Solidarity Will Transform the World

Solidarity Will Transform the World

By Jeffery Odel Korgen

I read this book as part of a curriculum of ‘JustFath,’ a program intended to help one raise themselves to a compassionate awareness for those whose lives are played out on the fringes of society.  With this awareness one may be moved to action.  After reading a couple of preceding ‘Just Faith’ books on the subject a reader would be hungry to appreciate where this action would come from and to learn how it manifests itself into success stories.  In the end the ultimate goal in the stories of this book finds a common thread; the aim of that action.  That aim is directly set towards bringing dignity and social justice to all those in the fringe of society.  

This dignity is not brought out through government sponsored entitlement programs.  In fact these programs don’t even take place in America, though there are indeed American versions.   These stories take place on a world stage, India, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Zambia, Mexico; holding a broader view, beyond American life.  Yet the solutions are brought in part by Americans through the programs of Catholic Relief Services.  While the CRS is funded by the Catholic Church, the actors are not necessarily all Catholic.  They don’t have to be this book is higher than Catholicism, it is about the restoration of the “Oneness” of mankind; story by story.

The stories told don’t  fit the paradigm of the average American that has been programmed by public education and steeped in American television ‘sit-com’ that portray the ‘American Family’ in the American situation that is white washed of  human suffering.  After all who wants to be entertained by episodes of suffering?  Is that even possible? The suffering is not what one sees on those commercials of flies on the swollen bellies of starving children in commercials during those ‘sit-coms’.  They are stories first about people trying to carve out a living amidst challenges of a society looking to systematically oppress and abscond their own selfish riches off the backs of another man. Second and here’s the lesson learned; where people join hands and inch by inch, dollar by dollar, cup of coffee by cup of coffee climb out of a life of social injustice to a life full of dignity and peace.

Below are excerpts.  If you don’t read the book read the following Ten whole pages.

1.       In his encyclical “On Social Concern (Sollicitudo Rei Socials) in 1987 . John Paul II defined the content of solidarity as “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”  The pope was convinced that this principle of moral responsibility should be con used within societies and across societies and cultures in international relations.

2.   Page 4:  Even the poorest people have something to offer, and with  Catholic Relief Service (CRS) programs, solutions to global poverty emerge in partnership with low-income beneficeries.  This approach respects the dignity of the poor people and foster creative responses to overcoming poverty. 

How we work with people living in poverty also reflects our belief in human dignity.  If we truly believe in the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person, we must continually ask if we foster development or dependency through our ministries.  Do we act with the understanding that people living in poverty have resources, or do we view them like a child in the public service announcement, who could not even stand without spoon feeding milk to his mouth?

3.   Page 5: Paul stated that defeating poverty and growing in knowledge were the first steps of human development, but also held out expression of culture, …a growing awareness of other people’s dignity, a taste for the spirit of poverty, an active interest in the common good, and desire for peace as an ends for which we should strive.

4.   Page 7:  We cannot realize our full potential or appreciate our full meaning of our dignity unless we share our lives with others and cooperate on projects that hold the promise of mutual benefit.

5.   Page 8:  These stories of hope and human development projects they represent defy crass political categorizations as “liberal” or “conservative.”  Insisting that the pooest women in India grow savings accounts before receiving a single rypee of microfinance loans is not a conservative ideological tenant; it is simply the most effective method to help these women become self-sufficient.  Calling on the U.S. government to fund anti-retroviral for the poor of Zambia who suffer from HIV/AIDS is nor part of a liberal political program, it is a principal source of healing “Lazarus Effect” that CRS fosters in sub Saharan Africa.  For me, this was one of the great lessons of this year-long immersion in global poverty; CRS’s stories of hope reveal that both liberals and conservatives have something to contribute to human development, and the end product transcends ideology.

