Justice Magazine: The Catholic Social Justice Quarterly - Autumn 2014

THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE QUARTERLY Autumn 2014 www.justicemagazine.org @justicemagazine

JUSTICE magazine

Syria Iraq Dominican Republic Trade unions Ethiopia

EBOLA Working together to fight a deadly virus Digital versions available FREE at www.justicemagazine.org or buy in print at magcloud.com

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THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE QUARTERLY

JUSTICE magazine

Contents Autumn 2014

Justice Magazine is a non-profit making quarterly publication that reports on and aims to further interest in the Catholic Church’s social teaching.

We would love to hear from you with your feedback, ideas for future editions or your own contributed articles.

Please get in touch via our website or by sending an email to editor@justicemagazine.org.

All digital formats are free to the reader.

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If you like what you read in Justice Magazine, let your friends and family know so they can download their own free copy.

Individual printed copies of the magazine are also available from www.magcloud.com. We believe this is a sustainable, environmentally-friendly way for people to access print.

Justice Magazine does not charge for the magazine in print, the amount payable goes directly to the printers for production and postage.

Free advertising space has been given to Catholic charities and agencies. If you can, please make a donation to help them continue their excellent work in the UK and overseas.

Editor Lee Siggs

22 Dominican Republic 4 8 10 17 18 22 26 30 34 38 40 42

Ebola: An enormous challenge facing all of us Ebola: Pray for the carers Syria: Endless airstrikes will never be enough to bring peace Iraq: War is not the answer Communication: Are the most vulnerable being left behind by the digital revolution?

Dominican Republic: Growing food, growing in confidence Seafarers: The deadly perils of seeking a better life Trade unions: Dignity or slavery - does work still work for the common good?

Ethiopia: Sustaining people with financial literacy Housing: No place like home Asylum: A message from the future Final thought: Kenya

Cover photo by Caritas Internationalis/Tommy Trenchard Editorial advisers Jonathan Houdmont Nana Anto-Awuakye For regular news updates from Justice Magazine, remember to visit www.justicemagazine.org

Help spread the word by retweeting @justicemagazine

Acknowledgments The editor wishes to thank all the agencies and individuals who have submitted articles and photos.

The next issue of Justice Magazine will be published in January. Please write to editor@justicemagazine.org with ideas for future articles or to suggest improvements.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 3

Feature Ebola

Christian Modino, CAFOD’s head of Africa humanitarian programmes, on the work being done to get to grips with the Ebola crisis

Ebola: An enormous challenge facing all of us The Ebola River is just like any other river, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a tributary of the Congo River; it’s roughly 250km in length except that this rather innocuous waterway lends its name to the Ebola virus currently spreading through West Africa.

It is 38 years ago this month that in 1976 a man entered the Yambuku Mission Hospital, not far from the Ebola River in what was then called Zaire - now called Democratic Republic of Congo - and was treated for a fever which was suspected to be malaria, but he died a few days later from gastrointestinal bleeding.

The first cases of the current outbreak of the Ebola virus occurred in February 2014 in Guinea, and since then the outbreak has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria.

In humans, it can take anywhere from two days to 21 days for the symptoms of the virus to take hold after initial infection. A person infected with the virus will have a sudden onset of fever, muscle pain, weakness, sore throat and headaches. This is then followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes and impaired liver and kidney functions. In some cases, all these symptoms are further compounded by internal and external bleeding. It is an appalling way to die.

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Nobody is quite sure of the origins of the Ebola virus, the general thinking is that it might be from fruit bats, consider a delicacy among some West African cultures, or through apes, often hunted for their meat

Nobody is quite sure of the origins of the Ebola virus, the general thinking is that it might be from fruit bats, consider a delicacy among some West African cultures, or through apes, often hunted for their meat.

While in the past months the international humanitarian community has been putting all its efforts in providing life saving assistance to the millions of conflict affected people in Syria, Gaza, South Sudan, Central African Republic, just to name a few of the current major crises in the world, aid agencies, governments and donors have been slow in responding

PHOTO: Caritas Internationalis/Tommy Trenchard

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Feature Ebola

to the Ebola outbreak, especially since May when the epidemic started to get out of control.

While we would have guessed that this outbreak would be over by the end of the summer, nine months on, we’re in the midst of an outbreak that is increasing at a rapid rate and that has defied the odds; it has lasted longer, killed more and spread further afield than any other previous outbreak.

What is clear for me, as a humanitarian aid worker with sixteen years experience working across several African countries, is that the challenges we face today in halting the spillover of the Ebola virus in the worst affected communities in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are enormous.

Infrastructure

CAFOD partner Mgr Robert Vitillio, Caritas Internationalis’s health expert, recently returned from Liberia, he told CAFOD: “The healthcare infrastructure in Liberia has been weak for many years and the Ebola epidemic has brought it to its knees. Many hospitals and clinics are closed. Some people die in the streets looking for medical treatment.

“The Catholic Hospital of St Joseph in Monrovia, was considered the best health facility in the country, but was closed after the director and eight other staff members died of Ebola.

