Buddhist Global Relief

Feeding Needy Children in Haiti’s Capital

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Shae Davidson

A grant from Buddhist Global Relief to the What If Foundation supports the Lamanjay Food Program in the Ti Plas Kazo community of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The program serves up to 800 free meals each day at the Lamanjay community cafeteria and also provides lunches for 350–400 students and staff of the Father Jeri School in Port-au-Prince.

Five-year-old Riber Jean has been eating at the Lamanjay Food Program since he was born. He loves eating at the cafeteria—which is only a few blocks from his home—with his mom and younger sister, and looks forward to a chance to see his friends.

Lamanjay is the co-creation of the Berkeley, California–based What If Foundation and the Na Rive community development program in Haiti. Over the last twenty years, the two groups have worked closely together to develop Haitian-led programs to provide food assistance, educational opportunities, and disaster relief to the residents of Port-au-Prince’s Ti Plas Kazo community. For the children and families served by Na Rive’s community cafeteria, the meals provided are often their only food of the day.

The United Nations World Food Programme describes Haiti as having one of the highest levels of food insecurity in the world. Half of the population was undernourished in 2018, and 22 percent of Haitian children are chronically malnourished. The situation facing children in Port-au-Prince has worsened since a political crisis began in 2018, which saw shortages of water, food, and fuel, as well as rising violence and increasing inflation. Over the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic and rising food prices have made Na Rive’s Lamanjay food program more critical than ever.

A grant from Buddhist Global Relief has allowed the What If Foundation to continue supporting the Lamanjay Food Program. The support helps purchase food and cooking supplies, provide stipends to workers who prepare and serve meals, and pay for storage space for dry goods.

The community cafeteria serves up to 800 meals each day. The program also provides lunches for 350–400 students and staff members of the Father Jeri School, which was partly furnished and equipped with BGR assistance.

Na Rive continues to support the needs of community members who have been displaced from Ti Plas Kazo. In 2016 the government dismantled the tent camp created for survivors of the 2010 earthquake, forcing families to move far from Ti Plas Kazo. Na Rive opened a food pantry where displaced families can pick up rice and beans to cook at home. The pantry supplies up to 60 families each week, saving them from having to walk miles back to the neighborhood’s community cafeteria.

In 2020, Lamanjay’s three programs served approximately 5,000 meals per week. Over the course of the twenty years that Na Rive and the What If Foundation have worked together to serve the people of Port-au-Prince, they have provided over 5.5 million meals.

The food program also nurtures a stronger sense of community. Lamanjay provides a welcoming space for residents of Ti Plas Kazo. Rolande, a 7-year-old who relies on Lamanjay, said, “I feel safe and happy here.” Many people who benefit from the project volunteer to help support it. The What If Foundation and Na Rive celebrate this spirit of communal effort, seeing it as an essential part of creating a feeling of togetherness and a valuable tool for helping residents and program workers build a more secure community. This sense of engagement and local ownership has led beneficiaries to share the story of Na Rive, putting more families and children in contact with the group.

This emphasis on safety and inclusion has helped Port-au-Prince residents like 4-year-old Jeanty Simon. Jeanty used to live in downtown Port-au-Prince with her grandmother, parents, and siblings, but the family moved to Ti Plas Kazo to escape the growing influence of gangs in their neighborhood. Jeanty’s father had to abandon his job, and the Lamanjay program helps the family make ends meet while providing a safe, welcoming space as they resettle.

Margaret Trost, a business owner and young mother, founded the What If Foundation in 2000 with human rights activist Father Gérard Jean-Juste. Jean-Juste saw child nutrition as the first step on a path leading to education, opportunities for growth, and more vibrant communities. As they began organizing in Haiti, Jean-Juste and his supporters found inspiration in the Creole saying, “Piti piti na rive”—”Little by little we will arrive.” The expression reflects the group’s belief in the power of small acts of love to improve lives.

Community organizer Lavarice Gaudin became the leader of Na Rive following Father Jean-Juste’s death from leukemia in 2009. He has skillfully guided the Lamanjay Food Program as well as the education and relief projects the What If Foundation funds in Haiti. Catherine Lelong, interim executive director of the What If Foundation since the spring of 2019, is of Haitian descent. A graduate of the London School of Business’s MBA program, Lelong has used her skills in nonprofit marketing and strategy to work with Na Rive and donor groups like Buddhist Global Relief to help the Lamanjay Food Program continue to serve the people of Ti Plas Kazo.

*Riber Jean, 5, has been eating at the Lamanjay Food Program since infancy*

Support from Buddhist Global Relief allows the What If Foundation to give families and children vital resources, helping build a better future for residents of Ti Plas Kazo who rely on the Lamanjay Food Program. The What If Foundation projects that the grant from Buddhist Global Relief will allow Na Rive to reach 22,000 people, continuing a sustainable, community-based food program that helps families most in need. According to the foundation, the partnership “provides the children not only the food to survive but the knowledge that they are not alone and that there are donors in other places who care and stand in solidarity with them.”

Shae Davidson holds a PhD degree in American history. His dissertation research explored the importance of inclusive community partnerships in building food systems. He has served as a museum director and taught history and public policy.

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Posted in Children's education, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Projects & programs

Tagged Children's hunger, Haiti, Hunger-relief projects, Lamanjay, What If Foundation

Supporting Sustainable Livelihoods for Women Farmers in Kenya

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Patricia Brick

*Tending a vegetable garden using eco-friendly techniques*

BGR’s partner, the Grow Biointensive Agriculture Centre of Kenya (G-BIACK), works to address food insecurity and malnutrition in Kenya and to raise the income of poor farmers through environmentally sustainable agricultural methods. Responding to a crisis of soil degradation in the project areas in Machakos County, G-BIACK teaches farmers methods to reclaim depleted soil while facilitating the cultivation of cash crops that will provide the greatest improvement to their livelihoods.

