World Food Prize winner David Beckmann speaks in Chicago

Last night, I took advantage of a great opportunity to see and hear David Beckmann speak in Chicago. Rev. Beckmann is the president of Bread for the World- a Christian anti-hunger advocacy group – as well as this year’s World Food Prize winner. He spoke at the beautiful Fourth Presbyterian Church on Walnut downtown..a beautiful venue I’ve always wanted to take a peek into. It was a great chance to gather with other poverty fighters and hear reflections from someone who’s been doing this at least 4 times as long as I have.

Overall, Beckmann gives us a hopeful message. In this time of recession and frustration, he put into perspective how far we have come in fighting poverty around the world. Here are some highlights from his talk.

Reflections on Mozambique: In his travels to Mozambique he went to a village where he was greeted warmly by 50 people singing praises to God. This was a village where people raised only cassava on their small plots and ate the gooey food from it to survive. The village had no cars and only bikes. It was clear that they lived in extreme poverty, but not clear how any foreign aid had provided help. One of his colleagues asked them “How have they improved their lives in the last years?” The answers were highly significant: We have peace. We have a school now and even the AIDS orphans go to primary school. People with AIDS have access to retroviral medicines. We have information about AIDS and how to prevent it, no longer assuming it was a cause of witchcraft. Beckmann was struck by the reach of the US government to strongly impact their daily lives and by the work of the people at the local level & Mozambique government. Mostly, he was profoundly encouraged by the progress there, which in fact can be repeated many other places.

World progress against poverty: 26,000 kids die EVERY day from preventable causes, ½ of those from hunger related causes. But in 1960, 55000 kids died each day. This is remarkable progress made just in the last 2-3 decades. He sees this as evidence of God moving in our time. A God who liberates people in a great exodus from poverty. This is happening NOW.

“Give-a-damn”: Our progress has been sporadic. We did cut global poverty in ½ around the Johnson-Nixon eras. In the 1990’s it was cut by ¼. But it was not sustained progress. The difference between the times when we progressed and when we did not was “Give-a-damn.” We haven’t had a presided since Johnson that made poverty reduction a priortity.

Why politics and policy?: Why do we have to use the government instead of charitable food banks? Beckmann says you can’t food-bank your way to the end of poverty. We tried that. Food banks are a good thing and almost every church and synagogue has food collection for the hungry. But we are still hungry as a people. All our efforts result in food banking results in $5 billion worth of food for people per year. The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit (credits for low-income Americans) are worth more than twice as much as all the food banking done in a year.

Tax Credits: All the national talk and debate is about tax credits for the wealthy, but there are two credits for the working poor that may expire at the end of the year. The Earned Income Tax Credit should be a no-brainier. Conservatives like it because it rewards work. The more people work, the more they get. It is one of the biggest anti-poverty programs the US has today. If this reauthorization for EITC and the Child Tax Credit is not approved, then 1 million more kids will be pushed into poverty.

Biblical Examples of Policy change: Jesus cared about the effect of policies and law. He resisted laws that marginalized people, like the Sabbath law that prevented healing. St. Paul used his Roman citizenship for the purposes of God. Moses went to Pharaoh to change slavery.

Consequences of Inaction: 1 in 4 American kids live in a household that runs out of food. Permanent damage is being done to these kids that they (and we) will see the effects of for the next 50-60 years.

What can we do today?: It is time to call the faithful off the couch. The chances of getting things done are actually better than they have been. This is what we can do today, especially with the election right around the corner
1) Drive someone to the polls who couldn’t normally get there
2) Pick a candidate good for poor people and send them $50
3) Join Bread for the World and get engaged in citizenship on behalf of people in poverty. It’s not easy, you’ll have to use your head AND your heart.

Successes of Bread for the World:
1) In the last 10 years, we’ve tripled the development assistance to poor countries. The benefits are most clearly seen in Africa where 17 countries have cut poverty by 1/3. The work was done by Africans, but when they were organized and ready, we have the money available to help them
2) Foreign aid reform: Bread has been working on foreign aid reform for a few years pushing for effectiveness, responsibility, coordination, etc. When Obama took office, the administration was clear with Bread that it was not a priority and they couldn’t take time for it. So, Bread and its allies went to Congress with a foreign aid reform bill, which passed the Senate foreign relations committee. At that point, the administration took notice and said “Wait, give us a chance to do this.” And three weeks ago, Obama announced a clear, coherent policy of foreign aid. It’s a GOOD plan incorporating Bread’s ideas and some of the administration’s own.
3) Sustaining WIC programs to provide food for pregnant women and infants. Beckmann shared a touching personal story of finding out how Bread’s fight to sustain these programs when they were under attack during Reagan’s administration helped his own family. Long after that fight was over and won, he discovered that one of his adopted sons was born of a mother who struggled in poverty and was able to care for herself during pregnancy only because of these programs that Bread had fought for. His son is bright and strong, but may not have been if the mother had no access to government assistance.

