A silent tsunami we can stop

A couple of weeks ago a friend and colleague posted a facebook note responding to the growing crisis in East Africa. Adam challenged his 632 facebook friends to respond by giving at least $20 each. He figured if people used social media and the resources they have available in a simple way such as this he could raise over $12,500. I was the only one to respond to Adam’s note suggesting I would call on my 786 facebook friends to do the same. I gave my $20 to a ‘Horn of Africa’ appeal that Sunday.

It’s this kind of optimism that caused Adam and I to start the ‘Blackwood famine village’ back in 2009 and then ‘party with a purpose‘ in 2010 to support the 40 hour famine. Our aim was to educate and recruit. Both concepts took off well in their pilot year but this year both are struggling for momentum. We went from raising $63K in 2009 to $78K in 2010 as a community helping to feed hundreds of starving children for an entire year. I worry this year that we won’t get close to our previous targets.

We have some valid concerns in our communities in Australia, so many I can’t count. Yet to put it in perspective we are still incredibly blessed in Australia. We have seen our fair share of tragedies and when we do, we respond. I was a chaplain in the aftermath of the Vic bushfires and I saw how Australia rallied around affected communities. My sister and her family are living in Toowoomba experiencing the same Aussie spirit helping their neighbours recover from floods.

In the case of East Africa we haven’t seen images of a wave washing cities away or rumble from an earthquake but I have been hearing reports of more than 13 million people displaced. Directly affected countries include Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan. We know how hard the 10 year drought was in Australia, they’re experiencing a 60 year drought! It’s the tsunami we don’t see.

Our friend and mentor for famine village, World Vision CEO Tim Costello, is with World Vision on the border of Kenya and Somalia at the moment. He has witnessed a refugee camp built for 90,000 people currently housing 400,000. He says there is at least 1000 more arriving everyday waiting outside the camp and they still don’t have access to food or clean water. Tim spoke at our party with a purpose launch event in Blackwood a couple of weeks ago and he spoke about Australians becoming inward looking because of the global financial crisis and other global external pressures that cause us to retreat, look inward and only look out for ourselves. He encouraged us that what we are doing in Blackwood is reminding our community that together we can make a difference. Our famine concept not only encourages us to give generously to save lives but we build one another up. Our community issues become a shared load, we rise above our own problems and we gain some perspective and realize that 13 million starving people is an unacceptable number.

What really blows me away is we actually do have the resources in our world to alleviate this crisis significantly. What I struggle with is we don’t all seem to have the will or the same optimism as my friend Adam. We need to transform our doubt into the belief that we can join with Tim and the World Vision team and many other fantastic organizations doing their bit to make a dramatic change. The UN are asking for $2.2 billion to alleviate the crisis. That’s about $2 from every facebook user. We may think the problem is too big but if everyone did their little bit we could send Africa a message about how compassionate the world really is toward their plight.

This year the 40 hour famine in Australia is focusing attention on East Timor being our closest neighbouring country. 1 million children face starvation there. However with the growing crisis in Africa I have just received word that 40 hour famine money will also be directed to places such as the refugee camp on the border of Kenya and Somalia.

Please, please help me raise money for the 40 hour famine and consider sponsoring me at Mark’s 40 hour famine donation page Let’s stop this tsunami!

Please also consider giving to organizations meeting the crisis head on in Africa. There are many so I am just going to name the ones I’ve been following and giving to.

World Vision Aus

Global Mission Partners

Shalom

Mark

Do you see me?

With 10 days to go until Verity’s CD launch I thought I’d better get cracking on this blog and continue reflecting on some of her songs. There is something subversive about messages contained in a song delivered with a sweet voice and a beautiful face. We receive the message differently to if we were told in a speech or written in a blog. Verity’s messages are piercing to the heart, confronting to our comfort zones, yet there is something that intrigues me to listen again and again. There is something that tugs at me to want to respond.

Profits at what cost?

Verity and I have been radically educated, first of all by our interest in fairtrade some years ago when we decided to which many of our grocery items to either fairtrade labels or Australian owned and grown products, but secondly by World Vision’s ‘Don’t Trade Lives‘ campaign. When we began this educational journey we discovered so much about the appalling living and working conditions of the people who produce the products we consume and about the companies who make massive profits off their suffering just so we can have a cheap product and shareholders can gain more profit for their share in the company.

New theme

I’ve chosen a new theme and blog title to go in partnership with my wife’s new CD coming out at the end of the month. I tend to be the writer/public speaker, while Verity is the songwriter/artist/musician.

Verity’s recording name is Verity Skye and she is about to release her debut album titled ‘Advocate – songs that will not be silenced’. It is a powerful theme with 12 powerful songs. She writes an amazing introduction in the second page of her CD booklet which is essentially a call to radical discipleship.

Chocolate back on the menu

Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate is back on the menu for Stopthetraffik fairtrade chocolate campaigners according to a press release sent out 2 weeks ago.

I know I’ve been a bit slow to respond to this on my blog but I have been a very active campaigner of fairtrade products and particularly fairtrade chocolate through World Vision’s ‘Don’t Trade Lives’ campaign.

The press release from Stopthetraffik is very encouraging because it goes to show that the tireless campaigning of people like you and me against the practises of the mega giant corporations and companies who use unethical practices to source and produce their products, can actually bring about change! Please read the PDF file and be encouraged. Cadbury’s are switching to faritrade this year! Who can now eat Cadbury’s chocolate and feel good about it! Here’s the next challenge. To date Mars and Nestle (Mars being the biggest and most powerful chocolate producing company in the world) still refuse to budge. However Cadbury’s move may have an impact on this.