A BGR project titled “Enhancing Capacities of Rural Women in Kenya” provided training to 840 women farmers and kitchen gardeners, many of whom reported that their children had been hungry before and now have sufficient food. The project had four objectives:

to improve the livelihoods of poor women living in rural communities in Machakos County;
to share information related to family health and nutrition;
to link the women to local organizations to support them in their livelihood development;
to teach ecologically sound principles and techniques.

During the project period, drought struck the region, and partway through the year Covid affected in-person trainings. Our partner reports that the trainings were nevertheless highly successful at achieving the stated goals. A majority of participants created home gardens that were drought-resistant and that incorporated swales and terraces to limit water runoff. Many utilized Grow Biointensive compost methods to rejuvenate depleted soil. Participants reported feeling more independent as they grew their crops for food and income.

*Graduation after completing the program*

Kaloki Virginia appreciated learning about the value of composting organic materials to use in her garden. “I had been burning all the trash after harvesting my crops,” she said, referring to the vegetation left over after harvesting. “I didn’t know that trash was gold. Now I know. I have piles of compost from my farm, which I am using to grow my food.”

Jenifer Kamene spoke about the value of using organic fertilizers and pesticides rather than the heavy chemicals she had used in the past. She said: “Chemicals destroyed my farm and I became very poor. I was wondering what was happening in my farm because I could not produce any food due to poor soils. But just a few months after G-BIACK came, I am rich. I have food. This is my joy!”

Mary Mutheu, a resident of the Mithini community in Machakos County, also participated in the trainings this year. “The biggest need of people in Mithini is food,” she said. “A year ago, I was buying vegetables for my family every time. But now see my kitchen garden: It is flourishing with indigenous vegetables. This is what I needed. Nothing else.” She added: “May G-BIACK reach out to all of this region with this knowledge. May they continue teaching women until all of them create a kitchen garden like mine.”

Patricia Brick is a staff writer for Buddhist Global Relief.

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Posted in Agriculture, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Projects & programs, Women's livelihood

Tagged GBIACK-Kenya, Grow Biointensive, Kenya, sustainable agriculture, Women's livelihood

Improving Children’s Health and Education in the Himalayan Foothills

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By David Braughton

Providing food support to undernourished students in the Arunachal Pradesh branch of the Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala not only improves their health, but also enhances their capacity to succeed in their studies.

*Praying for world peace before classes begin*

The Arunachal Branch of the Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala is situated in a remote corner of northeastern India at the foothills of the Himalaya mountains. The branch falls under the umbrella of the Maha Bodhi Society of Bengaluru (Bangalore), founded by the late Ven. Acharya Buddharakkhita and currently administered by Ven. Buddharakkhita’s monastic disciples. Ven. Buddharakkhita had long wished to start a branch of the Maha Bodhi Society in Arunachal Pradesh, where most of the inhabitants are traditional tribal Buddhists. The Mahabodhi Maitri Mandala (MMM) was founded in Diyun, a remote place in Arunachal Pradesh, on 3rd January 2003 with a primary school and hostel.

The branch was established to serve the poor and needy people of the region, most of whom are members of the Chakma tribes. Originally residing in the Chittagong Hill Tract region of what is now Bangladesh, since the early sixteenth century the Chakmas have struggled for sovereignty and stability. After centuries of conflict with Muslim invaders, their plight only worsened with the colonialization of the Indian subcontinent under the British. From 1777 to 1789 the Chakmas waged war with the East India Company, which ended when the king of the Chakmas agreed to accept the company’s hegemony and pay tribute in the form of cotton.

With the partition of India following its independence from Britain, the Chittagong Hill Tract region was ceded to Pakistan, even though its population was 98% non-Muslim. The creation of East Pakistan, as the area was called, paved the way for ongoing war, violence, and conflict, and the first mass migration of Chakmas to India. Later, when East Pakistan was established as a separate country, named Bangladesh, the Pakistan government that still held sway in Chakma areas responded by building the Kaptai Dam to punish the Chakmas. Over 54,000 acres of Chakma farmland was submerged, leading to a second mass migration to northeast India.

Although the Chakma lands surrounding Diyun are rich in natural resources, the Chakmas lag behind the rest of India due to the prevalence of subsistence farming, a weak industrial base, poor infrastructure, political unrest and violence, and a reliance on public sector employment. The last major road building occurred over four decades ago, and the closest modern hospital is 13 hours away in the state of Assam. Most schools are government-run and may house as many as a hundred children in a single classroom. Children commonly drop out of primary school, resulting in an adult literacy rate of only 67%.

Surviving on subsistence farming, nearly 35% of the population falls below the Indian poverty line, which is equivalent to U.S. $361 US annually. According to a report published in 2013, over 50% of the area’s adult population is either unemployed or not participating in the workforce.

Given the area’s social and economic challenges, it is no surprise that the Maitri Mandala focused on opening a school for young children as its first venture. Classes and a youth hostel for orphans and the poorest students were originally housed in bamboo huts. Later, the organization was able to acquire land and build a school along with dormitories for girls and boys. Today there are 640 students enrolled in the school and 253 children living in the dormitories.

When the Maitri Mandala approached BGR for assistance in 2018, its leadership was struggling with a complex set of interconnected challenges. The children who came to the school were malnourished and grappling with a variety of health-related concerns that limited their ability to concentrate, study, and learn. Funds needed to operate the school and serve even more children had to be diverted to healthcare. Poor educational outcomes also meant that students would drop out and the school and other programs could lose community support.

