Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Sen. Jeff Bingaman Cosponsors Global Poverty Act

New Mexicans had written more than 1,000 letters to our two senators as part of Bread for the World's 2008 Offering of Letters. The last line of our letter had a simple request for Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Sen. Pete Domenici: Please cosponsor S2433

Here's the description in Thomas, the legislative search engine for the Library of Congress

S2433
A bill to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.


I can't help but think that the 509 letters that were sent to Sen. Bingaman may have had some influence in his decision to become the 19th sponsor of S2433 Click here to see full list of sponsors.

The companion bill in the House was HR1302, which was approved by a voice vote in September 2007. The House bill had 84 cosponsors, including Rep. Tom Udall.


So what's next? Our task is to convince Sen. Pete Domenici to become the 20th cosponsor of the S2433. After all, he's received 546 letters from New Mexicans this year. Even though the majority of cosponsors are Democrats, there are some powerful Republicans like Sen. Richard Lugar and Sen. Chuck Hagel backing this legislation.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

An Anti-Poverty Task Force

Two former presidential candidates announced the creation of anti-poverty initiatives in the early part of May.

The larger initiative, the
Half in Ten campaign, was unveiled in Philadelphia on May 13 by Sen. John Edwards. That initiative, chaired by the former presidential candidate, aims to cut poverty in country by one-half in 10 years.










This campaign brings together four organizations with the experience, knowledge, and resources to make this goal a reality: ACORN, the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR).
Click here to see a video.

Four days earlier on May 9, another ex-presidential candidate, Gov. Bill Richardson, released details of his new task force
focused on reducing poverty in New Mexico. The governor announced the initiative following a round table discussion with poverty experts and community leaders. The press release announcing the initiative made no mention of any link to the Half in Ten campaign.

But it should be no coincidence that the two programs were announced within days of each other. After all, 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty threshold. In New Mexico,
350,000 residents of the residents of our state are living in poverty.

Many of us already know that Sen. Edwards is one of the top anti-poverty advocates in our country. Gov. Richardson is known more prominently outside our state borders for his diplomacy efforts and his foreign policy experience. And even inside New Mexico, the governor's public-works projects and his infamous fights with the state legislature perhaps get more press than his anti-poverty initiatives.

During the presidential campaign, activists from The ONE Campaign around the country followed every candidate from both parties to get them to commit to reducing global poverty and to support the Millennium Development Goals, also known as the MDGs. This is all part of the Vote ONE 08 campaign. (Pictured above with the governor is Michael Castaldo, a ONE activist from New Hampshire)

Richardson, a former UN ambassador, readily supported these goals, as did most of the other candidates. The governor even issued a press release supporting the MDGs.

And the governor's Task Force to End Hunger, which is now defunct, got very little attention in the press. The task force achieved one important objective, which was to keep hunger reduction a legislative priority.

But perhaps that's not enough. There needed to be some sort of follow up.
Since hunger and poverty are intrinsically related, the creation of the new task force makes sense.

Said the press release from the governor's office: The gap between rich and poor is at historic levels and many full time jobs do not pay enough to raise employees out of poverty. Strikingly, nearly a third of working women in full-time jobs do not earn enough to raise themselves and their children out of poverty.

While our state's economy is expanding, figures show the income gap is widening," said a press release from the governor's office. "We can not allow our neighbors to fall behind. We must be bold in our solutions to help struggling families make ends meet."
Task force members will consider and research a range of issues:
  • Strategic initiatives to address hunger, housing and child care needs
  • Adequate compensation and a fair minimum wage
  • Changes in the working family and child care tax credits
  • More equity in the unemployment compensation system
  • Easing access to higher education
  • Making it easier for people to move to areas with better employment opportunities
  • Assisting former prisoners in finding employment

"At this point, nothing is off the table," Richardson said. "We must attack the problem from every angle if we're going to see significant changes."

The task force is comprised of a very impressive list of academics and leaders of community organizations. I know four of those members fairly well. These experts and community leaders deal with all aspects of the poverty issue including: affordable housing, child care, hunger, wages, employment, tax policy, and community services. Mary Garcia of the Albuquerque Indian Center, Ruth Hoffman of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry, Susan Tiano, Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico, Sharron Welsh from the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust, Reverend Charles Becknell from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Melody Wattenberger of the Roadrunner Food Bank, Allen Sanchez from the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, Mike Loftin of Homewise, Greg Ortiz from the All Indian Pueblo Council, and Richard Santos, Professor of Economics at the University of New Mexico.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

All it Takes is ONE Student

(Note: For the fourth year in a row, a school in New Mexico has embraced Bread for the World's Offering of Letters. But it takes someone within the school to care enough to bring the issue, whether domestic or global poverty , to the students and teachers.