Here’s what you can do. If you enjoy eating Mars and Nestle chocolate then make sure you write to them and let them know how much you want to enjoy their product if only they changed to fairtrade practices. With Cadbury’s move and consumer pressure you would think that they would start to listen. You can pray for a change of heart but even if they change their practices purely for competitive reason, that’s still a leg up for the thousands of child slaves in Africa used by these companies to source their cocoa.

I’ve included helpful links to assist with informing you of the dire situation of slave trading and how you can respond, below.

World Vision ran a very public ‘walk against slavery’ campaign in Adelaide end of last year headed up by Tim Costello and Sen. Chris Pearce. Sen. Pearce’s agenda is to get fairtrade chocolate into vending machines in Commonwealth buildings, while Tim is campaigning more for the abolition of slavery in the chocolate industry in this particular campaign. It was a great day to raise awareness.

Before I finish this post let me ask you a question. Will you be buying Easter eggs or other Easter chocolate related products this Easter? If so do you ask yourself deliberate ethical consumer questions like…where does this chocolate come from?

My challenge to you: Don’t just buy your favorite chocolate, or the cheapest chocolate, let ethical consumerism inform your choice and choose fairtrade. Feel good about eating chocolate this Easter and go fairtrade, it feels better and tastes better – it’s only fair!

So, where do you get these fairtrade chocolate bunnies and eggs from? Check out the Chocolatier at your local David Jones store, the Oxfam shop in your city and most Woolworths and Safeway stores will also stock them. This link will give you more information about where to shop.

Here are some helpful links where I have been involved in my campaigning that will infom and guide you to make ethical choices.

Don’t Trade Lives

Stop the Traffik

Ethical shopping guide

Have a ‘fair’ Easter, don’t trade lives, stop the traffik, make poverty history, make a massive difference through simple choices.

Shalom Mark

It’s all relative

Well, tonight Paris Hilton will appear at the much talked about New Year Eve party in Sydney. I’m not sure what disturbs me the most, the amount she is being paid to appear at the party, or the shallow entertainment news reports of her visit, anticipating how the night will unfold.

But the news item that seems to have caught the public eye this past 24 hours is Paris’ $5000 spending spree on clothes in Melbourne yesterday. It was significant enough to attract comment from Tim Costello on how else that money could be spent. Many people say ‘get over it, it’s her money let her do what she likes’. Yet it’s that attitude exactly that keeps the world stuck in this impoverished cycle of the rich who continue to be out of touch and acknowledge no real responsibility towards the poor whose choices are limited to basic survival.

You might say, ‘well it’s all relative’, $5000 is nothing to a rich girl like Paris, but for someone whose income is less than $5000 a year and has to feed and look after a family, it’s everything. So Paris’ excuse is, she already does her fair share of charity work, but I say it’s obviously not enough while people are still homeless, starving and dying preventable deaths from disease.

This is where community living back in the days of the newly established nation of Israel had great benefit for all. Those who earned more gave more and in theory, no-one was in need. It’s called the equal distribution of wealth. Call me an idealist, but I don’t think we are going to see poverty become history in our lifetime while we continue to idolize selfish brats with too much money than they know what to do with.

I heard Tim Costello comment on the world financial crisis recently and he said it’s not a financial crisis, it’s an ethical crisis. I agree. The greed of the greedy reached tipping point and this is the result of too many people trying to make an easy buck. Seriously we need to ask ourselves, whether we are investors, consumers, developers, whatever…are the financial choices I make ethical choices. For the everyday consumer go to www.ethical.org and test it out. When you invest or make a purchase are you asking yourself the right questions like, how does my choice affect the person at the other end of the line? The producer, the grower, the maker. My wife Verity has written a song in response to this ethical consumerism dilemma. Visit her website www.verityskye.com and if the song isn’t already added, ask her to add it. It’s powerful.

In response to Paris Hilton’s spending spree Tim Costello reminded people that $5000 would be enough to help sustain an entire village! Verity and I support a slum community in Bangkok through UNOH. In the new year we are extending our financial focus to supporting communities in Africa. For the past few of years we’ve been making conscious ethical and fairtrade choices about every product we buy. We don’t earn millions of dollars but we know we reside comfortably in within the richest 10% of people in the world. Our wealth can be distributed and help so many if only we are willing. It’s all relative I guess.

It’s not about ‘doing our bit for charity’, so I can sneak through life without a guilty conscience. it’s about having a heart for the suffering people of our world and believing against all the odds and negativity that I too can contribute what I can to make a difference so that all the people of the world may enjoy life, not just me. Verity and I and both our families got a real buzz out of giving all kinds of gifts to each other from TEAR, Wolrd Vision, Oxfam and COCOA this year knowing that our gift was a life changing gift for someone in an impoverished community. I bought my Nana a card from Oxfam that had this title on the front, ‘More power to granny’. My gift helps financially resource a group of indigenous Australian women elders provide support, education and encouragement to the indigenous youth so they might learn their customs and language and become future leaders in Australia.

This new year forget the self indulgent new years resolutions, make a commitment to change the world. You’ll feel so much better for it and make a difference at the same time.

Shalom
Mark