The Brothers of St John of God and the Catholic Archdiocese of Monrovia are now working with the government authorities to re-open this much-need facility.”

The threadbare health-care systems of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, three of the world’s poorest countries, lacked even the basics of a publichealth provision before the current Ebola epidemic, now they find their hospitals in disarray as supplies run out and as staff abandon posts after watching their colleagues die from the virus.

The virus, new to the region, is not only decimating the already incredibly weakened by years of civil war health systems of those countries, but is also affecting how people behave 6 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

towards each other - already handshakes and the hug for a friend or a loved one is replaced by elbow or feet tapping.

Another fall-out from Ebola is the mistrust that it has caused among communities, creating fear and discrimination, not unlike the early attitudes to HIV and AIDS in communities.

It’s hard to get past the adjective in every story that you read about Ebola; ‘deadly’, yet this is a disease that can be stopped in its tracks by culturally adapted behaviour change messaging, good hygiene practices and good public health education and sensitisation.

The Catholic Church is on the frontline of this response, and support from CAFOD is bolstering the lifesaving work of our Caritas partners

who are training priests, parish volunteers, imams, spiritualists and traditional healers to spread the word about good hygiene, hand washing and safe burials, as well as distributing hygiene kits.

These volunteers are working across Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, travelling to remote villages, slums and towns to pass on life-saving information so as to try to contain the spread of the disease in their communities.

In Sierra Leone, Caritas aid workers are running local training sessions and radio outreach. “The biggest enemy is lack of understanding,” said Edward John-Bull, director of Caritas Sierra Leone.

“We bring doctors and other professionals to do the training. Catholic

PHOTO: Caritas Internationalis/Tommy Trenchard

school teachers, priests, we train them with all the messages of how to protect yourself. Then they go back to the parishes, and the catechists talk about Ebola, or priests talk about it during the sermon.”

According to some epidemiologists, at the current infection rate 1.5 million people could potentially be infected by the end of the year. We have reached a tipping-point and the world seems to have finally woken up to the reality that Ebola is not only a major health, economic and social disaster for Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia but a serious world security threat if it is not contained and stopped in the next two months.

Aid agencies and lead governments such as the US and the UK are playing catch-up with the disease. Britain

has sent aircraft, navy ships, military personnel, and NHS staff to support the building and management of five treatment centres, in Sierra Leone, training local staff to tackle the virus.

It is difficult to get definitive figures on the numbers infected, and the numbers of deaths, because communities are either afraid to alert the authorities about sick relatives, or those that die are buried by family members without following the stringent procedures necessary to ensure that others aren’t exposed to the virus. However the World Health Organisation - WHO - currently estimate that the outbreak has infected more than 13,000 people and killed nearly 5,000 people across the three worst affected countries.

News stories of the Ebola infected Liberian-American patient in Texas who died from the disease and the nurse in Madrid, make it clear that this virus is a threat to all of us.

The top United Nations official charged with overseeing the UN response on the ground, Dr David Nabarro, speaking at the UN General Assembly, made it clear that it requires an extraordinary response from the international community to get in place the enormous coordination effort needed to isolate and defeat the virus, saying “mass mobilisation” is needed to ensure countries work together to put in place the infrastructure needed to contain the virus.”

Consequences

His prediction if this didn’t happen in the coming weeks is bleak. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he spelt out the consequences: ■ Continued sickness and death and the economies of the affected countries decimated ■ A greater spread into neighbouring countries ■ The virus spreading further afield ■ And the virus becoming established in affected countries Dr Nabarro went on to say that the Ebola outbreak is now worse than any virus movie he’s ever seen - he might well have been referring to the

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News stories of the Ebola infected Liberian-American patient in Texas who died from the disease and the nurse in Madrid, make it clear that this virus is a threat to all of us

movie ‘Outbreak’, starring the Dustin Hoffman, the film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like virus called Motaba in Africa and later in a small town in the United States, the plot explores how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the virus.

The ending of the film has the remaining residents of the town successfully cured. However, in real life there is currently no vaccine or approved cure for the Ebola virus, treatment involves intensive supportive care. However, in a few cases involving care workers who have contracted the disease, an experimental drug ZMapp has been administered with some positive results. The drug was given to two US doctors who recovered fully as did British nurse Will Pooley, who received the treatment in a London hospital.

The situation is grave as the spread of the Ebola virus continues to double every three to four weeks.

It’s clear that many families and communities will suffer long-lasting trauma after the disease is gone, including poverty and social exclusion. CAFOD’s partners will also need to help families and provide life-saving assistance and prevention support to West Africa; this is now, more than ever, an urgent priority.

Christian Modino is CAFOD’s Head of Africa Humanitarian Programmes

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Comment Ebola

The director of CAFOD, Chris Bain, on the importance of prayer in supporting those health workers meeting Ebola on the ground

Pray for the carers

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PHOTO: Caritas Guinea

The World Health Organisation has reported that the number of people infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa has reached more than 13,000, with nearly 5,000 deaths. Mali is the latest country in the region to record a death.

