Sammi Fredenburg - Mar 27, 2006
| awaka wrote: |
| THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you think that the Millennium Development Goals are achiveable? if you have an answer let us know by send your answer to awkagofwd@yahoo.com. |
i would like to see some public discussion on this if possible, if not that is okay. i started to post to awaka personally, and then thot there may be some thots out there from participants that would be beneficial to us all. we all can encourage one another here. so forgive my indulgence, i will respond publicly unless you wish to delete this.
awaka, i started to reply with a resounding "oh my of course yes!" sort of thing, then thot of what it must be like to be in your shoes, or the shoes of many of those you work with, if they have any. In the obscene comfort of the west here from my own home and laptop with a cup of free trade coffee by my side, it's easy to feel like this. And when i view the past generation of technology and have unbridled hope in the next generation of even medicine (preaching to myself here in light of more than a few loved ones suffering from cancer,) it's easy, well, easier to say yes. but if i was in an NGO in Nigeria, lobbying for Global Health Funds and other government assistance while bodies are being taken out the door on a regular basis, while young girls are choosing sex as a vocation because of the economics, while friends including my World Vision "son" are telling me they don't believe President Abasanjo is taking the young people seriously, i would be a fool to answer that way, whether i really believed it or not.
i really believe in making poverty history in our generation, but i'm not the one in poverty. some, even many of those in your charge may never see with their own eyes the end of poverty, living that long let alone their little ones living that long. i hope they are around enough to see satisfactory progress. i've needed to think deeply before i posted on this one.
But like love in it's many forms, these worthy goals are dreams that can be realized. any business venture, revolution, campaign, even these goals start out as a dream. any hope of freedom and science are born in the playground of the minds and hearts. the amazing leaders here who were part of the original think tanks of this global fund have measureable, attainable goals that are unfolding before their eyes. . . . .it's just such a massive undertaking, and going where no one has dared gone before, sometimes out of the hundreds even thousands of human targets they hit they are chided on the ones they miss. It's breathtaking the scale embraced here. It's been many days and nights and meetings and even tears of sorrow and joy since the development of Jubilee 2000 and other campaigns back in the late 90's. We celebrate every victory with caution, knowing it's a drop in the ocean, but a very important drop. And these lives are, and should be, as important as my son here in seattle. and the one i miss, who died in infancy from lack of a med that i could get at a local pharmacy for less than 25p. just an infection documented but not told to me or a script prescribed. same infection with my second son, prescribed the med, and he's now 15 and healthy.
so knowledge brings responsibility. and now that we are aware of the plight of the women and children of your beautiful homeland, the world is watching and human rights issues will be held accountable, or reported untl they are. these are hard development goals, with regions such as yours coming from a very low starting point. but not too very long ago there was no starting point, or the point was ignored and neglected.
you are loved and embraced by the world now more than ever before, thanx to the technology here. we are teaching our children about your children and embracing more than a few one by one thru programs like World Vision and Keep A Child Alive and World Concern. Our women are watching your women and lobbying for their value and freedom. and our countries, inspite of conservatives and liberals not always agreeing, are distributing condoms and educating both the men and the women whereever they can about the ABC's - abstinance, be faithful, use condoms. not a pretty theme, but reality in light of the many who are dying. and the mothers who are passing AIDS on thru their *** milk. there are villages unknown that are yet to be reached. it will take precious time.
Bless your heart. Let's hope together for these very realistic goals to come to pass and quickly! it's hard to trust the processes, but we must.
stay close,
sammi