In response to these many challenges, the Maitri Mandala developed a simple theory of change: provide three nutritious meals to students daily to improve student health, which, in turn, would improve educational outcomes. When they came to BGR for assistance, the BGR Board applauded their proposal and awarded the organization a grant to support their project.

*Presenting schoolbooks to happy students*

At the end of the first grant year, the Maitri Mandala reported that BGR support had enabled them to vastly improve both the quantity and quality of food served to the children. They had added rice, dal, fried vegetables, boiled vegetable curries, and fruit! In addition, they could now offer kids an afternoon snack. The impact was almost immediate. The number of children each month who complained of physical weakness, skin disease, and other illnesses related to malnutrition dropped by 50%, and more children were participating in sports and other physical activities than ever before. Equally significant, 94% of senior students passed the Central Board of Secondary Education exams, a standard test required in order to advance academically. The reduced cost of healthcare meant that the organization could increase teacher and staff pay by 1000 rupees a month, the equivalent of $13.38.

The onset of the pandemic required still more innovation on the part of the Maitri Mandala. Confronted with a nationwide lockdown, they used BGR support (which had now doubled) to provide rice, sugar, flour, milk, and other food items to the families of their poorest students. And when the children were finally able to return to school, the emphasis was on improving their health through a rigorous feeding program. As with the first year of funding, the results have been impressive with even more children passing their Central Board exams.

Often, it is hard, if not impossible to measure the good we do. Certainly, this is no less true for the over 45 organizations and projects that Buddhist Global Relief funds each year. Solving hunger is especially challenging because there is no single cause for hunger. If it were simply a matter of providing enough food to meet the nutritional needs of a child or its family today, we could do that. The issue becomes how to ensure that this same child and family continue to have sufficient food tomorrow and the day after, particularly when they are faced with the overwhelming challenges of civil strife, climate change, outdated farming techniques, poverty, illiteracy, natural disasters, inflated food prices, inadequate infrastructure, poor health, disease and now a pandemic.

*Expressing thanks to Buddhist Global Relief*

The experience of the Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala Arunachal Branch is proof that by joining together, we can make a difference, no matter how intractable or complex the problem. People of good heart, motivated by compassion and focused on what is essential, can open up the future to a child and to a community, if only they are focused on the fundamentals and are willing to try.

David Braughton is the vice-chair of Buddhist Global Relief. He has worked for over 35 years in human services related to a range of human needs including refugee resettlement, employment and youth services.

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Posted in Children's education, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Projects & programs

Tagged Arunachal Pradesh, Children's education, Food security, Maha Bodhi Maitri Mandala

America’s Year of Hunger: How Children and People of Color Suffered Most

Posted on April 17, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Nina Lakhani,
The Guardian, April 14, 2021

Food insecurity, a more expansive hardship measure than hunger, has been at the highest level since annual records began in the mid 1990s, including after the Great Recession. Illustration: Michelle Thompson/The Guardian

An investigation into food poverty by the Guardian and the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University found gaping racial inequalities in access to adequate nutrition that threatens the long-term prospects of a generation of Black and brown children. Black families in the US have gone hungry at two to three times the rate of white families over the course of the pandemic.

The Guardian analysis found:

Hunger – defined as not having enough to eat sometimes or often during the previous week – has been reported between 19% and 29% of Black households with children over the course of the pandemic. This compares with 7% to 14% of white American families.
Latino families have experienced the second highest rates of hunger, ranging from 16% to 25% nationally.
Racial disparities varied across states: Black families in Texas reported hunger at four times the rate of white families in some weeks, as did Latinos in New York.
Overall, hunger declined sharply last month, but is falling far slower for people of color.

Since the start of the pandemic, hunger in America has soared amid mass layoffs, nationwide school closures, and political infighting over relief packages. Black and Latino families have gone hungry at much higher rates than white and Asian Americans – in large part due to longstanding racial economic inequalities that have never been addressed. As states reopen and Biden’s aid package reaches those in need, the hunger rate is falling at a slower pace for Black and Latino Americans than white households.

Why have Black families experienced hunger at much higher rates than white families? The pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing economic inequalities. In 2019, the unemployment rate for Black Americans was double that for white Americans. Black workers on an hourly rate were 26% more likely than white workers to be on or below the $7.25 federal minimum wage.

Families with children have suffered most. Overall, the rate of hunger for families with children has been on average 61% higher than for adult-only households. This is particularly troubling as inadequate nutrition can damage children’s emotional, physical, and mental well-being, and the consequences can last a lifetime.

Neither charity nor government assistance will dismantle structural inequalities that keep millions of Americans trapped in poverty. In 2019, about 35 million Americans relied on food charity, and almost 80% of households receiving food stamps had at least one worker, while about one-third included two or more workers – a clear indication that many families do not make a living wage.

According to Paul Taylor, executive director of FoodShare, a Toronto based food justice organization: “Food insecurity is absolutely a political choice, 100%. This could be in our history books if governments decided to tackle poverty and food insecurity, but this can’t be done unless we disrupt capitalism.”

This is a condensed version of an article published in The Guardian of April 14, 2021, titled “America’s year of hunger: how children and people of color suffered most.” Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd under their Open License agreement. The second part of Nina Lakhani’s special report will be published in The Guardian later this month and will examine the deep roots of America’s food insecurity problem.

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Posted in Food insecurity, Hunger in America, Politics & food justice, Poverty in America, Racism

Tagged Children's hunger, Food hardship, Hunger in America, Racial justice

Global Health and Development Orgs: Biden Must Launch A Global Vaccine Program to End Covid Pandemic

Posted on April 13, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

News release from Public Citizen

Sixty-six global health and development organizations have appealed to President Biden to launch a global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic. U.S. leadership of such a program would provide billions of additional Covid-19 vaccine doses to the world. Buddhist Global Relief was one of the signatories to this appeal.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Public Citizen and 65 other global health, development and humanitarian organizations today called on President Joe Biden to announce and implement a global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic and build a globally-distributed vaccine infrastructure for future pandemics.

