15 seconds, some math and how faiths can make all the difference

Faiths Act Fellows - Training in London 2009

A group of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and humanists walk into a room…

It seems like the first line of a joke but actually it was the start of the most amazing year of my life when 30 young people of faith gathered in a room together with a common cause to help the world’s poorest. Read the rest of this entry »

Young leaders against malaria

This Blog was taking off the Washington Post and can be found here

At the Interfaith Youth Core conference last October, Rabbi David Saperstein joked that we have over 2,000 different religions in America, and 1,500 of them are in California. We experienced that firsthand in the Bay Area this year, working as Faiths Act Fellows with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Interfaith Youth Core. 30 Fellows across 12 cities spread over 3 continents were given eight months to create sustainable and active hubs of multifaith action towards the Millennium Development Goals and the eradication of deaths from malaria. Read the rest of this entry »

My Birthday

Dear Friends, Colleagues, Neighbors and Family.

(c) M. Hallahan/Sumitomo Chemical - Olyset Net

This Saturday (April 17th) I will be turning 25 and as I embark on the quarter century land mark I wanted to request from you to think about the millions of people who won’t ever make it this far.

On April 25th exactly 8 days after my birthday is World Malaria Day. It is the one day we can focus the world’s attention on this disease that is reasonable for 1 million deaths a year.

Malaria is one of the biggest injustices in the world today and no disease has claimed more lives than malaria has, from famous historic figures such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan to the child who has just passed away in Sub Saharan Africa as you finish this sentence.

Malaria is a disease that kills a child every 30 seconds what makes this statistic so much worse is that malaria is a completely preventable disease. we have a saying that I use when talking about malaria that is ‘dying of malaria is like dying of a broken arm’. Imagine falling of your bike or down the stairs and you break your arm and because of that broken arm you die. The thought of it actually seems kind of silly how can we in this modern day dying from something like a broken arm? That’s what it is like dying from malaria, it doesn’t have to happen and it shouldn’t happen.

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A Story..

Imagine starting off feeling flushed. The fever gets worse; it doesn’t go away, you feel weak, you lose your appetite, so weak you can’t even move.

Then imagine falling unconscious, and then waking up in a hospital surrounded by other sick people and strangers and you don’t know what’s happened. You’re miles from home, and for the next two weeks you’ll not be able to see your friends or your family, you won’t be able to go to school, play on your video games or watch your favourite TV shows.

And then imagine your nearest hospital is 3 hours away from where you live and your only transport is a bicycle. Imagine this is all because of one mosquito which bit you while you were sleeping, something that could have been avoided but wasn’t because your family couldn’t afford a bed net.

This is the reality faced by millions of young people, the same age as you, across sub-Saharan Africa and many other parts of the world.

Let me tell you about a young person I met in a town called Ifakara in Tanzania. His name is Antony, a dedicated Chelsea football supporter who loves nothing more than to impersonate his hero Drogba on the pitch. Antony lives 2 hours away from the hospital and had what is diagnosed as severe malaria. One afternoon he was found unconscious having fallen ill from it. When I met him in the hospital we asked him if he has a bed net. To that he replied “no, where I live we don’t have mosquitoes.” When I heard this I was shocked and surprised, and asked him how does he think he got malaria if he lived in an area such as this. He said he didn’t know.

Women are the key…

This is an important extract I took from an article entitled The Women’s Crusade

WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.

The Development Struggle

Photo Curtosey of Tim Brauhn www.timbrauhn.com

We know humanity has failed; has the humanitarian ‘industry’ also failed?

Today I attended Catholic Mass in Ifakara, south central Tanzania. The congregation was huge and the church was full with many at standing at the back of the hall for the entire 2 hour service. I noted how many young, enthusiastic and vibrant people attended the mass in contrast to the services I have attended at home in London. Young people made up a huge portion of the congregation; is this because of the level of community spirit that exists? The shear poverty that people are in that means church is the only hope? Or is it that most of the population don’t make it to be old enough to be considered old? Probably it is all three.

We attended mass today as a group of 10 from all different faiths – Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Sikh and Theists; our message a simple yet complicated one. People of different faiths working together for positive social action. This could be anything from campaigning on climate change, promoting Fair Trade or doing something about the global fight on poverty. For us it is trying to achieve the Millennium Development Goals with special attention to the eradication of deaths caused due to Malaria.

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