need to say, “why yes, I do mind.”

Val Barham died a year ago; Abe Barham died in May. I wonder how many old GASP posters and bumper stickers are turning up this week, as Janet and her sisters clean out the house where they lived for 55 years.

When people feel discouraged about whether we’ll ever stop driving, ever stop polluting, ever stop throwing things away, ever stop doing whatever dismays them and start doing something healthier and fairer, I bring up the Barhams. To me, they’re proof that when individual commitment links to a larger process of advocacy, the fringe becomes the vanguard becomes the status quo.

Keep washing those plastic bags, Mark!

Anne Basye,  Sustaining Simplicity

I think I’m in the right place

Hello readers! I’m the other World Hunger intern for summer 2010, Julie Reishus. Today is day eight of this amazing internship experience, and so far every day has been energizing, convicting, affirming, and challenging. I am sincerely thankful to God for the opportunity He’s given me to learn and serve within this incredible organization. I think I’m in the right place!

A little background on me: I grew up in Naperville, IL, and this past May I graduated from Hope College in Holland, MI, where I studied communication and ministry. While in college I had a number of experiences that contributed to my passion for seeking justice, and in particular the deposit placed on my heart about injustices related to hunger. I may explore these influences in more detail in future blog posts, but here’s the quick run down: first, my personal eating habits, and consequently the way I think about food, changed dramatically when I became a vegan. Second, I took a class on World Christianity that opened my eyes to an understanding of the missio Dei that refuses to separate social justice from evangelism. And third, I shared a powerful solidarity meal with 17,000 other people at the Urbana09 student missions conference.

I am thrilled to be learning and working at ELCA World Hunger this summer. I’ll be working on projects like developing the Taking Root curriculum for Vacation Bible School and adult education, and specific opportunities for volunteers to help ELCA World Hunger meet its education, advocacy, and fund-raising goals. I’m excited to blog here every Wednesday and also engage in conversation with you on Facebook and at the Table.

I enjoy dancing, drinking tea, summer sun, concert-going, reading, theology, making delicious vegan meals, learning constantly, the company of good people, Twitter (follow me @jujubeee), and above all worshiping, serving and loving the triune God who first loved us.

Julie