“Much more ambitious U.S. leadership is needed to end to the global pandemic,” said Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Director Peter Maybarduk. “The U.S. government should establish, urgently, a manufacturing operation for the world, that would share vaccine recipes and work with the World Health Organization to alleviate suffering and bring billions of additional vaccine doses to humanity.”

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a movement of health and humanitarian organizations, has endorsed the letter. Some of the largest U.S.-based international groups, FHI360, International Rescue Committee, Helen Keller International and International Medical Corps, as well as advocacy organizations including RESULTS and PrEP4All, have also signed onto the letter.

The letter noted the only way to get the pandemic under control is to immediately ramp up vaccine production across the world. The group requests Biden announce a new manufacturing program in his fiscal year 2022 budget and help produce billions more vaccine doses within one year. The U.S. can do so for about $3 a dose, a fraction of the cost of inaction, according to the coalition. Without a global manufacturing plan, the economic costs to the U.S. alone could be between $800 billion to $1.4 trillion in 2021 alone.

The letter comes ahead of a fundraising conference this Thursday, hosted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for the COVAX facility, dedicated to increasing equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines.

“Given the increasingly connected nature of today’s world and the risks that we consequently share, it is vital that we act proactively and decisively to address those risks,” said Nancy Aossey, president and CEO of International Medical Corps. “The U.S. has the intellectual and financial resources necessary to help lead this initiative, working across borders with other governments, and with international health agencies, to end this and future pandemics.”

“Vaccine donations alone won’t end the pandemic,” said Abby Maxman, Oxfam America CEO, a signatory to the Biden letter. “The commitments planned for COVAX are critically important, and yet entirely inadequate to meet global need. Without urgent new manufacturing commitments, billions of people may wait years for a vaccine.”

The groups said the U.S. government should not only expand production in the U.S. and abroad, but also work with the World Health Organization (WHO) to set up production hubs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These hubs would democratize production and improve global health security, particularly if they are accountable to the public and equipped with adaptable technologies, such as mRNA platforms, that could help defeat the next pandemic.

“The U.S. government has helped produce hundreds of millions of vaccine doses for people living in the U.S., on a relatively short timeline. The same is needed—and within reach—for all countries,” Maybarduk added. The key missing ingredient is ambitious political leadership, to end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.”

Here is the text of the letter, along with a list of the signatories:

April 13, 2021

President Joseph R. Biden
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Biden,

Thank you for your leadership strengthening the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic. We appreciate your administration’s commitment to COVAX and the recently announced Quad partnership, to support vaccine access abroad. Yet without much more ambitious leadership, the scale of global vaccine need will not be met.

Even as our country expands access to Covid-19 vaccines through the broadest vaccination campaign in U.S. history, for most of the world, there is no relief in sight. Few of the billions of people living in low- and middle-income countries will be vaccinated against Covid-19 this year. Many may not be vaccinated until 2024, if ever. Virus variants threaten to deepen and prolong the crisis.

The only way to get the pandemic under control is to accelerate global vaccine manufacturing. The United States has capabilities to help the world make billions more doses of Covid-19 vaccine for about $3 a dose, a fraction of the cost of inaction, and shorten the pandemic.

We urge your administration to announce in your fiscal year 2022 budget an ambitious global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic and build vaccine infrastructure for the future.

Proposal

The United States should help the world produce billions more vaccine doses within approximately one year.

For example, modest capital investments (about $2 billion) can retrofit vaccine manufacturing facilities and install additional mRNA production lines. Doses can then be manufactured for less than $3 each. U.S. leadership is likely to inspire co-funding by other governments and international organizations. A total investment of less than $25 billion, including whole-ofgovernment efforts to source raw materials and provide technical assistance, can support the rapid production of 8 billion doses of mRNA vaccine, enough for more than half the world’s population.

The U.S. should support a massive expansion of manufacturing and establish hubs for vaccine production with the World Health Organization, including hubs located in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These hubs will democratize production and improve global health security, particularly if they are accountable to the public and equipped with adaptable technologies, such as mRNA platforms, believed critical to defeating the next pandemic.

The United States should ensure that technology is shared openly, including via the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool, so that scientists and manufacturers worldwide can support vaccine delivery and development. Where necessary, the U.S. government should use its power under existing law to license technology, ensuring its availability and affordability now and for the future. Notably, taxpayers made substantial investments in Covid-19 vaccine research and development, and the U.S. government owns a key patent relied on by the major vaccine makers.

Without a vaccine manufacturing plan of global ambition, millions more people may die, with tens of millions pushed into extreme poverty. Black and Brown communities will bear the brunt of this preventable suffering. The progress achieved through decades of U.S. overseas development assistance will be reversed. People living in the United States may feel the ripple effects with ongoing threats of virus mutations. The economic costs to the United States are estimated at $800 billion to $1.4 trillion.

U.S. history demonstrates that by mobilizing extraordinary resources and the country’s full capabilities, while working closely with global partners, the country can solve complex technical challenges and support humanity in times of great need. This is one such moment, and there is no time to lose. We urge you to launch an ambitious vaccine manufacturing program in your FY22 budget to help end the global pandemic. 