Beckmann’s talk was inspiring and moving. To hear more about his account of how Christians are called to change the politics of hunger, pick up his book (available now on Amazon.com) “Exodus from Hunger” and if you are so moved, go to www.bread.com to join Bread for the World

Sign Petition for Obama to support foreign assistance

If you agree with this statement - "I strongly support U.S. foreign assistance efforts that alleviate poverty, fight disease, and create opportunity in developing countries" - sign Bread for the World's petition to President Obama:

Right now, President Obama and his senior advisors are preparing recommendations that will shape the future of U.S. efforts to alleviate poverty, fight disease, and create economic opportunity for the world’s poorest people.

Please sign the petition launched by Bread and our partners asking the White House to send a strong signal about America’s commitment to development. We need 150,000 signatures by December 17. Add your name today.

Foreign Assistance Call-in Event: S. 1524

An immediate call-in action From Bread for the World. NOTE: Sens Durbin and Burris are not yet co-sponsors!
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We need 25 senators to cosponsor S. 1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act, when the Senate begins discussing it on September 22.

Please call your senators at 1-800-826-3688 before Tuesday, September 22, and urge him/her to cosponsor S. 1524.

S. 1524 is a bipartisan bill which lays out several initial and important reforms of the U.S. foreign assistance system. If your senator is not a cosponsor please ask for cosponsorship. If your senator is already a cosponsor, please call and thank him/her for supporting this important legislation.

S. 1524 was introduced in August by John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Richard Lugar (R-IN), ranking member, along with Bob Corker (R-TN), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Jim Risch (R-ID). We need to have at least 25 cosponsors when they meet on Sept. 22. Currently, the bill has 10 cosponsors.

S. 1524 complements H.R. 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act, introduced in the House in April. (Thanks to your support, we now have more than 100 cosponsors for the House bill). These two bills are key to the success of our 2009 Offering of Letters which urges Congress and the administration to reform U.S. foreign assistance.

While not identical, the Senate and House bills would begin the reform process. S. 1524 will strengthen the badly decimated U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and make all our foreign aid programs more accountable and transparent.


Message and Key Points:

Your main message should be: Please cosponsor S. 1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act.

You can explain your message further by adding either or both of these points:

-S. 1524 is a strong building block to make our nation’s foreign assistance more effective and accountable. We need you to cosponsor the bill.
-S. 1524 focuses on rebuilding the policy, planning, and evaluation capacity of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID.) It stresses that U.S. policy should be to promote global development, good governance, and the reduction of poverty and hunger.

For more info, visit www.bread.org. Thank you for your support!

2009 Bread Lobby Day a success

I couldn't attend Bread for the World's Lobby Day in Washington, DC to lobby for Foreign Assistance Reform, but many of my colleagues did. Sounds like it was a great success. I, myself, followed up a week later with the RESULTS group (more on that later!)...but I did keep my Bread hat on and made sure we talked about Foreign Aid as well to reinforce the message! Here's a Bread update about it... -ccyl

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Foreign Assistance Reform

Lobby Day 2009, held June 16, was an enormous success! Some 320 participants from 38 states held more than 180 meetings with members of Congress or their staff.
By the end of the week, 11 more members of Congress cosponsored H.R. 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009. The bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), received more than 25 phone calls from other congressional offices asking for more information.
As of yesterday, H.R. 2139 had 46 cosponsors. More are set to cosponsor as a result of Lobby Day and your calls and letters.
We are preparing for the introduction of an initial foreign assistance reform bill in the Senate within the next few weeks.
Thank you to all who attended, and also to all who could not attend Lobby Day but phoned their representatives about H.R. 2139.

John Kerry to introduce foreign aid reform in Senate

Somehow I missed this. This was sent out by Bread for the World's president David Beckmann on May 22.

