Ledah's Story

"It is good enough to talk of God whilst we are sitting here after a nice breakfast and looking forward to a nicer luncheon, but how am I to talk of God to the millions who have to go without two meals a day? To them God can only appear as bread and butter."

Mohandas Ghandi

In February, I had the opportunity to visit the Central American country of Honduras where I participated in a two-week study tour organized by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. The focus of the tour was, in a way, about the bread and butter Ghandi talked about. The focus was food justice, a concern deeply felt by Ghandi as reflected in his quote above. Before leaving on the tour I and the eight other youth participants, from Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario were told the experience would be powerful. How true those words proved to be.

The purpose of our program was not to volunteer or to teach. It was simply to learn. This is a notion still somewhat foreign to people from developed countries like Canada. Many of us think people in impoverished countries like Honduras have so much to learn from us, not the other way around.

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank calls itself a "food aid organization with a food security orientation." It is based in Winnipeg and has a presence right across Canada through regional coordinators and its many supporters, who are mostly farmers or Canadian food producers. The Foodgrains Bank provides food aid to people around the world who are hungry. But it also gives priority to long-term sustainable solutions to hunger. That's what is meant by the term food security. The Foodgrains Bank asks the important question, "Why are people hungry?" It explores the root causes of hunger. And it advocates for "food justice"—which simply means society arranging its relationships so that everyone has enough food. A simple thing to say, but something much harder to put into practice!

One day during our visit, we were asked to go to a local market and purchase enough food for a week for a family of seven based on the minimum wage in Honduras. Around 44% of Hondurans live on less than $2.00 a day. We had the equivalent in Honduras currency of $16.50 Canadian to spend. With this money we were able to bargain for corn, corn flour for tortillas, beans, oil, and powdered milk for a baby. The United Nations has recommendations on the kinds and amounts of food a person needs for a subsistence diet. With our $16.50, we were not able to meet any of these requirements. This experience helped me to understand what impoverished people have to cope with all the time.

People are hungry for many reasons, but poverty is the chief one. Having enough food to eat is a fundamental human right. And there is enough food in the world for everyone. So why then are so many people hungry? Why are so many people poor?

I went to Honduras expecting to find answers to these questions. I did gain a lot of knowledge and perspective. But I also came back with more questions than when I left. What I came to realize is that hunger and food justice are complex issues. Experts still argue over the causes and the solutions to hunger, so how could I expect to learn everything after a brief two-week experience, intensive as it was?

What I did find– and perhaps this was my most significant learning – is that the best way to get at the issue of hunger is to listen to the people who most profoundly experience it. And the Honduran people were wonderful teachers.

Take Don Ramon and his family. With the help of a local organization CASM, they successfully run an organic, fair-trade coffee producing business. All the coffee is organically grown, and there is zero waste in the production process. Even the rinds of the coffee beans are used. Through funds from CASM, Don Ramon bought California red worms. These worms fertilize the rinds into a rich soil that he is then able to package and sell for a profit. This earns him extra income and sets an important conservation standard. Through an international network established for local producers like Don Ramon, he and other coffee growers are paid a fair price for the coffee they grow. The middle-man is eliminated. Hence, the name fair trade coffee.

Too often coffee production is controlled by large multi-national corporations, and local growers are forced to accept less than fair prices. Since coffee is the second largest commodity in the world – oil is the largest -- it is of great importance that we change this by buying fair trade. Most of us look for bargain basement prices for the coffee we buy. But the truth is, if we'd like our own hard-earned dollars to go to a family like the one I visited in Honduras and help end their poverty, than we need to spend more, not less, by buying fair trade. Then we can be assured the coffee producer is receiving a living wage.

Nearby in Buena Vista, a woman named Dona Maria has also done something interesting. She runs her small store and eco-hotel through solar power. Also, by raising pigs and funnelling their liquid manure into a large plastic tube, the fermentation caused by the direct heat of the sun onto the tube produces methane gas, which in turn fuels her stove.

It was these simple, yet uncommon practices that prompted me to begin asking questions. So often, it seems, we Canadians believe that people in Third World countries should be aspiring to standards of living like our own. I think we are wrong to make that assumption. How well I remember Don Ramon and Dona Maria with their smiling faces surrounded by their families. Their lives may be simple and modest, but they are happy. They can sustain themselves. With better access to education and health care, all their needs would be met.

Is our standard of living in Canada and other developed countries, then, too high? If we want to bring an end to hunger, perhaps in part it means not trying to raise Third World countries to our standard of living, but lowering our own standards.

