How far are we really willing to take this? Can social justice be reduced down to club meetings and buying fair trade coffee when it's convenient? If we really believe God demands justice and action, our lives would look provocatively different. Luckily, we have a few years to figure out exactly where our place is.
I don't have the answers. I just want to be with people asking the right questions. All I can do is forward information out, this was sent to me from a friend.
This movie is the story of one man and his fight for justice in Haiti.
Death threats and all.
The Price of Sugar
"I always try to make sure what I am doing is right. Because that's my only protection"
"These are my people. Whatever happens to them I would like it to happen to me"
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
We Wish to Inform You, MOLDOVA is burning.
The protest in Moldova is distracting me from my exam in world politics tomorrow. How can I study about the parliamentary system of democracy while history is being made?
The Parliament of Moldova is burning and the Presidential Palace is being destroyed. After a communist president was elected in fraudulent and corrupt elections, students all over the country have risen up.
My roommate, Ruxy Cantir (junior at Furman) lives in Moldova. The Furman community has rare opportunity to learn exactly what is going on and why the reaction is so violent. Communism is not a romantic ideal. This is not a political game. Ruxy's friends and family are in the middle of all this, her family lives in the center of downtown.
Please stay informed. This is all over the internet: check out Youtube, the New York Times (Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter ), BBC, etc.
If you would like to show your support for Ruxy and Moldova, please wear a ribbon with the colors of the Moldovan/Romanian flag. (please see Ruxy; they will be handed out at the FUISA fashion show and the Burma CLP tomorrow). Also, feel free to email Ruxy to show your support.
In solidarity-
Thursday, April 2, 2009
P.S. This is not Reality
Many people have heard Dr. Gandolfo, others, and myself quote the statistic of the thousands of people that die every day from preventable diseases, mainly deaths related to water. Every day, a minimum of 26, 000 kids die a day. There is no way to comprehend the number. Think, 4 thousand died on Sept 11. Angel, who is living in El Salvador, experienced this tragedy first hand. It just reminds me that our comfortable lifestyle is not reality for the rest of the world.
http://angelitaensalvador.blogspot.com/
What hurts the most is to think of how he died. He died from kidney failure, which from what I have heard is quite painful and slow. The doctors prescribed him medication to clean his kidneys, but it cost around $50/week. I doubt he made much more than $100/month, making it impossible to pay for the medication that may have saved his life. Friends have also told me that he is the 3rd or 4th in the community to die of kidney failure in the past few years. We are starting to wonder if the water is contaminated? But even if it is, there are few resources available to clean it up...
Close to two-thirds of the world's population lives without access to clean water. Before coming to live in El Salvador, I had no idea of what that truly meant.
The tradition here when someone dies is to do 9 days of prayers, with the 9th day being the biggest and almost a celebration. I went to the 9th day of prayers for Francisco, where I also had to bring some more bad news to the community. My close friend, Beatrice, who is the new youth coordinator, had applied for a scholarship from FUNDAHMER to help pay for her to go to college. She had been calling me every few days for the last month asking about the scholarship. Few (if any) kids from Las Mesas have gone on to college, and Beatrice's desire to study impressed and motivated me. But I know that in reality it is economically impossible for her to go to college without a lot of outside help. I want so badly for her to be able to study, but I had to tell her that night, at the funeral, that there were no funds for her scholarship. It almost brought me to tears when she told me (after the news) that she was going to apply for a job at a nearby factory - a factory that we would call a sweatshop.
http://angelitaensalvador.blogspot.com/
What hurts the most is to think of how he died. He died from kidney failure, which from what I have heard is quite painful and slow. The doctors prescribed him medication to clean his kidneys, but it cost around $50/week. I doubt he made much more than $100/month, making it impossible to pay for the medication that may have saved his life. Friends have also told me that he is the 3rd or 4th in the community to die of kidney failure in the past few years. We are starting to wonder if the water is contaminated? But even if it is, there are few resources available to clean it up...
Close to two-thirds of the world's population lives without access to clean water. Before coming to live in El Salvador, I had no idea of what that truly meant.
The tradition here when someone dies is to do 9 days of prayers, with the 9th day being the biggest and almost a celebration. I went to the 9th day of prayers for Francisco, where I also had to bring some more bad news to the community. My close friend, Beatrice, who is the new youth coordinator, had applied for a scholarship from FUNDAHMER to help pay for her to go to college. She had been calling me every few days for the last month asking about the scholarship. Few (if any) kids from Las Mesas have gone on to college, and Beatrice's desire to study impressed and motivated me. But I know that in reality it is economically impossible for her to go to college without a lot of outside help. I want so badly for her to be able to study, but I had to tell her that night, at the funeral, that there were no funds for her scholarship. It almost brought me to tears when she told me (after the news) that she was going to apply for a job at a nearby factory - a factory that we would call a sweatshop.
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