6.   Page 12:  CRS-Mexico manager Erica Dahl Bredine has characterized the migration relationship between the U.S. and Mexico as “one that forces people to run through a human obstacle course to get here, and if they make it through alive, CRS Mexico build hope to developing the human and financial resources of Mexicans, creating alternatives within Mexico that give them the option to stay in their country.

7.   Page 13:   Engracia is a seamstress, ad also the president of one of the first micro finance groups formed in Nogales, the Bank of the United.  “Microfinance” refers to small-scale savings and loan products that provide an alternative to the loan sharks and coyotes  that prevail in Mexico.

8.   Page 15:  There she might employ another seamstress or two, multiplying the hopw that the Bank of the United has given her by providing living wage jobs for others.

9.   Page 16:  Norma views the banks as an important tool for the empowerment of women.

1    Page 17:  They also assess what size loans clients may borrow and repay based on their current business activity and their capacity to expand.  Current or previous experience running a business – even selling eggs out of a basket – is vital.  The animators obtain references from neighbors and factor in variables like how long potential clients have lived in Nogales.

11.  Page 17:  The first loans are funded by Bancomun.  Each member of the bank guarantees the repayment of the other members’ loans which average $200 to $300, repaid over a four month period.  If someone misses payment, all are responsible for making up the difference.  At the end of the cycle, everyone gets new loans, but only if all of the previous cycles’s loans have been paid.  A combination of positive peer pressure and careful selection of bank members has resulted in a repayment rate of 95 percent

1   Page 17:  CRS intends to introduce “solidarity groups” of five to seven women with established businesses who would graduate to larger loans.  The bank animators have learned that as the original businesses funded by banks grow, they require larger loans to sustain development.

1   Page 18:  Biweekly bank meetings provide opportunities to collect loan payments and savings deposits.  They also include time for group building exercises and discussions about community issues, over coffee and cookies.  Through this process, the material and human resources of these women grow, but peace rebuilding has also figured into the experience.

1   Page 20:  Molina’s story widens the scope of human development: her financial resources have grown; her business skills have expanded; and new her mental health has improved – dramatically.

1   Page 20:  But the result of this project indicate that many Mexicans at the border are looking for reasons to stay.  If they can live in what they consider to be acceptable living conditions wit family and friends, the push and pull factors (of illegal immigration) lose some of their power.

1   Page 23:  The adult children have built a life together in Wyoming and send a total of $500 a month to help support the family in Mexico, Remittances like these are the number two source of cash in the Mexican economy, after the sale of oil.

1   Page 26:  Immigration is a phenomenon that obeys economic laws.  Migration will be the fate of the Molinars and other family farmers if viable alternatives are not sustained in Mexico, CRS cannot change economic laws, but it can help small family farmers, like the Molinars develop the agricultural  skill, market penetration, and access to credit they need to compete in the global marketplace.

1   Page 34:  The Line in the Sand and the other three CRS-Mexico border programs stand together as a peace building effort as much as an  integral human development project.  The banks and the FDC development material assets, business acumen, and agricultural skills, addressing head-on the desperate forces driving migration into the Unites States.

The Lazarus Effect

1   When Zambia achieved independence from Rhodesia in 1964, it was middle –income country.  Devastated by droughts and natural disaster, fluctuating copper prices, and a disastrous experience with socialism, Zambia descended into poverty in the 1970.ffect therefore springs from the intersection of the medical and financial resources of the U.S. Catholic Church and the American people (via the PEPFAR initiative) and the human resources of the people of Zambia, though institutional partnerships and relationships with the individual Zambians who volunteer.

2    In general, the volunteers in the various CRS-supported programs are just as poor as the clients, which help to build trust, minimizing the cultural learning curve for volunteers.

21 CRS has responded to food insecurity by promoting the cultivation of drought-resistant crops and hosting “seed fairs” throughout Zambia.  In a community seed fair, participants receive vouchers for seeds they need.

2   Page 46:  She believes that her call is not only to treat the sick, but also to challenge cultural  norms that allow men to have two or three sexual partners outside marriage.  “As women, we accept this.”  She said “my own husband got AIDS and gave it to me.  He was in denial until he died.”