Exciting developments for foreign aid reform have happened in Washington, DC, this week—largely because of the persistent advocacy of Bread for the World’s grassroots network. Officials are starting to take notice. Yesterday, Senator John Kerry made an important speech calling for the comprehensive reform of foreign aid. He announced his plans to introduce a companion bill to the House’s Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 2139) in the Senate. The Obama administration has begun to weigh in on the issue as well.

Jan Schakowsky signs onto HR 2139!

Breaking news: WE DID IT!! On Thurs, Jan Schakowsky signed on to co-sponsor HR 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act.

This bill (co-introduced by Mark Kirk, R-10th) will start the process of revamping our outdated Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (which controls all the ways we provide help to people in poverty around the world). For more info on it, you can see the Bread for the World video: http://www.offeringofletters.org/video.html There will be more for us to do on this in the fall when it involves the Senate, too, but for now please thank her for her support if you are a IL-9th district constituent.

Bread for the World and RESULTS have worked together and diligently with her office to get this to happen. When I called her staff about about HR 2139s, her global affairs aide pulled up the bill and said "Yes, what IS this exactly?" and didn't think they would be needed to sign on. Because of constituent letters and phone calls, we were able to open a door of communication for the DC anti-poverty staff, educate her office about HR 2139 and gain her co-sponsorship.

I've provided a sample letter for you to personalize if that can help you.

-ccyl

PS Don't forget your address on the letter and on the outside envelope! Sending it to her district office in Evanston will be fastest...

The Honorable Jan Schakowsky
820 Davis Street, Suite 105
Evanston, IL 60201

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Date

Dear Congresswoman Schakowsky,

Thank you for co-sponsoring H.R. 2139, the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act. This bill is a good first step in making our nation’s foreign assistance more effective and streamlined. As your constituent, I am very happy to see your leadership in our country's effort to help people in desperate need. Please work to ensure the bill maintains a focus on poverty so that we can provide the most good for the people who need it the most.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Address

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Some additional points to play with...

-U.S. foreign assistance has helped reduce child deaths, improve agricultural capacity, and increase school enrollment. But more lives can be saved if we improve the way foreign aid is delivered.
- By making our foreign assistance more efficient and effective, U.S. assistance will have a greater impact on poor and hungry people around the world - critical in these tough economic times
- Reforming foreign aid get the most of our tax dollars makes good economic sense for our country and for people in extreme poverty struggling to survive on less than $1.25 a day.

Lobbying for HR2139: train station and asian grocery

Bread for the World activist Carlos Navarro shows us that how we can lobby on poverty issues anytime anywhere. New Mexico reps were out and about the state in a few unlikely places. He blogs about how he and another Bread activist sought them out to ask for their co-sponsorhip on the "Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform" bill.

This is my favorite part....
"It was with great delight that we discovered that Rep. Heinrich was holding "office hours" in the deli section of Talin World Market. This store started as an Asian supermarket, but has expanded its scope to include foods from the Caribbean, Italy, Egypt, and other regions. What better place to discuss a bill on international issues with our member of Congress? I spent a little more time with Mr. Heinrich than I did with Mr. Teague. He gave me almost as much time as we get during our Lobby Day meetings in Washington. The difference here is that we were surrounded by meat and food cases and wonderful smells!"

Bravo, Mr. Navarro!

Foreign Assistance Reform Bill Update (5/5/09)

Happy Cinqo de Mayo! A few notes about the new Foreign Assistance Reform Bill from Bread for the World...
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-Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), member of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 2139), on April 28.

-Bread is working quickly to gain cosponsors for the bill since it is expected to move rapidly from the House Foreign Affairs Committee to the House floor. It is likely that the committee will work on the bill before Congress begins its Memorial Day recess on May 23.

- The bill is a critical first step toward making foreign assistance more effective, efficient, and transparent. It calls on the president to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy for global development, improve the evaluation of development programs, and increase the transparency of U.S. foreign assistance to developing countries.

- Rep. Berman said that the bill is a “down payment” on a broader bill to improve foreign assistance that he plans to introduce later this year.

Foreign Assistance Reform Bill Introduced by Berman and Kirk

I'm going out of my mind with excitement about this one, everybody! MARK KIRK INTRODUCED A FOREIGN ASSISTANCE BILL I'VE LOBBIED HIS OFFICE ON!!!!! Yeah! My Bread for the World church wrote him letters, my RESULTS group wrote him letters and went into his district office to lobby his district aide, I talked to his DC aide on the phone...and now I see how all this pays off when we have the big guns out in DC working their end. I honestly did not expect to see any movement on this until much later. I'm feeling really great doing my little part in this movement to push this big Foreign Assistance ship around. Thanks to everyone taking me on this journey with you!