Public Citizen
Access Challenge
Action Against Hunger
American Jewish World Service
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Women’s Association
American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene
Amnesty USA
AVAC
Be a Hero Fund
BRAC USA
Buddhist Global Relief (USA)
Center for Popular Democracy
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)
ChildFund USA
Chinese-American Planning Council
Christian Connections for International Health (USA)
CORE Group
Doctors for America
Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, North America
Episcopal Relief & Development
Families USA
FHI 360
Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (FIAR)
Friends Committee on National Legislation
FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
GOAL USA
Health GAP
Helen Keller International
HelpAge USA
Human Rights Watch USA
Incentives for Global Health
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
International Treatment Preparedness Coalition
Islamic Relief USA
Jesuit Refugee Service
John Snow, Inc.
JustActions
Last Mile Health
Management Sciences for Health
Marie Stopes International
Médecins Sans Frontières, USA / Doctors Without Borders
National Council of Churches USA
Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Oxfam America
Partners In Health
Pathfinder International
People’s Action
Physicians for Human Rights
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
PrEP4All
Prescription Justice
RESULTS
Right to Health Action
Salud y Farmacos
Social Security Works
Sojourners
SumOfUs USA
The Borgen Project
Treatment Action Group (TAG)
Union for Reform Judaism
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM)
Yale Global Health Justice Partnership

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Posted in Covid-19, Emergency relief, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Interfaith action, News item

Tagged Covid-19, Joe Biden, Vaccine

Feeding Schoolchildren and Elders in a Himalayan Township

Posted on April 11, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Carla Prater

Since 2019 BGR has been funding the food program of the Mahabodhi Centre in Tawang, in the Indian Himalayas. The program provides three nutritious meals daily to over 200 people:165 children, elders, resident monks, and staff.

*Students enjoy a meal at the Mahabodhi school, Tawang*

Tucked into a valley more than 11,000 feet above sea level, in the Himalayan mountains of Arunachal Pradesh in northern India, there is a small town called Tawang. In this beautiful region, there is a side of life most summer tourists don’t see.

Because of heavy snowfall from November through March, during the winter Tawang is nearly cut off from the rest of the world. Few vegetables and fruits are available in the markets, and those that are are too expensive for most people to buy. For this reason, residents have to survive on cheese and dry vegetables until spring arrives, when the roads to Assam state, stretching 200 miles, again become motorable. Lacking nutritious food, children and vulnerable elders are subject to malnutrition and chronic health problems.

In 2010 Ven. Panyarakkhita, a monk who was born in Tawang and had come back to found the Mahabodhi Positive Living Society, met an eighty-year old widow living by herself in a bamboo hut. With no relatives to care for her, she was neglected and lonely. This encounter inspired him to found the Mahabodhi Old Age Home, where elders in need of care and protection would be treated with love and kindness and can live in safety, dignity, and peace.

*Feeding elders at the Mahabodhi Old Age Home*

On its six-acre campus, Mahabodhi Centre Tawang also provides housing, food, quality education, and health care to local children, with boys’ and girls’hostels housing over 160 children. There is a school for children in grades K-8, and a new effort supporting young women pursuing higher education.

The school offers a broad-based modern curriculum, while seeking to promote the development of compassion, self-knowledge, wisdom, and responsibility for others. Knowledge and skills are balanced with attention to attitudes and values.

The school children visit the elderly residents on Sundays and holidays, helping them with simple tasks. The elders are encouraged to continue their traditional customs, with a kitchen of their own where they can prepare their favorite dishes. Visitors enjoy hearing of the many experiences the elders have lived through.

Since 2019 BGR has helped to fund the center’s food program, which provides nutritious meals three times a day to over 200 people, including 165 children, the elderly residents, monks, and organization staff. With adequate food, the children and elders enjoy better health and are thriving in a supportive environment. Your generous donation will mean a great deal to the future of the children of Tawang!

***

Beneficiary testimonies

Vayama, a 10^th grade student:

Since 2014 I have been a student here. I am happy to know that food aid is provided by Buddhist Global Relief. Due to the food support, we are receiving healthy and nutritious food and all the children are fit and fine. We also get healthy fruit three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, such as apples, oranges, grapes, pears, plums, and pomegranates.

Your support is helping us immensely to keep physically and mentally strong. We feel deeply grateful and thankful to Buddhist Global Relief for your most important support in terms of education and food aid.

Suvaca, also in the 10^th grade, writes:

I have been associated with Mahabodhi Tawang Centre since 2013. I am very happy to know that Buddhist Global Relief is supporting our education. We are getting tuition in such subjects as mathematics, science, English, and history. We also get to listen to Dhamma and practice meditation, which helps us to develop our mind and concentration. We go to study in a government school, but we are provided a good education with special classes by Mahabodhi Tawang Centre. Apart from special classes, we receive career counseling, personality development, health tips, and other self-development programs.

If there was no support from BGR and MTC, we would not have received a good quality education. I feel very lucky to have such support. On behalf of all the school children I express our big thanks and gratitude to Buddhist Global Relief for your invaluable support to us.

Norbu Drema, teacher at Mahabodhi School:

I have been closely associated with the Mahabodhi Society since my childhood days. I completed all my education from schooling to teaching profession in Mahabodhi centers across India. And I feel truly privileged and honored to be back in the same institution where I was brought up and educated. I have joined Mahabodhi School in Tawang to render my service as a teacher. I am blessed to be serving in this center because of what society has offered me till today. I am deeply grateful and thankful to Buddhist Global Relief for supporting our education and food project programs in Mahabodhi Tawang Centre.

The center is striving its best to impart good education with your committed support. Children are given extra tuition in various subjects. Educators and resource persons are invited to give career counseling, self-skill training, and other important educational information. Graduates of the school also visit and involve the children in sports, games, and cultural events to enhance their personal development and confidence level.

On the other hand, this center is also providing wholesome food to the beneficiaries. The novices, staff, children, and elders are living happily and taken good care of by the society.

I look forward to your continued support to Mahabodhi Tawang Centre through education and food aid projects.

Carla Prater is assistant director of Buddhist Global Relief.