2   Page 48:  Esther’s question brought me back to the Lazarus Effect.  Why did Christ bring Lazarus out of the tomb?  To die of malnutrition?  Malaria?  To live in a society with 87 percent unemployment?  Even CRS works to save lives, one question pushes all others out of the way:  what kind of life awaits a modern Lazarus?

A New Awakening

2   Page 58:  Self-help groups build both financial and human assets, employing principles of microfinance (see chapter1) to demonstrate the even the poorest people can save money, repay small loans, and develop their own businesses.

25.  Page 61:  When you live Hihiri Pipiri, your ancestors will come alive in your own village.  So you won’t go looking for that particular village; it will be here and now.”

Fr. Christu’s words reminded me that when I asked Sharmila what she was most proud of, she answered:

Earlier, if there was a problem, we ran to someone with an open hand, asking for help.  Today, we do not do that.  We go directly to our group full of confidence that we’ll get help.  Secondly, when we have a problem, we get more than material help; we get human resources.  This is what I am most proud of Hihiri Pipiri, indeed.

2    Page 63:  Freedom members are most proud of the group’s name.  Chabbi offered this explanation, “  The group has taught us to experience freedom:  freedom from superstition and ignorance, economic freedom, physical freedom, and mental freedom.”  Those freedoms have been earned through the tight discipline of weekly savings and loan payments and the growing social bonds within the group.

     Page 64: Fr. Christu Das, director of the Social Development Center of the Diocese of Dumka, too time to explain the key dynamics of self help groups.  His passion for human development and love of the Santal people were on vivid display as he talked about the balance between encouragement and challenge that he and his staff must provide.

We want to create a way for people to take their own life into their hands, a way for people to get their God-given dignity back.

2    Page 70: “ We experienced three kinds of results: saving time, increasing productivity, and making our relationships stronger.  Through these activities, we escaped the trap of money lenders.”

2   Page 71:  By the time we completed our tour, my questions about gender relations had become almost ritualistic.  In every village I asks “How did your husbands react to your participation in the group?”  The response in each group was the same: giggles.

And why not?  Social change is not easy.  Women like Sharmila, Chabbi, and Sushila, found that they were capable of so much more than they ever imagined.  They discerned “Hidden Skills.”  They determined that they could raise their families out of dollar-a-day poverty and discover a whole new set of life’s possibilities.   

3   Page 76:  Most self-help group candidates who run for office vie for a seat on the Panchayat Raj Institution (PRI).  The PRI is a local governmental structure, founded by Mahatma Gandhi, based on a Catholic social teaching concept called subsidiarity: the principle that the smallest possible social unit should take responsibility for social life.  The PRI ensures a local voice in determining where roads, bridges, wells, schools, and health centers will be built.  U.S. readers might understand the PRI as analogous to a U.S. city council, which determines how federal block grants are spent.

31  Page 81:  For Reflection:  The development we speak of here cannot be restricted to economic growth alone.  To be authentic, it must be well rounded;  it must foster the development of each person and the whole person.

Forgiving the Unforgivable

3   Page 97:  Hutu and Tutsi; There is one difference among the three that meant little in this part of Africa for centuries but became a defining characteristic under Belgian colonizers:: ethnicity.

My comment:  This draws out two questions:   Is our Western Civilization philosophy that took on an Enlightenment twist, the only way?  A way that through classification and division that was previously not required, or was it? 

3    Page 104:  What makes forgiveness difficult, she explained is when part or all the truth is withheld.  She, like many Rwandans, is still waiting for her neighbors to volunteer the truth.