Gotta go...lotsa work to do still...starting with a thank you letter to Congressman Kirk and a call to his aide!

Here's the scoop from Bread for the World today....
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Bread for the World President Pushes for Support, Co-Sponsorship of New Foreign Aid Reform Bill


Washington, DC, April 29, 2009 –Rev. David Beckmann, president, Bread for the World, and co-chair, Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), today urged members of the House of Representatives to pass the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 2139).

The bill was introduced last night by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA-28), chairman of the House foreign Affairs Committee and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL-10). It requires President Barack Obama to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy for global development, improve evaluation of development programs, and increase the transparency of U.S. foreign assistance to developing countries.

“It is a good initial step in making our nation’s foreign assistance more effective, efficient, and transparent,” said Rev. Beckmann. “Coordinating and improving our foreign assistance can have far-reaching effects on reducing hunger and poverty, making the world more politically stable. In turn, a more effective U.S. foreign assistance system would make for a more secure United States.”

Rev. Beckmann said that a comprehensive U.S. strategy for global development needs to be linked to an ongoing monitoring and evaluation system to determine what works and what does not. Requiring any agency that provides funding to post related information on a public website or other public forum will bring increased transparency and accountability to the people being served by these programs and to U.S. taxpayers.

Currently, U.S. global development policies and programs are scattered across 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and nearly 60 government offices. “In these difficult economic times, a more efficient foreign assistance system—with better coordination, better accountability, better clarity—will ensure that people get help faster and more effectively,” said Rev. Beckmann.

U.S. foreign assistance is still largely governed by a law passed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. “It is woefully outdated, inefficient, and ill equipped to provide the level of relief needed to address hunger and poverty in today’s more complex world,” said Rev. Beckmann. “U.S. foreign assistance has helped reduce child deaths, improve agricultural capacity, and increase school enrollment. But more lives can be saved if we improve how we deliver foreign aid. It will mean less waste and more impact for our tax dollars.”

More detail on Kerry-Lugar passage

Just a little more detail on the Kerry-Lugar win (from RESULTS)
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The Kerry-Lugar Amendment to increase the International Affairs budget by $4 billion to match President Obama's request was just approved on the Senate floor. The amendment passed by unanimous consent after it became clear that there were going to be enough votes to pass the measure. This amendment will increase the amount available to the Appropriations Committee to allocate to key health, education and anti-poverty programs. Thanks again for mobilizing quickly on this amendment. There were many organizations acting in unison to support this amendment, and it clearly made a difference.
Please take a moment to THANK those Senators who co-sponsored the amendment:
Jeff Bingaman (D), Barbara Boxer (D), Sherrod Brown (D), Robert Casey (D), Bob Corker (R), Christopher Dodd (D), Richard Durbin (D), Dianne Feinstein (D), Edward Kaufman (D), John Kerry (D), Patrick Leahy (D), Joseph Lieberman (I), Richard Lugar (R), Robert Menendez (D), Bernard Sanders (I), George Voinovich (R), Edward Kennedy (D)

Kerry-Lugar Amendment Passes Unanimously!!!

From Bread for the World's Senior International Policy Analyst, sent 3:26PM on Wed, April 1
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"Way to build the pressure everyone!! The Kerry-Lugar amendment passed by unanimous consent just a few minutes ago!! This will bring the Senate FY10 budget resolution back in line with the President’s request and put us in a much better position for conference with the House.'

Thank you for all of your help on this – this was a great community effort!

Urgent Action: Don't let the Senate cut the International Affairs budget!

Bread for the World and RESULTS are both asking for our help NOW! Please read on...
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Please call Senators Durbin and Burris by noon Eastern Time, Thursday, April 2, at 1-800-826-3688. Ask your senators to support the Kerry-Lugar amendment to restore $4 billion to the International Affairs Budget and oppose any further cutting amendments.

[Note: This toll-free number will connect you to the Capitol switchboard, where you will ask to be connected to your senator's office in order to leave your message.]

Background:
The budget resolution is the first step in the congressional decision-making process on the federal budget. The president submitted his request for the fiscal year 2010 budget in mid- February. His budget request included $53.8 billion for the International Affairs accounts, including foreign assistance. The president's budget includes items that have previously been categorized as "emergency spending" into the base budget, making this a $4 billion increase over the 2009 levels.