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Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Children's education, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Projects & programs

Tagged Elders' care, Feeding school children, Mahabodhi Centre, Tawang

It’s Time to End Our Collective Insanity

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Adam Parsons & Sonja Scherndl

*Photo from http://hellemanworld.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-insanity-of-war.html*

It’s time to end the insanity of colossal military spending and reallocate funds to basic economic and social needs. Imagine what could be achieved if just a portion of the money spent on military expenditures were pooled into a global fund and redirected towards ending hunger and massively investing in public health systems.

If nations had a referendum, asking the public if they want their taxes to go to military weapons that are more efficient in killing than the ones we currently have, or if they would prefer the money to be invested in medical care, social services, education, and other critical public needs, what would the response be?

Probably the majority of people would not have to think long and hard, since for many life has become an endless struggle. Even in wealthy countries, the most basic social rights can no longer be taken for granted. Social services are increasingly being turned into commodities, and instead of helping ordinary people they must serve shareholders by providing a healthy profit margin.

The United States is a prime example, where seeing a dentist or any medical doctor is only possible if one has health insurance. Around 46 million Americans cannot afford to pay for quality healthcare—and that is in the richest country of the world.

In less developed nations, a large proportion of people find it hard to access even the most basic resources to ensure a healthy and dignified life. One in nine of the world’s population go hungry. And the Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this crisis of poverty amid plenty, with the number of people facing acute hunger more than doubling.

There are now 240 million people requiring emergency humanitarian assistance, while over 34 million people are already on the brink of starvation.

But the United Nations’ funding appeals are far from being met, condemning thousands to unnecessary deaths from hunger this year. With aid funding falling as humanitarian needs rise, aid agencies are being forced to cut back on life-saving services.

Does it make any sense for our governments to spend billions on defence while fragile health systems are being overwhelmed, and the world is facing its worst humanitarian crisis in generations?

Global military spending continued to reach record levels in 2020, rising almost 4 percent in real terms to US$1.83 trillion, even despite the severe economic contractions caused by the pandemic. The United States spends two-fifths of the world’s total, more than the next ten countries combined, and still cannot afford to prevent 50 million of its own citizens suffering from food insecurity. Most shamefully, the United Kingdom is massively boosting its arms budget—the largest rise in almost 70 years, including a vast increase to its nuclear weapons stockpile—while cutting aid to the world’s poorest by 30 percent.

Consider what a fraction of military budgets could achieve if that public money was diverted to real human needs, instead of sustaining the corrupt and profitable industry of war:

Meeting Goals 1 and 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals— ‘End poverty in all its forms everywhere’ and ‘Zero hunger’—would barely exceed 3 percent of global annual military spending, according to the UN’s Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
With the U.S. military budget of $750 billion in 2020, it could feed the world’s hungry and still spend twice as much on its military than China, writes peace activist Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK.
The annual nuclear weapon budget worldwide is 1,000 percent—or 10 times—the combined budget of both the UN and the World Health Organisation (WHO), according to the Global Campaign on Military Spending.
Just 0.04 percent of global military spending would have funded the WHO’s initial Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund, according to Tipping Point North South in its Transform Defence report.
It would cost only 0.7 percent of global military spending (an estimated $141.2 billion) to vaccinate all the world’s 7.8 billion inhabitants against Covid-19, according to figures from Oxfam International.

These opportunity costs highlight our outrageously misplaced priorities during an unprecedented global health emergency. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed just how ill-prepared we are to deal with real threats to our societies, and how our ‘national security’ involves a lot more than armies, tanks and bombs. This crisis cannot be addressed by weapons of mass destruction or personnel prepared for war, but only through properly funded healthcare and other public services that protect our collective human security.

It’s time to reallocate bloated defence budgets to basic economic and social needs, as long enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. Article 25 points the way forward, underscoring the necessity of guaranteeing adequate food, shelter, healthcare and social security for all.

There is an imperative need for global cooperation to support all nations in recovering and rebuilding from the pandemic. The United Nations and its frontline agencies are critically placed to avert a growing ‘hunger pandemic’, and yet are struggling to receive even minimal funding from governments.

Imagine what could be achieved if just a portion of the money spent on military expenditures were pooled into a global fund, and redirected towards ending hunger and massively investing in public health systems, especially in the most impoverished and war-torn regions.

The common sense of funding ‘peace and development, not arms!’ has long been proclaimed by campaigners, church groups and engaged citizens the world over. But it will never happen unless countless people in every country unify around such an obvious cause, and together press our public representatives to prioritise human life over pointless wars.

In the words of arms trade campaigner Andrew Feinstein:

“Perhaps this is an opportunity. Let’s embrace our global humanity, which is how we’re going to get through this crisis. Let’s put aside our obsession with enemies, with conflict. This is an opportunity for peace. This is an opportunity to promote our common humanity.”

***

Adam Parsons is the editor at Share The World’s Resources, (STWR), a London-based civil society organization campaigning for a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources within and between nations. He can be contacted at adam@sharing.org

Sonja Scherndl is the campaigns coordinator at Share The World’s Resources and can be contacted at sonja@sharing.org

Originally published on Thursday, April 01, 2021 by Share the World’s Resources

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
3.0 License.

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Posted in Politics & food justice, Poverty, Social justice

Tagged Common good, Ending global poverty, Ending military spending, Food security, UN Sustainable Development Goals

Helping Hungry Texans in Time of Need

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By David Braughton

When hardship strikes, those hurt most are those least able to cope. These include single-parent families headed by moms, front-line service works, people out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic, immigrants, people of color, and the homeless. The savage cold that ripped through Texas on Valentine’s Day and tortured the State for a week afterwards affected nearly everyone, but no one as much as persons already struggling to survive. For many low income and marginalized residents, rolling blackouts, frozen pipes, and boil water advisories were just the beginning.

