Saving children with food

from 2 The Advocate

Ghanian tells BR groups how food program rescued him

* By MARK H. HUNTER

In his remote village in Ghana, Africa, Awiapo likely faced a similar fate if not for a Catholic Relief Services program that provided snacks and lunches at a nearby school, he said.

“I wouldn’t be here today,” concludes Awiapo, a CRS senior program officer in his home country and a proud father of three, well-fed children.

He is on a nine-state U.S. tour during the Lenten season thanking American Catholics for their participation in Operation Rice Bowl.

He came to Baton Rouge last week, speaking to more than 200 youths and adults at St. Paul the Apostle Activity Center and another 200 students at Catholic High School. The Catholic High students pledged to raise $10,000.

Operation Rice Bowl, begun in 1975 as a response to an African drought, has raised more than $160 million for worldwide food programs, according to Catholic Relief Services.

At St. Paul the Apostle, Awiapo stood beneath a poster declaring “Starvation is not an option,” drawn by the students of Sacred Heart of Jesus School.

Awiapo, with a British accent, enthralled the audience with personal stories of his youth mixed with heartbreaking statistics of African poverty.

Snapping his fingers in a one-two beat, he sang a ’60s-era Jesus movement song, “We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord, and we pray that our unity will one day be restored, … and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

While Ghana doesn’t have many natural disasters, Awiapo said, “We cried when we saw Hurricane Katrina on television. We called all the dioceses in our country to donate to Katrina services. It wasn’t much, but it is in times of tragedy that the whole world responds together.”

Each week about 155,000 people die of starvation in Africa, 6,000 people die each day from HIV/AIDS and 3,000 children die each day from malaria, Awiapo said. “That’s every single day!”

He reported that thousands are being killed in wars and other armed conflicts, especially in Kenya and the Sudan. “The victims are usually the children,” Awiapo said.

“They don’t even know why. They have no idea what the politics is about.”

“We have a saying in Africa, ‘When the elephants fight it is the grass that suffers,’” Awiapo said.

“The children don’t care who wins or who loses but they are the ones who pay the price.”

He told of growing up in a village where electricity was unknown. “We had moonlight. When the moon comes up we would beat the drums, sing songs and tell stories. You guys miss a lot,” he said to ripples of laughter.

They also did not have fresh water and had to carry it from a river several miles away. “We had to compete with the animals,” Awiapo said. “You didn’t need a microscope to see the germs.”

After his two younger brothers died and Catholic Relief Services came to his village, he began attending school and eating on a regular basis. He eventually graduated from college in Ghana and came to the United States where he earned a master’s degree in public administration from California State University in Hayward.

At the university, he said, the other students all carried bottled water and warned him not to drink from the fountains. “They told me ‘You’ll get sick,’ but I told them, ‘The water here is 100 times cleaner than where I grew up. American germs cannot do anything to me!’”

He saddened the group when he told of how his daughter, Loretta, 12, used to ask him about his parents and he couldn’t tell her, “because they died when I was so young. It used to make me cry when she asked. But there are millions of children in Africa today who never know what it is like to have parents.”

He said he is glad that he can provide for his wife Felicia, daughter and two sons, Kalvin, 8, and Melvin, 6, but it is only because he was fed at school and got an education.

“Today, I can provide that snack; I can provide that lunch,” Awiapo said. “Education is the only tool that can break the chains of poverty and suffering.

“I thank God for all of you in this room that you don’t have to go through the experiences I had to go through,” Awiapo said. “Thank God you don’t have to wonder where your next meal comes from or where your water comes from.”

The audience gave him a standing ovation and afterward students crowded around him to ask questions and have their pictures taken with him.

“He was amazing,” said Celeste Baker, a junior at St. Michael the Archangel. “His point of view — from there — is inspiring. It shows how we take everything for granted.”

Samantha Traigle, a junior at St. John’s in Plaquemine, said Awiapo’s talk “was really moving. When he said he came over here, I didn’t think he would be so happy for us and be glad we have so much — we take everything for granted.”

David Dawson, ninth-grade English and Religion teacher at St. John’s, said Awiapo’s presentation “puts things into perspective for the students to show them that instead of feeling guilty that they are well off — they should feel they are blessed which empowers them to share with people who are suffering.”

Operation Rice Bowl
For 33 years Operation Rice Bowl, a Lenten Catholic program, has called participants to pray with their families and faith communities; fast in solidarity with those who hunger; learn about the global community and the challenges of poverty overseas, and give sacrificial contributions to those in need.

n Operation Rice Bowl has raised more than $160 million to improve access to food around the world and in diocesan communities in the United States.

n More than 14,000 faith communities across the United States participate as a way to respect human dignity and foster solidarity with the poor around the world.

n In Baton Rouge, $37,530 was collected for Operation Rice Bowl last year. Of that, 25 percent stayed for poverty programs through Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, formerly known as Catholic Community Services.

n U.S. Catholic bishops offer two agencies for relief work. Catholic Relief Services generally ministers in foreign countries while the network of Catholic Charities works in U.S. dioceses to address poverty and meet needs.

n Catholic Relief Services works in 98 countries and provides assistance on the basis of need, not creed, race or ethnicity.

n Gifts to Operation Rice Bowl may be made through the parish churches or the Catholic Charities Office, 1900 S. Acadian Thruway.

Source: Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge.

On the Internet: http://www.ccdiobr.org/

http://orb.crs.org/

http://crs.org/