In 2005, and 2006, teachers Karina Doyle at St. Michael's High School in Santa Fe and Emily Thorn at Menaul School in Albuquerque had their classes write letters to Congress . See previous post
.

In 2007, Emily had several students and teachers sign a big banner related to the 2007 Farm Bill, which we delivered to Rep. Heather Wilson on Lobby Day. See picture in this post (Scroll to the bottom).


Then this year, there is Kyra-Ellis Moore, a 15-year-old at Albuquerque High School, who came to our Offering of Letters workshop. (That's her pictured with Bread member Marge Williams at the OL workshop in March). Kyra was so inspired by the presentations that she decided to try to hold an Offering of Letters at her school, one of more than a dozen public high schools in Albuquerque. While it would have been ideal for the students to actually sit down and write letters, Kyra did the practical thing. She had the letters ready for the students. But she made sure that they understood the content of the letter before signing. Anyway, I'll let her tell the story....
)

ALBUQUERQUE HIGH SCHOOL CARES ABOUT GLOBAL POVERTY
By Kyra Ellis-Moore


I am a 15-year-old freshman at Albuquerque High School. I have been working with Bread for the World and The ONE Campaign for several years now, and have participated in many events such as vigils and The Center for Action and Contemplation's Stations of the Cross (the year when the main theme was The Millennium Development Goals).

I have done a lot of work with Bread for the World through my church, Saint Andrew Presbyterian, largely thanks to Ester Schneider and Carlos Navarro. Ester is wonderful lady who coordinates many of the church’s mission projects, many of which are in conjunction with Bread for the World. Carlos, a local grassroots leader for Bread for the World, brings opportunities for service to the church and Ester helps to get us involved.

Recently, Ester brought the Offering of Letters to the attention of our congregation. She had letters already printed out asking our Senators and Representative to support poverty eradication efforts. Ester was able to get 74 letters from our church, a huge amount considering the rather small size of our congregation. I wrote three letters, one to each politician, and decided to bring some of the letters to my school to try and get more youth involved.

I initially made 20 copies of each letter, 60 letters in all for people to sign, and these were all signed within a day or two. I had to continue making more and more copies to keep up with the extremely positive response I was getting from my peers. I am a senator at Albuquerque High, and I brought the letters to the school Senate, and talked a little bit about the Millennium Development Goals so that they new why the campaign was happening, and I was met with overwhelming participation.

When I first asked people to sign the letters they seemed a little bit guarded and wanted to know what they were about, but the moment I said it was for poverty eradication they asked for one. I also got a few letters from teachers at my school who were very glad that the students were getting involved in a cause that they knew to be extremely important. All in all I got 220 letters. I addressed all of these letters and brought them back to Saint Andrew for the offering and blessing, and then all 294 letters were sent out.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