After the president submits his budget proposal, the Senate and the House Budget Committees develop separate budget resolutions. The budget resolution makes changes in tax policy and mandatory spending (i.e. Medicare, Social Security) and sets a ceiling for the total amount of discretionary spending (i.e. health research, defense, foreign assistance). The resolution provides guidance to the Appropriations Committee on the amount each area of discretionary spending should receive.

Last week, the two budget committees finalized their respective resolutions. The Senate Budget Committee's recommendation would flatline the International Affairs budget at last year's level of $49.8 billion and provides no increase despite the increased challenges developing countries are facing with the global economic crisis and continuing high prices for food.

The Kerry-Lugar amendment would restore $4 billion to the International Affairs budget in the Senate Budget Resolution to bring it in line with the president's request. Your senators' support for the amendment is crucial. Ask them to also vote against any amendments that may come to the Senate floor seeking to further cut this important area of the budget.

This first step in the fight over the International Affairs budget is a critical one to let us we keep our promises to help the world's poorest people. Later, we'll work to make sure that a significant portion of the International Affairs budget goes to the programs that are making a real difference in the developing world. But that fight will be much more difficult if we don't get a high level of funding here and now.

[Note: We are not targeting the House for action at this time because their floor process does not allow for this kind of amendment.]

Message:
The International Affairs budget is essential to building hope and opportunity around the world. The current FY 2010 Senate budget resolution shortchanges this important work. Please support the Kerry-Lugar amendment to restore the funding to the International Affairs account that was cut in the Budget Committee.

Key points:

Vote for the Kerry-Lugar amendment and oppose any cutting amendments.
In addition to supporting vital diplomatic efforts around the world, the International Affairs budget also supports effective programs focused on poverty reduction by improving agriculture, nutrition, health, water and education systems.
The U.S. should not shortchange these critical programs affecting millions of poor and hungry people around the world, especially in these difficult economic times.

Calls completed by: Noon on Thursday, April 2. But the sooner, the better as the vote can come at any time!

Bread for the World's 2009 Offering of Letters

Hundreds of Bread for the World Covenant churches around the nation are holding the Offering of Letters with their congregations. Maybe the best way I can explain it is by posting my opening remarks I've written for my own congregation this Sunday.... -ccyl
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Welcome to “Offering of Letters” Sunday!

This is my favorite Sunday at First Church. Easter’s coming up and it’s very impressive, but today is when we collectively take on one of the biggest tasks Christianity calls us to do… you and I will take action together in an effort to do no less than end poverty.

Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. Every year at Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, we sit down after worship in the Great Hall to write letters to Congress on behalf of people in poverty. We each write 3 letters (to 2 Senators and one Representative) to join over a hundred thousand more letters from other churches pushing for policies reflecting our moral obligation to aid the poorest people in our world.

This year, we have a simple request about a complicated system of Foreign Aid. All the money the U.S. sends to fight global poverty is regulated by a 48 yr old Foreign Assistance Act. It’s outdated and now has aid going through across 12 departments, 25 agencies and nearly 60 government offices – all with different and sometimes conflicting priorities.

Foreign aid works for people like Nubia Bacca of Nicaragua. Two years after nearly losing her dairy cattle when her husband died, she is now running a self-sufficient farm employing 9 others in her community using farming and husbandry techniques she learned from a US development assistance program. So, our aid works, but we need it to work better and for more people.

We’re not even asking for more money this year. We just want better use of our tax dollars in a time when we have none to waste.

Here’s our message today: Reform foreign aid. Make it efficient, accountable and effective for children, women and men living and dying on less than $1.25 a day. A poverty-focused foreign assistance system would provide help faster and more effectively when the world needs it most.

Please join us in the Great Hall after worship today. Your letters are a fit offering to God.

Barbara Lee introduces res: 1% of GDP for foreign aid

Feb 25, 2009, Rep Barbara Lee of California Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced legislation expressing support for providing, on an annual basis, an amount equal to no less than one percent of United States Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for non-military foreign assistance programs. Click here to see the announcement on her website.

"Yay!" that it is even an official resolution to consider, debate and inspire public discussion no matter what is in it! I don't yet know the particulars of the resolution or how it is being received, but I did think it was interesting is that ONE wasn't immediately jumping all over this. They are probably just being prudent and taking their time to develop a proper statement about it, but ONE activists in her district have been talking about how they are waiting on ONE's position...saying that ONE is waiting for the bill to have bipartisan support.

