Violent Poverty – Blog Action Day 2008

BlogActionDay.jpgHow desperate are you to see an end to poverty? We have the means to do it but do we have the will?

In April this year I saw the frustration of extreme poverty boiling over into violence. I was in Haiti, the least-developed country in the Americas where 80% of the population is estimated to be living in poverty. Haiti now ranks 146th of 177 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index (2006).

I was there with other Australian radio broadcasters to see the work of Compassion Australia. We had planned to be in the country for around a week to visit a number of projects but just a day after we arrived riots took hold in Port-au-Prince our hosts felt it would be safer for us to leave as soon as we could.

Our team managed to get out of Haiti under some extremely trying circumstances. It was very difficult getting to the airport and at times we were in very real danger. We had to dodge barricades of burning car tyres and rioting mobs. We were finally led to some armed police who escorted us to the airport.

When our plane finally left the ground I was filled with a mix of emotions. As I looked out the window at the dozens of fires around the small nation’s capital I was relieved that for us the danger had passed but I couldn’t help think about the millions of people we left behind who couldn’t afford to put food on the table for their families. Many people were actually eating dirt to try and survive. I remembered looking into the faces of the children within Compassion projects and seeing a hope for the future and contrasting those faces with those outside those projects, like the children who ran past our vehicles with fear in their eyes as they fled the riots.

The riots were about the lack of food in Haiti and the incredible price rises which had put even basic food items out of reach for the majority of the population. The people of Haiti just wanted the government to take their plight seriously and to do something to save the lives of their families who were literally starving to death.

Faced with the enormity of the situation the Haitian people took extreme action. Back home we complain that the world financial crisis makes it tougher to buy the stuff we feel we deserve. In countries like Haiti all they want is for those of us who really have more than enough, financial crisis or not, and have the capacity to make a difference, to realise that we still have the power to make an enormous dent in the problem of poverty.

Since my visit things have become even harder for the people of Haiti with recent storms destroying life and property.

If you feel that poverty is too big to tackle can I encourage you to sponsor a child in Haiti or another developing country? I’ve seen the difference it can make. You may only be able to make a difference for just one child but imagine if it were your own child. Wouldn’t you want someone to make the difference for just that one?

If you’d like to hear a radio report I compiled for Compassion Day after returning from Haiti just click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post. The audio begins with the delightful voices of dozens of Haitian children from the one Compassion project we were able to visit before our trip was cut short.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/COM150508_1107.mp3]



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Compassion Bloggers heading to Dominican Republic

Thumbs_Up.jpgCompassion is taking a group of bloggers to the Dominican Republic in November.

I spent a few days there in May this year after we had to leave Haiti due to the food riots.

They’ve written about the trip on the Compassion Blog in the post Blog Trip to the Dominican Republic.

I’ve seen first hand the amazing work that Compassion is doing in the Dominican Republic so I’d like to encourage you to keep up to date with their journey through the various blogs represented.

Jennifer Donovan – 5 Minutes for Mom
Mary Ostyn – Owlhaven.net
Tim Challies – Challies.com
Marlboro Man, from ThePioneerWoman.com
Melanie – BigMama
Shaun Groves – Shlog



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Your words are powerful

CompassionDay.JPGI’m just wiping the tears away after reading this post at the Compassion International Blog.

One of the things that really hit home for me during my trip to Haiti and Dominican Republic with Compassion Australia was the extreme importance of writing letters to sponsored children. Hearing the children talking about their sponsors and the overwhelming joy they felt whenever they received a letter from them was an amazing revelation. We met one one lady who had been recognised by the President of her country for her incredible study results. She kept the certificate handed to her by the President in the same folder as the letters from her sponsor family. They were both precious to her and they were kept together as her most prized possessions.

In the post I mentioned at the Compassion International Blog this truth is demonstrated through the words of Roberto Medrano, a Compassion worker in El Salvador.

It is amazing the influence a sponsor can have on the child. For example, I remember a 25-year-old Compassion graduate. She is a Christian who is married and has two babies. She also serves as a center worker. Even though she is an adult and loves Compassion’s ministry, she always cries because in the 15 years of sponsorship her sponsor did not write one single letter. She wrote her sponsor dozens of letters, but she never received any response.

If you sponsor a child through any aid agency, can I encourage you to make some time tonight to write that child a letter. My words here can’t even begin to express the influence your letters can have.

In Dominican Republic we spoke to a beautiful young lady who never once received encouragement from her parents for her schooling, yet because her sponsors kept in touch regularly over many years and encouraged her with her studies she is now achieving top results at university.

If you don’t yet sponsor a child I plead with you to do something about that today. If you’re in Australia I can get you signed up today, just contact me directly, or you can visit the Compassion Australia website. If you’re outside Australia you can go to the Compassion International website. Please let me know if you decide to change a child’s life through sponsorship.



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Back to School

DR.jpgI went back to school yesterday.

Thankfully I wasn’t going back as a student but I was there to talk about the wonderful work of Compassion Australia.

I was invited to speak to the students at Beechboro Christian School about the trip I took to Haiti and Dominican Republic in April this year. While we had Compassion Day at 98.5 Sonshine FM back in May, they’ve got their very own Compassion Day tomorrow.

The staff and students will be doing all sorts of fun things to raise money for Yessica, the school’s sponsored child, as well as contributing to other Compassion projects.

It was such an honour to be able to tell them about how much their contribution will mean to boys and girls in other parts of the world who have so little. They all listened very well and hopefully they understand just a little bit more about the responsibility we all have to care for those in poverty.



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Photos from Haiti and Dominican Republic

As part of a presentation I was asked to make last night, I put together a number of photos from my trip to Haiti and Dominican Republic with the audio of a radio segment I recorded for Compassion Day last month.

The trip was back in April but as you can imagine, it’s still very fresh in my mind.

If you take the time to watch, let me know what you think.



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