The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
March 2007
St. John's Endorses UN Millennium Development Goals
By Steve Sturgeon
St. John's Episcopal Church in Logan held its annual meeting on Sunday, Jan, 28, and parish members voted to commit St. John's to supporting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.
These goals (MDG for short) were established by the United Nations in 2000 as part of a campaign to seek to eliminate extreme world poverty by 2015.
Among the eight different MDG are such goals as helping to improve education, health, and nutrition around the world. To that end the UN has called upon nations, organizations, and individuals in the developed countries to commit 0.7 percent of their budgets to fund relief programs in the third world. Although this campaign is sponsored by the United Nations, the donations are made directly to charitable organizations selected by the donor.
The basis of this program is the belief by some economists that the world economy is now large enough to generate sufficient money to eliminate extreme global poverty. Instead the real challenge now is to get governments and individuals to change their spending priorities and commit money towards this goal.
The UN estimates that it will cost $50 billion by 2015 to achieve these goals. To put that in context, the major military powers spent a combined $900 billion on weapons during the past year alone.
Most nations, including the US government, do already contribute some money towards various global poverty relief programs, but these donations fall far short of the 0.7 percent that the UN is targeting. The major industrial nations, including the US, on average spend less than one quarter of one percent of their annual budgets on such programs. (France, by comparison, spends almost .5 percent)
During General Convention last year, the Episcopal Church committed itself to earmark 0.7 percent of its national budget in support of the MDG, and called upon the various dioceses and parishes of the church to make a similar commitment. The Diocese of Utah also voted to support this program during the diocesan convention in October. Now individual Episcopalians and individual parishes are being called upon to give their financial support.
At St. John's, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous parishioner, the church was able to commit $1500 to the program, an amount larger that 0.7 percent of the church's budget.
In January a series of three Sunday Forums were held to allow members of the parish to suggest possible groups to fund. In keeping with goals of the UN's program, all of the groups under consideration primarily serve needs outside the United States. Initial discussions generated a list of nine possible groups.
The next step was to evaluate the financial viability and responsibility of each of these nine. To that end parish member Norm Jones consulted the website Charity Navigator (http://www.charitynavigator. org/index.cfm) to find out how the various groups rated.
Using the information he found helped to reduce the list to five possible charities, which were then submitted to the parish at the annual meeting in order to determine the three that the church would fund.
The three groups selected at the meeting were: the Grameen Foundation, Safe Passage (Camino Seguro), and the Good Shepherd Home. The Grameen Foundation provides micro-credit loans to help people in impoverished areas start their own businesses. The founder of this group won this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Safe Passage provides schooling and other help to the children who live in the Guatemala City dump. Good Shepherd Home in Cameroon provides a home and school for children who have been orphaned by AIDS and other diseases. It is run by an order of Anglican Benedictine nuns. The sisters of the Community of St. John Baptist, located in New Jersey, are the American liaisons for this program, and coordinate aid and support from the United States. Each of these groups will receive $500 from St. John's.
Hopefully other people and parishes will also join this effort to fund the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.
Steve Sturgeon is a member of St. John's
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