3   Page 117:  Drocella forgave Philippe and invited his wife over for a long conversation.  Afterward, she returned two water jugs she had taken from their house while they were in exile.  The two families shared their story of reconciliation at church, to inspire others to tell the truth and forgive.  Philippe helped with occasional handyman work around her house for a while

But when the Gacaca courts began operation in 2004, a change came over Philippe.  He ‘got tired’ and no longer came over to work on the house.  He told his official confession, but omitted the names of his accomplices.  He even said in court, “You say you forgave me.  Forgiveness is not from you; it is from God and from [President] Kagame.’

Dorcella was crushed.  She thought, “I forgave, but I am still alone.  I will shudder all my life because I lose my children.  What’s going to happen to me?”  He roof leaked, and with every drip of water reinforced her sense of isolation

One of the parish justice and peace commissioners saw the condition of Dorcella’s home and offered help.  Commission members reconstructed her house, and the archdiocese contributed toe cost of the roof.  This response surpassed all of Drocella’s expectations and shored up her own healing.   Life after genocide remains a challenge for her, but she is not facing it alone.

My comment:  Forgiveness was under way until the Rwandan courts stepped in, under the eye of western civilization, to prosecute.  This broke down the cycle of forgiveness-redemption and brought these people back to a material world.  The Catholic Church eased the tension with material relief; but where the atrocity of genocide was on the forgiveness path it was derailed, by a ‘well intended’ government institution.

The Solidarity Economy

3   Page 132:  Since 2003, Catholic Relief Service [CRS] has supported CEOCAFAN with low-interesyt harvest loans and coffee purchases for the initial shipments of CRS-brand Fair Trade Coffee, while (CEOCOSMEAC awaited certification).  In turn CEOCAFAN has helped CEOCOSMEAC farmers with technical assistance as well as dry-milling services.  CEOCAFAN farmers in the village of Los Pinos showed our group what the future of the  solidarity economy might hold for CEOCOSMEAC farmers

3   Page 132: Alfredo Rayo and Maria Elsa Granados live in a spall concrete home like Jose’s in the town of Los Pinos.  Alfredo and Maria have lived in two-dollar-a-day poverty for most of their lives, but solidarity economy has begun to change that.  They still live simply, but now with more dignity.  They never go hungry.  The have divided their two-room house into four rooms. Each of their four children has a university education; two of their daughters hold degrees in computer engineering.  Their youngest son now attends college on a CEOCAFAN scholarship working as a tour guide in his spare time.

3   Page 134:  Every cup has a story;  this cup contain a village’s dream of decent health care for all of its residents.

3   Page 137:  CRS promotes the quality control efforts of Nicaraguans like Raul but also brings in the resources of other U.S. Catholic organizations, Professor Sue Jackels of Seattle University, a Jesuit institution, is a chemist who answered a specific call to solidarity.  Sue had attended meetings of a worldwide association of chemists from Jesuit universities (ISJACHEM) for several years.  In 2001, a college from the University of Central America (UCA)-Nicaragua stood up in a plenary session and encourages members of the organization to help lead a response to the coffee crisis:

He said, “as chemists, there is something we can do about it’”  I heard that and I thought, “Idon’t know what it is that I can do.  I just cant wrap my brain around the idea.”  But I started reading.  So the next year he got up and said that nobody had responded.   He said, “if we don’t  do something about this, I am going to stop coming to these meeting.”  Si I got up and said, “Okay, I am going to figure out something to do.  I’m going to consider something, some way to get involved.”  So I started reading more and talking to people on campus.

3    Page 138:  "CRS staff reported fears that the fermentation process was going awry for a significant number of CECOSEMAC farmers. “The concern was that the farmers were just letting the fruit mucilage ferment too long, and this was degrading the coffee quality, ”she explained. After studying the problem, Sue came to believe that an experiment measuring the changing acidity of the mucilage might help the farmers understand what was going wrong.

She and her husband, Charles, a chemist at the University of Washington-Bothell, applied for research sabbaticals to study the fermentation process in CECOSEMAC farms. In 2004, they traveled to Nicaragua with two of Sue's students, joining up with a University of Central America (UCA)-Nicaragua student to form a research team. They devised and carried out an experiment in response to the farmers' research questions, a scientific application of the preferential option for the poor. The small coffee plots became the Jackels' laboratory; the farmers became amateur chemists.

