Giving 0.7% on 07-07-07, with the MDG’s in mind
In support of the Episcopal Church’s promotion for dioceses, parishes and individuals to donate a minimum 0.7% of our income toward the United Nations’ various Millenium Development Goals, and reading somewhere that 07/07/07 was an easy-to-remember target date for doing it, I’ve decided to split my donations between the following 7, for a number of reasons:
- All Souls’, San Diego “Kenya Project” (Episcopal)
- Solar Light for Africa (Episcopal)
- Floresta (Tree Program — only)
- Plenty, International (vegetarian)
- Seeds of Hope for African Families (linked on The Rainforest Site)
- Operation Bootstrap Africa (Lutheran)
- HIPPO (vegan, based in the UK).
Each of these is among a list of “cruelty-free” humanitarian charities that I’ve been compiling. I chose the particular initiatives mentioned above, because I don’t feel the need to support charities that focus on animal agriculture (and besides the inherent animal suffering involved, contribute to Global Warming). At least five that I chose are in support of efforts going on in Africa, where I believe humanitarian aid is most needed over all. Most, if not all, are environmentally-friendly. And they cover a variety of needs from growing plant-based food, clean drinking water, restoring forests, supplying free solar powered electricity, medicine, education, and some amount of economic development potential.
“May our MDG’s be cruelty-free.”
As Mike Russell+, the rector of All Souls, San Diego, says one one of his email signatures, “Every three seconds a child dies from poverty related causes, every eight seconds the death is from water borne causes. Three hundred die during the average Sunday sermon, sixteen hundred during the average Sunday Eucharist.” And on his church’s website (on their “Kenya Project” page) it says, “Every three seconds a child dies of poverty related causes. Twenty a minute, 1,200 an hour, 28,800 a day, 201,600 a week, 10,483,200 a year. Every eight seconds it is from water borne diseases. That is just the death rate for children, the must vulnerable of the populations at risk. One sixth of the world’s population, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, lives in extreme poverty, on less than $1 a day.” He also told me a couple of years ago, “Our projects are focused on sustainable vegetable agriculture because that is what it takes to keep people from dying of starvation. It is focused on medical care and education especially for
the AIDS orphans and urban poor children.”
As an “after thought”, my next few blog-blurbs (which should be of equal interest to humanitarians, environmentalists and animal people) touch on reasons why well-meaning people should stop supporting humanitarian efforts to increase animal-based economies in developing countries, until the charities themselves shift away from their current concept for feeding the hungry and striving to “Make Poverty History”. And I’ll say it plainly. I’m referring to Heifer Project, International, Episcopal Relief and Development and any other charity that promotes the purchase of animals as “gifts”. “Gifts” of livestock are trojan horses.
I spent the rest of the day on a mini-retreat at The Dekoven Center.
[Today's post bumped 'Al Gore: Let's Talk About Meat' from the home page.]