In Honduras, one of the founders for the Association for a More Just Society (AJS), an organization devoted to eliminating government corruption and indifference in Honduras, told us that the most important part of an overseas journey is when you return home. He was so right. Now that I'm back from Honduras, I appreciate much more how interconnected our world is.

I am more aware that the decisions we in the powerful and wealthy developed world make every day affect people in other countries, and often negatively. Simply put, there is such an uneven, unjust distribution of resources and wealth in the world. Most developing countries have so little, whereas we in the so-called developed world have so much. We consume and consume and still we consume. We consume and throw away and then we consume all over again. Becoming aware of this wasteful habit is the first step to changing it.

To act on what I've learned, or ignore it, is for me a very important choice. Having seen first-hand the conditions in Honduras, for me the way forward is clear: I have to change my patterns of consumption so others can have more. That may seem simplistic or naive, but I believe there is a relationship between the bounty we enjoy here in Canada, and what people in impoverished countries like Honduras can only dream of.

I believe the global community, including a country like Canada, plays a role in creating the conditions of hunger in the world. We therefore have a responsibility to address hunger in a meaningful way. The efforts of governments or international institutions are important, but I believe real change begins with you and me. Of course, lowering our own standards will hurt some. But aren't we as Christians called to this kind of sacrifice?

Arguably the most significant event in the Christian calendar is Christ's death on the cross. It is there, in Jesus' crucifixion, that we are confronted with one of his most probing questions: "Are we willing to die for what we believe in?" This is not an easy question to face. But when I put this question into the context of my visit to Honduras, I ask myself, am I willing at least to make changes in my lifestyle, so that others can have a better life?

So often we think the solution to poverty is to raise money and fly somewhere to build a school or dig a well. These kinds of activities can be important, especially to donors who wish to feel a personal connection to the people and programs they are supporting. But there is another side to this genuine desire to help and be involved, for example, the money used to buy plane tickets perhaps could pay for a second school, or provide employment for local citizens to build it.

This was a new concept to me—the importance of building local capacity. We heard from some Hondurans that sometimes there can be a degree of humiliation experienced when foreigners come and build what they could have built themselves, if they'd only had the resources. This is especially true of overseas groups who don't take the time to really partner with the local people, working together in a mutual endeavour. My experience in Honduras has helped me see more clearly the complexities involved in giving "aid".

Possibly the most profound experience I had was not directly related to food justice. It occurred on a Sunday evening. Our group attended a Catholic Church service high up on a lush, green mountain. There was no electricity and we were in total darkness on the walk up. But a light emanated from a small church, beckoning us to it. It was a very humble structure built of wood.

Walking in, I was self-conscious of my skin colour and language. Yet we were greeted so warmly. "Bienvenido", they said, welcome. Inside the congregation was seated close together on benches around the perimeter of the tiny sanctuary. Christmas tree tinsel and garlands of flowers the colours of the rainbow hung from the low ceiling, nearly touching our heads. Children's art adorned the walls. The pastor, a man with a moustache, opened his arms just as Jesus would have drawn children to himself, or welcomed a stranger as he travelled the roads of Galilee. This pastor had such a natural charisma. His welcome, his warmth, his gentle manner were arresting. In an instant, all my self-consciousness disappeared. I felt comfortable and at peace.

I looked around at all the faces, all warm, inquisitive and so full of God's Spirit. "We are all equal, we are not enemies," the pastor said, accepting us. As the service continued, the congregation sang. The music leader, a young man playing an out-of-tune guitar, accompanied the singing. In the middle of the hymn an elderly man stood up proudly and clapped, his face beaming with a toothless grin. There, high on that mountain, in that isolated village, in that tiny rustic church, I felt close to God like never before. What was important to the congregation wasn't possessions or status. It was love of neighbour and a caring community. In that moment I saw the Christian ideals of love and hospitality lived out in a simple yet profound way.

Gandhi said: "It is good enough to talk to God whilst we are sitting here after a nice breakfast and looking forward to a nicer luncheon, but how am I to talk of God to the millions who have to go without two meals a day? To them God can only appear as bread and butter."

Gandhi sets a challenge before us – to help end the poverty in our world. I believe as Gandhi did that one person can make a difference, and that many of us together can make a huge difference, especially when we are working in global relationships of mutuality and respect, the kind of relationships promoted and sustained by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. I am immensely grateful that I was gifted with the opportunity to be part of a Foodgrains Bank food justice tour in Honduras, and now count myself as one among the many who are indeed working to understand, and end, poverty in our world. Thank you.