World Ark Magazine - November/December 2007 - (Page 36)

End Hunger. The humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, who spent much of his life working in Africa, once identified a crisis of confidence among the wealthy nations, a feeling of helplessness in the face of overwhelming facts. “It will ever remain incomprehensible,” he said, “that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its achievements in discovery and invention, could fall so low spiritually as to give up thinking.” THE FOUNDATION FOR ENDING POVERTY We know enough about poverty and hunger today to know that the issue is not one of scarcity, but of access to resources. Poverty and hunger are symptoms. They are “dark spots” on the global map—evidence of places that are not connected, as they should be, to the resources of the rest of the world. And yet the time is right for that to change. For the first time in human history, three conditions have made the end of extreme global poverty possible. They are the spread of democracy, the explosion of civil society, and the basic know-how to help the world’s poorest begin to lift themselves out of poverty. done, but how we can do it. We must be able to imagine a smaller, more connected world; a world in which our actions directly affect the lives of our distant neighbors, people just like us who we may never meet, but whose lives are inextricably bound up with ours. And then we need to begin to live in that world. We must turn that imagination into committed action, side-by-side with our poorer neighbors. T By Tom Peterson | HEIFER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKE TING oday, nowhere is this crisis of confi dence so clear as among those concerned about world hunger. We are overwhelmed by the media’s images, by the hopeless eyes of a weakened child, and by the sheer numbers, the idea of 1.2 billion people struggling to survive on less than a dollar a day. We seem paralyzed by the scale and complexity of the problem. And yet, at the same time, in hundreds of thousands of villages in the developing world, the work has already begun. A rapidly growing number of people and groups are using their imaginations, envisioning a better life. By the millions, they’re transforming those visions into reality. So how do we jump-start the critical engagement of Americans—both individuals and our government—and help push the worldwide efforts to the next level? As Lyndon Johnson said, “It’s not doing what’s right that’s difficult. It’s knowing what’s right.” Engaging our country in an end-poverty movement must begin with a massive change of mind, a new education. We must understand not just what has to be SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY In 1984 I visited a rural parish on Mindanao, a southern island of the Philippines. Under President Ferdinand Marcos, Mindanao was terribly poor. Paramilitary goons brutally terrorized anyone suspected of subversion, which included such pursuits as herbal medicine and organic farming. As a result of the repression, local development was almost completely thwarted. www.heifer.org 36 November/December 2007 | WORLD ARK http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - November/December 2007

World Ark - November/December 2007 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked & Answered Pursuing Happiness (PRODUCT) RED: Consumer Power Fights AIDS in Africa Rwanda Reconciles End Hunger Now Protecting the Poor from Climate Change Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit Heifer Calendar Reflection

World Ark Magazine - November/December 2007

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