Not only did the power outage cause the food people had stored in their freezer or refrigerator to go bad, but additionally they faced bare grocery shelves that had not been stocked for days. Highways became impassable and fruits and vegetables in the Rio Grande Valley were frozen over. The Texas Citrus Association predicts that out of a projected 230,000 tons of grapefruit, 138,000 tons will be lost. The same fate faces other food items. The valley grows a variety of vegetables as well, much of which will have to be plowed under. Experts predict that recovery from the disruption to the supply chain could take months.

The winter storm cost millions of hourly wage earners to lose at least a week’s worth of income and, given the severe crop damage, some will have a difficult time finding work anytime soon. With food still scarce and no income, food banks and other emergency aid have become essential lifelines.

Each year, BGR devotes nearly 10% of its annual budget to emergency grants to areas of the world suffering from weather-related catastrophes. In response to the ongoing crisis in Texas, this past week BGR made an emergency grant of $5000 to Feeding Texas, the largest hunger relief organization in the state. Feeding Texas supplies 21 member food banks that help to feed over 5 million persons annually, making it uniquely equipped to respond to the recent crisis. The organization has fostered deep ties to large grocery chains like Kroger and H-E-B but reports that the catastrophic disruption to the supply chain and the devastation of many of the State’s crops present ongoing challenges that will take months to recover from.

While all of us at BGR lament the severe hunger the state’s residents are facing on account of this calamity, we are happy that we could contribute even a small amount to help alleviate hunger and ensure that recipients receive the food they need to get through this crisis.

David Braughton is the vice-chair of Buddhist Global Relief.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Vocational Training for Women in São Paulo, Brazil

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Carla Prater

Founded by two sisters who are professional social workers, GAIA – Group for Assistance of the Elderly, Children and Adolescents – is a non-profit organization acting in formal and informal education and social work in São Paulo, Brazil. The founders saw many needs in their low-income neighborhood of Campo Grande in the south end of São Paulo. Their first effort was to start a little preschool, which was so successful that they soon had two schools, which serve families in the area, giving the children a good start on their school careers.

They soon found other ways to serve, including providing vocational training for the many women whose schooling was minimal. These women require public services that are overstretched and unable to meet the demands caused by their lack of access to healthy food and dignified living conditions. The project supported by BGR is intended to offer better living conditions to 120 women, through workshops, talks, and courses designed to give them skills as formal or informal workers earning money to supply their families’ basic needs.

Two types of training were offered: eldercare and sewing. About forty women participated in each of these classes. The women were instructed in pattern-making, cutting, sewing, and finishing their work so it was ready for sale in a Christmas bazaar. The eldercare group attended lecture sessions covering legal and social issues, physical care techniques, and field trips to care facilities, as well as hands on practice sessions in how to assist bedridden patients.

The project ran into some serious issues halfway through as COVID hit São Paulo very hard. However, GAIA was able to pivot quickly to provide modules for online learning. The sewing classes switched to videos explaining how to do projects and the videos were posted online for the students’ use. Almost everyone in Brazil has a cell phone and the students were able to access the content online.

The instructor was thrilled with how things turned out. Cilene, an instructor of the sewing workshop, says that she has learned not only how to teach in-person classes but also virtual classes, a useful new skill for her. She says: “GAIA and BGR, thank you so much for the confidence you placed in me this past year. I hope to be able to honor my commitment in 2021 and continue the in-person classes. Always count on me!” The video classes are available at this link: http://www.grupogaia.org.br/index.php/blog.

The eldercare class also had to pivot to online training for their second group, which worked out better than expected. A student named Graça said:“I’m here to talk about the free elderly caregivers course. I really enjoyed participating in the two weeks of interaction and exchange of information. The teachers who participated were clear and objective, which facilitated learning. Thank you GAIA and BGR.”

Juliana, a participant in the eldercare workshop, said: “I first want to thank GAIA and BGR for this wonderful course for caregivers, which was very useful for me. All the classes, all the lectures we saw, taught me many things that I didn’t know before. I learned much about nutrition too! The last class, with the nurse, was wonderful.”

A video explaining the course is available at: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1076376292811179.

At the beginning of the pandemic, GAIA purchased materials and set up a voluntary seamstress task force. They made 1600 masks, which were distributed to the community and donated to other communities as well. These are very poor regions, with few resources and little governmental assistance. GAIA also purchased food and mobilized the donation of resources and food. They distributed 370 basic baskets in June, July, and August. BGR support was fundamental and essential to this emergency effort.

Carla Prater is Assistant Director of Buddhist Global Relief. Transplanted to Brazil by missionary parents at the age of twelve, she remained there for the next twenty years and speaks fluent Portuguese. During her professional life she worked as a researcher at the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at Texas A&M.

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Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Projects & programs, Uncategorized, Women's livelihood

Tagged GAIA Brazil, Sao Paulo, Women's livelihood

Why Is There Hunger in the Midst of Plenty?

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Bhikkhu Bodhi | Comments Off

By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

In an interview on Democracy Now!, Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, raises the question why, when the planet is producing more than enough food to feed everyone, millions still face chronic hunger and starvation. The answer he gives points to fundamental structural flaws in the global food system.

Preparing complementary foods for children in Diffa, Niger
(Photo courtesy of Helen Keller International)

On December 10, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme, the world’s premier humanitarian organization combating global hunger and food insecurity. In his acceptance speech, David Beasley, the WFP’s executive director, said that he saw the Nobel Committee’s decision to grant the prize to the WFP as entailing “a call to action”—action to ensure that hunger is finally vanquished from the face of the earth. However, he warned, we are currently heading in the wrong direction. A combination of factors—multiple wars, climate change, the use of hunger as a political and military weapon, and the coronavirus pandemic—is pushing 270 million people ever closer to starvation. Thirty million of these, he said, are completely dependent on the WFP for their food.