I mean, this is what many anti-pov groups have been pushing for...ONE more than any of them. So I hope they come out with a supportive statement soon...supportive of Rep. Lee's commitment if not for the details of the legislation. Anyway, I thought the existence of the resolution might make a good launching point for some media writing about foreign aid since ONE, Bread, RESULTS, Oxfam and everyone else are agreeing that no matter how much or how little we are spending on foreign assistance, we ought to be doing it wisely by reforming the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

ccyl

Let's Talk Bread: Feb recap

I'm a bit late on this, but here is the recap from the last "Let's Talk Bread" discussion. We had activists from Bread for the World, RESULTS and ONE as well as general concerned citizens at this lively discussion about foreign aid and the need to reform it this year. Anyone interested in networking with Chicago activists fighting global poverty is welcome to join us at our next meeting: Thurs., Mar. 26 from 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. at United Lutheran Church, 409 Greenfield Street, Oak Park.

This recap was written by Zach Schmidt from Bread for the World's Chicago office. Feel free to continue the discussion by commenting here!
-ccyl
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Hi everyone!

Thank you all for a lively and fruitful discussion last night. Many people were talking and sharing their thoughts, listening and challenging each other to more deeply engage the issues of hunger and reforming US foreign assistance. It was a great night! Thank you all for allowing me to help facilitate discussion.

As promised, some of the key points/themes that stand out in my mind are:
-the tension between demanding or asking or expecting certain actions
-from whom actions are demanded/asked/expected (from our leaders, from our neighbors, from ourselves)
-responsibility
-ways in which we are currently engaged in advocacy and activism (from clicking on The Hunger Site to organizing a group of moms to write letters to their representative)
-what is required so that all might have the basic essentials for a decent life (sacrificing luxuries, redirecting a small percentage of US GDP toward the Bottom Billion, reforming US trade policy, putting the issues before our legislators and demanding/asking/expecting a response, etc.)
-some different arguments for the importance of reducing poverty and hunger (especially, the self-interest argument(s) vs. the moral argument(s))
-why people still suffer from hunger (e.g., lack of sustained awareness of hunger)
-most people, when faced with the reality of extreme poverty and hunger, will be amenable to the need to help. The problem is people are not aware in a way that deeply grips them on a daily basis.

As I said last night, I did not take notes, so this is from memory. I apologize if I am missing someone’s great contribution! And I would invite people to Reply to All and continue the discussion via email.

Have a blessed week!

Let's Talk Bread mtg: 2/24

The Let's Talk Bread discussions about Foreign Aid Reform have been very successful and are going deeper on the topic every time. Therefore, we'll dedicate at least one more session to it. Here are the details!
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The next meeting will be Tues., Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. The location is the same: United Lutheran Church, 409 Greenfield St, Oak Park, IL.

We have agreed to continue the conversation on foreign assistance reform during the next meeting. If you have not done so, please read the informative 2009 Hunger Report from the Bread for the World Institute, found at: www.hungerreport.org. If you would like, you can order a hard copy from the website at www.bread.org (cost is $25). Or you can simply view it online. Please also look over the Study Guide, found by clicking the link at the top of the page. We will use the Study Guide as a springboard for our next discussion.

Bono on Wall Street

"I am not qualified to comment on what has happened in the last week where this city has changed shape, certainly psychologically, and in terms of some people's wallets. And I'm not qualified to comment on the interventions that have been put forth. I presume these people know what they're doing. But it is extraordinary to me that you can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion to save 25,000 children who die every day of preventable, treatable disease and hunger." -Bono at the Clinton Global Initiative

Link to Clinton Global Initiative (Dig that Rocketeer music that introduces Pres Clinton!!!)

Improving American Aid

I just finished sending an on-line letter to people of prominence in the effort to improve the quality of foreign aid. Here's a message on behalf of me and the ONE campaign....
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I think it's important that we not only give more foreign assistance, but that what we do give is spent in the most effective way possible. To that end, I just sent a letter to the Director of US Foreign Assistance, the President of the World Bank, and a couple of other important development figures asking them to publish information about what aid projects they are funding.

I hope that you'll join me in taking action by sending a letter: http://www.one.org/international/accra/?rc=accrataf

We've seen aid achieve some amazing things in recent years - like over 29 million more children in school for the first time, and over 2 million more Africans with access to AIDS medications. But some aid money could be spent more effectively, and this is our best chance to make it happen.

Thank you
ccyl