The Drama of Hunger

Originally published in the Bread blog, May 3, 2008

Machine1blogI am convinced
That if all mankind
Could only gather together
In one circle
Arms around each other's shoulders
And dance, laugh and cry
Together
Then much
of the tension and burden
of life
Would fall away
-Leonard Nimoy
How many times have we thought to ourselves that ending hunger and poverty is an insurmountable problem? And how many times have we countered that thought by considering the possibilities if we all put our hearts and minds together to address this problem.
And then you're faced with considering a wide range of emotions.
Do you cry because the suffering is so real? Consider the example of a mother (anywhere in the world) having to choose between feeding her children and getting enough to eat.
Do you laugh because we want to make fun of some of the situations that cause the suffering? For example, any clown can tell you that that the amount of money we spend on some goods and services (ice cream, perfume, ocean cruises, pet services) every year far exceeds what it would cost hunger and malnutrition at the global level.
Laugh? or Cry? or Both?
That's what the students enrolled in the class Hunger: A Theatrical Expression considered as part of a class project. This was one of more than a dozen classes offered through the Research Service Learning Program at the University of New Mexico during the spring semester 2008.
The class involved many aspects of theater, from writing the script to designing the set and costumes to acting out the various roles that they created in a play entitled Hungry Machine. Before the students wrote the script, they had to do extensive research to ensure that their play was not a superficial look at hunger. The looked at a wide range of resources (including several copies of the Bread for the World Institute's annual hunger reports) and held dialogues with a couple of guest speakers. "They spent the entire first month of the semester doing research," said Anna Saggese, one of two instructors Anna and fellow instructor Riti Sachdeva also directed the play.
Here's an excerpt from the program:
"One in three New Mexicans face food insecurities"
With this sentence, the class began a journey of discovery. We wanted to know what food insecurity is, who feels it, what it looks like, tastes like, where it begins and how to combat it. Through the research process, we started to unearth our personal relationships with food. We saw how food is an integral part of family, culture, survival and saiety. We looked at a lack of food and its impact on the individual and our larger communities.
The students then proceeded to put together the play, which consisted of about 10 vignettes involving many topics related to hunger, poverty and food. Some were monologues, others involved mimes and clowns. There was even a humorous sketch where a schoolteacher-type nun (with a German accent!) spoke about the impact of genetic engineering on the food supply. Underlying the various topics were what the students determined were six causes or effects of hunger: gender discrimination, vulnerability of children and the elderly, population growth and consumption, poverty and powerlessness, violence and militarism, and racism and ethnocentricity.
Here's what they said:
As we shared our writing we noticed interesting connections. Most of our main characters are women. A few are pregnant women. We realize a definite connection between food and mothers. Most of the monologues address topics that evoke a multitude of responses: anger, grief, fear, and even laughter. This performance is testimony to our process of uncovering the very complex truths about hunger in our state and in our world.
The resulting product was a very powerful play that spoke to the audience at many levels, with the message that hunger, while complex, is a problem that can be solved if we take time to learn about its underlying causes. Click here for program and cast information
To express their commitment to addressing the problem, the students in the class decided to include the opportunity for the audience to write letters as part of Bread for the World's 2008 Offering of Letters campaign, which asks Congress to increase funding for poverty-focused development assistance by at least $5 billion.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

The Cast and Program of Hungry Machine

















Cast members in alphabetical order:
Hope Armijo, Laurel Butler*, James Camancho, Samantha Emord*, Mia Jumbo*, Adrian Martinez, Chantel Purcells, Sabri Sky*, Santiago Trujillo, Hassina Youssaf, Safia Youssaf*, Barbara Wilson*

Instructors/Directors: Anna Saggese and Riti Sachdeva

*Indicates member of Research Service Learning Class Hunger: A Theatrical Expression
















Thursday, May 1, 2008
Outch'yanda Performance space
Albuquerque, N.M.

Program
(See write-up about play in Bread blog)

"One in three New Mexicans face food insecurities"

With this sentence, the class began a journey of discovery. We wanted to know what food insecurity is, who feels it, what it looks like, tastes like, where it begins and how to combat it. Through the research process, we started to unearth our personal relationships with food. We saw how food is an integral part of family, culture, survival and saiety. We looked at a lack of food and its impact on the individual and our larger communities.

Then we wrote.

As we shared our writing we noticed interesting connections. Most of our main characters are women. A few are pregnant women. We realize a definite connection between food and mothers. Most of the monologues address topics that evoke a multitude of responses: anger, grief, fear, and even laughter. This performance is testimony to our process of uncovering the very complex truths about hunger in our state and in our world.

RUNNING ORDER
1. Tomato Love Letter Full Company

2. Dear Ancestors by Sofia Youssof


Machine -Gender Discrimination


3. Eggsong (Salt of the Earth) by Laurel Butler


4. Taa Nil: Blue Corn Mush by Mia Jumbo


Food Survey


5. A World Apart by Barbara Wilson


Machine - The Vulnerability of Children and the Elderly


6. Hungry Clowns II by Laurel Butler


Intermission


7. Vomit by Mia Jumbo


Machine - Poverty and Powerlessness


8. Genetic Engineering by Sam Emord


Machine -Violence and Militarism


9. Fruits of an Ancient Land by Sofia Youssof


Machine -Racism and Ethnocentrism


10. The Calculated Dance of Hunger by Sabri Sky