He pointed out that the present may be “the most ironic moment in modern history,” a time when we find a grim chasm between the potential promise of the world’s wealth and the appalling fate that weighs upon a sizable portion of humanity. The world economy today has a value of $400 trillion, yet 270 million people hover on the brink of starvation, facing horrific illness and death. It would take only $5 billion to save the 30 million lives that utterly depend on the WFP, yet the agency struggles just to raise even this much, a tiny fraction of the world’s military spending.

While Beasley applauds the work of the WFP in saving lives, he does not find his job an easy one. He says: “I don’t go to bed at night thinking about the children we saved; I go to bed weeping over the children we could not save. And when we don’t have enough money nor the access we need, we have to decide which children eat and which children do not eat, which children live, which children die.”

In its report on the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize, the progressive news program Democracy Now! featured an interview with Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Early in the interview, Salvador raises the question why it is, when the planet is producing more than enough food to feed everyone, so many millions face chronic hunger and starvation. The answer, he states, lies in the rules governing the global food system. The global food system, as presently configured, allows those in positions of power and privilege to make major decisions that deprive others, less powerful, of the resources they need to eat and thrive. Thus if hundreds of millions of people go hungry year after year, this is not because we are short on food; rather, it is because too many lack the means either to purchase food or grow their own food.

Salvador points out that the modern food system is designed as a business model. This model is not intended to guarantee that everyone gets to eat, but to ensure that those who invest in the system receive the financial returns they expect on their investments. It is not only wealthy investors who benefit from the system but even middle-class folk in economically affluent countries. In the U.S. and other developed countries, almost any middle-class family can obtain from the shelves of their local supermarket virtually any food item grown anywhere on the planet. But in other enclaves far from our sight, hundreds of millions suffer the consequences of the pleasures we take for granted. When we consume even simple everyday items like coffee, tea, and chocolate, we seldom realize that we enjoy these things through the labor of people who have been deprived of the basic resources critical to a satisfactory standard of living. Those out of sight may be out of mind—for us—but we should remember the billions of ordinary folk around the world (and even in the U.S.) who face a harsh reality each day, all year round.

One of the most abhorrent features of the global food system, mentioned by Salvador, is land grabs. In a traditional agrarian economy, farmers own small plots of land on which they grow crops for their own use and to sell at the local market. This allows them to subsist, not in luxury, but with a sufficient degree of stability to weather the storms of daily life. However, in countries in Africa and Asia, desperate poverty and official government policy often compel subsistence farmers to sell their small plots of land to state enterprises or large multinational corporations. These then consolidate the plots into large estates devoted to specialized cash crops for sale to the global North. As a result, local populations lack the land to grow the essential crops they need for direct consumption and to earn an income. Rendered landless and penniless, they have no alternative but to toil as wage laborers barely able to get by from one day to the next, usually under degrading conditions. And those who don’t get to work lose their line to food.

Salvador cites Africa as an example of sheer economic pillage conducted under the guise of legitimacy. Though often depicted as a global basket case, the continent, he says, produces more than enough food to feed its entire population. However, what is occurring in many African countries is that “governments are making land lease deals with foreign companies or other nations, namely China, so that the production of Africa is literally appropriated to meet the needs of other countries that have the capital to compete for that land and for the production of that land against the interests of native Africans.”

Another form of food deprivation mentioned in the interview is the deliberate withholding of food as a weapon of war, a weapon that can be as lethal as bombs and bullets. The prime example he cites is Yemen, where a civil war is being conducted as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The conflict in Yemen is widely considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, precisely because of its impact on the civilian population. To subdue their rivals into submission, both sides in the conflict have imposed food blockades that have pushed millions to the edge of starvation. At times, as many as 8.4 million people have been at risk of starvation, with acute malnutrition threatening the lives of almost 400,000 children under the age of five.

Salvador does not make specific suggestions about the kinds of policy shifts that are needed to tackle hunger on a global scale, but his remarks suggest that a far-reaching overhaul of the international food system is mandatory. Whatever official policy changes are implemented must be guided by a moral imperative. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 25, adopts this moral stance, asserting that food is a fundamental human right. What we must do now, on a global scale, is take up the task of feeding the entire world population as a shared moral challenge, a challenge that must be met if we are to truly measure up to our humanity. People must always take priority over profits.

We can’t complain that we lack the funding to meet this demand. If we had the moral will, funds would not be an obstacle. After all, nations around the world—especially the major powers—invest hundreds of billions in their military forces and weapons of war. The U.S. itself has a defense budget of almost a trillion dollars. It would take only a tiny fraction of this to guarantee that everyone eats, that no one starves, that no child has to be reduced to a heap of skin and bones.

However, acts of humanitarian aid are not enough to redeem our humanity. People should be able to obtain the food they need in a way that affirms their inherent dignity. This means that they obtain their food through their own resources, not through charity. They would either grow their own food on land that they themselves possess or earn enough to live on a nutritious diet. To achieve this goal, the current dominant model of industrial agriculture, often cruel and destructive and blindly driven by the profit motive, needs to be gradually replaced by an alternative model, the most promising being that of agroecology. This is a model that gives precedence to the needs of small-scale farmers. Its output is at least equal to that of industrial-scale farms, yet it preserves the natural environment, centers the diet around vegetables and fruits rather than meat, and reduces the enormous carbon footprint generated by industrial agriculture. Whether we make the changes needed will mean, for many millions, the difference between a death sentence and reprieve.

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Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Ending global poverty, Engaged Buddhism, Food insecurity, Global Hunger, Poverty

Tagged food justice, Global poverty, world food programme