FAMVIN: The International Vincentian Family

The food crisis is threatening “the attainment of the primary right of every person to be free from starvation,” said Archbishop Migliori, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at yesterday’s general debate of the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Substantive Session for 2008.

“Your greatest joy will be what you can do for others to help them encounter Christ, so they can know and follow Him themselves.” At Intentional Disciples, Fr. Mike modifies a secular piece about being an agent of change to reflect our call to be Christ in the world and the ongoing process of [...]

Successfully addressing poverty requires that “people living in poverty must have a voice in deciding their own destiny, fighting for rights and justice in their own society, and holding states and the private sector to account.” It also requires that states act as effective managers and agents of change.

In a message to the U.N. Food Summit, Pope Benedict called hunger and malnutrition “unacceptable in a world that, in reality, possesses production levels, resources and sufficient knowledge to put an end to these dramas and their consequences.”

In Ireland, the SSVDP reports that middle class couples with mortgages are the fastest growing group seeking charitable assistance and advice. Rising energy costs and food bills mean that “financial difficulties are spilling out and crossing socio-economic groups.”

UGIVE, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit organization “makes philanthropy relevant, fun and interesting to the younger generation by encouraging students to find their passion through volunteering.”

“Across America, there are serious gaps between the health care that people should receive and the care they actually receive,” said the president/CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in announcing a $300 million community-focused program to improve health care quality, reduce racial disparities and provide models for national reform.

50 economists examine ten of the world’s biggest challenges and place as Number 1 because of its “immediate and important consequences for improving the wellbeing of poor people around the world,” to combat malnutrition in the 140 million children in the world who are undernourished.

Microplace, an online brokerage service that enables people to make investments that earn a return while empowering the poor to work their way out of poverty, has launched its “Small Change. Big Change” campaign, designed to turn spare nickels and quarters into agents of change.

In Africa, poverty is being fought village by village, using the Millennium Villages approach, which attacks poverty across a wide front. After only two years, the communities involved are already showing real results.

“The new idea is to lift people out of poverty by giving them tools to improve their incomes. Their lives are changed not by handout aid, but through design,” says the curator of a new exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

How to deal with the fact that 80% of sub-Saharan Africa’s food is grown by women, but women have little access to credit or owership rights to land? One answer: The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative.

More than 25% of the food available for consumption in the United States gets thrown away. If we could recover a quarter of that waste, we could feed 20 million people.

“Every day, Catholic Charities agencies see the faces of the poor across America, and we know firsthand how race and poverty are interconnected,” say Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA.

“What we do for each other says something about who we are,” said John Edwards during a gathering to kick off Half in Ten, a new initiative that aims to reduce poverty in the United Stats by 50% within 10 years.