Sue and her team distributed pH strips to participating farmers, who measured the pH of three coffee samples at regular intervals during fermentation. They halted the process by washing the beans when the pH decreased to 4.6, 4.3, and 3.9 for the three samples. Lower pH indicated higher acidity.

Anyone who has baked a cake “until a toothpick comes out clean”will understand the late stages of coffee fermentation. If a farmer pokes the fermenting mucilage with a stick early in the process, the hole made by the stick fills in quickly. If she does so when the process is completed, the hole persists, and the beans rub against each other with more friction. If the farmer does not wash the beans soon enough, the fermentation continues, the coffee becomes too acidic, and taste quality is compromised (recall Raúl's acidity scale).

The research team gathered the coffee samples and then dried and roasted the beans. Raúl's CECOSEMAC laboratory and CECOCAFEN's quality control department then evaluated the various samples through a formal cupping process. The results indicated a correlation between the pH of the coffee at washing and the quality of the roasted coffee—the longer the fermentation, the more acidic the coffee, with an accompanying decline in taste quality. 6 Farmers then refined their practice of the traditional fermentation process based on the results. Their test for “doneness” remained the same—when a hole made by a stick persisted—but they gained valuable quantitative data that encouraged them to more carefully monitor the process and accurately" gauge its completion.

4   Page 141:  The  farmers are keenly aware of the role of technology and education in being keys to improving their process. They also have a very long-term view, which interested me.  I din’t  expect this.  When you talk to them about coffee, they’re not simply asking, “How will this help me next year?”  They are asking, “Will this help me develop a method of farming and an approach that will have sustainability over the long run?”

… without elements of the solidarity economy such as cooperative membership, Fair Trade-certification, the technical assistance provided through CRS and scientists like Sue and Charles.

41  Page 142:  low-income farmers produce a “cup of excellence.”  CRS has helped to usher in this new era of service-learning by respecting both the skills of low-income coffee farmers and the resources university and their professors have to offer.

4   Page 146:  Our bishop recognized that we live-even in our basic rural diocese here - in something of an American cocoon.  We’re not always aware of realities in other parts of the world, especially with regard to social justice.  Going into a relationship with people in another part of the world through our faith connection, that is really transformative.

4   Page 146:  Solidarity happens when you get to know each other, and you begin to share your faith and your relationship with each other

With all good intension, we still had this perception that we were going to visit poor people.  But I quickly found out that they’re just people.  They were intelligent, capable and very knowledgeable about the world.  The first thing you notice about them is that they are so full of joy.

4   Page 150:  Every perspective on economic life that is human, moral, and Christian must be shaped by three questions:   What does the economy do for people?  What does it do to people?  And how do people participate in it?

Afterword

4   Jesus tells us by word and example that true Christian living requires dialogue and engagement with the culture in which we live.  Commitment to peace and social justice, exercising a preferential option for the world’s poor, respecting the life and dignity or every human person across the full spectrum of life, are the litmus tests of our lives as Jesus’ disciples.  It is how we will be judged on the last day.  Shouldn’t we begin now to think, speak, and act differently?

Catholic Relief Services believes that Solidarity will transform not only the lives of poor people overseas, but our own lives as well, we are convinced.  A firm commitment to respect the sacredness and dignity of every human being, to share the goods of the earth equitably, to practice peace, justice, and reconciliation, and too cherish and protect the integrity of all creation will fundamentally change the lives of everyone on earth.  God has given the human race the ability to achieve such change.  Indeed, we are all called to be agents of that transformation, to be co –creators of the reign of God on earth.

The collective consciences must be raised.  Our awareness of global issues must be increased.  We cannot act if we do not know what to do.  We must educate ourselves, pass on our knowledge, and get involved.