Time to unleash the human spirit?

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My friend Mary Stroupe spoke about some of the things she's discovered during her years of working with The Hunger Project. The purpose of The Hunger Project is to end hunger. That's been the purpose of the organization since it's inception in 1977, and ending hunger is quite a different task from just feeding people.

On an investor trip to small villages in Senegal, where the investors (not donors) had been noticing how incredibly quickly the villagers would recognize and jump on an opportunity, Karen Wolff (no relation) remarked to Mary that "The real shame is not the conditions that the impoverished people live in. The real shame is that we have so much and we're still afraid." Maybe it's not about feeding people, but about unleashing the human spirit, because when you do that, people can feed themselves.

Comments

SW said…
Thanks Angel-a!
4:29 PM, June 13, 2005
Anonymous said…
Part of the fear is fear that there is really a thin line between anyone and anyone else - they are we and we are they - it is interesting to do the "practice of equality" from Shantideva and contemplate this on the spot
3:17 AM, June 15, 2005
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