This is an unprecedented challenge, and the prognosis for the spread of this virus is unpredictable. However, the overwhelming nature of the crisis must not leave us paralysed with fear and hopelessness; we need to take extraordinary measures to tackle it head on, and save lives.

A coordinated global effort is now under way, and given the gravity of the situation and the urgent need to respond, the Disasters Emergency Committee, of which CAFOD is a member, has launched an appeal.

The Ebola outbreak hits hardest at the poor and the vulnerable in affected countries, where healthcare systems are fragile, and where people are unable to go to their farms or earn a living in the market-place.

Our first line of defence is educating people about the virus and how to avoid catching it. We are working with our trusted Church and non-Church partners, who are already rolling out a prevention campaign for communities in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

CAFOD has been supporting the training of priests, catechists and Church volunteers who, with bravery, compassion, and selflessness, are on the ground, dedicated to reducing the number of new infections in their communities. Many are travelling to small, remote vil-

lages miles away from main cities and towns, delivering life-saving information about safe burial practices, and explaining why traditional funerals - which involve washing and dressing the dead body of a loved one and keeping the body in the house for the wake - are one of the quickest ways for the virus to spread.

The impact of Ebola is wider than just health needs. CAFOD partners tell us that food prices have sky-rocketed, and many in their communities cannot afford to buy food for their families.

The director of Caritas Kenema in Sierra Leone, Patrick Jamiru, said: “Every day we see a stream of people outside the bishop’s house.

They tell us that they don’t have food, they are unable to work, and the Church is now their last hope.”

As well as providing education on prevention, we also need to make sure that human dignity is preserved. Caritas aid workers are

already dropping off food in designated distribution places for collection, but we urgently need to reach more quarantined and vulnerable families.

We know one thing with absolute and painful certainty; if we do not play our part in the international effort to halt the spread of this disease, communities across West Africa will continue to endure the appalling suffering Ebola inflicts on them.

Every donation to CAFOD is having an impact on the frontline of this crisis, and will do for years to come. The individuals, families, parishes and schools across England and Wales who support CAFOD’s work will literally make the difference between life and death for thousands of people over the coming weeks.

Please keep the people affected by the Ebola virus, and those working towards its containment, in your prayers.

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JUSTICE JUSTICE MAGAZINE 9

Feature Syria

Catholic peer David Alton argues that an aerial bombardment of ISIS is unlikely to make life better for people on the ground

Endless airstrikes will never be enough to bring peace It has been reported that since the calamitous conflict began in Syria, in March 2011, the number of dead had topped 150,000, with 6.2 million internally displaced people – a number without parallel in any other country - and nearly 11 million people in need.

More than two million Syrians have now fled, marking a nearly 10-fold increase from a year ago.

The UNHCR has said: “Syria is

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haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs.”

In the past 12 months, around 1.8 million people have flooded out of Syria, and an average of 5,000 continue to cross into neighbouring countries each day. In August, UNHCR said that the number of Syrian children living as refugees has exceeded one million.

A US Air Force B-1B Lancer ies over northern Iraq after conducting air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets (US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch)

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Feature Syria

In addition, thanks to ISIS, there are 1.8m people displaced in Iraq.

I first visited Syria in 1980 and arrived in Damascus on the day on which war broke out between Iran and Iraq - a war that claimed a million lives. In the decades which have followed, disfiguring violence and war have shaped events in the region, leaving in its wake a bitter trail of orphaned children, widowed mothers, hoards of suffering displaced people, refugees and broken towns and cities.

It is hard to imagine that a campaign of aerial bombardment in Syria will make that situation any better.

Objectives

Indeed, as we attack ISIS command centres, their insurgents will hide themselves in civilian settings and every time a Cruise missile hits the wrong target and kills non-combatants it will radicalise and recruit yet more fighters to their cause.

However brave and better armed the Kurdish Peshmerga and Free Syrian Army may be – and we had better hope that this time the arms we provide do not fall in to the hands of ISIS – endless air strikes and drone warfare will not achieve our objectives.

We must also be wary of the danger of assuming, especially in the case of countries like Iran, that the old proverb “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is true.

Military force alone will not kill the religious ideology that created and sustains ISIS, Boko Haram, the Al Nursa Front, al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Hezbollah and the countless mutations which are committed to violence to achieve their ends.

By definition, military action cannot kill ideas or beliefs, so our central task must be to convince Muslim majority societies that their own interests demand toleration of minorities and the equality and freedom of people of other faiths.

It illustrates the size of this challenge that when an Afghan graduate student submitted a research paper arguing, from the Koran, that Islam supports the equality of men and women, his professors reported him 12 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

A refugee child in Atmeh villagenear the Turkish border

PHOTO: IHH/Emre Karapınar

to the police. After being charged with blasphemy he was convicted and given a death sentence. This and beheadings, crucifixions, rapes and enslavement, all underline the scale of the battle for hearts and minds in which we have to be engaged.

Until these societies move toward pluralism, encourage religious freedom and respect diversity, they will not enjoy the peace, stability, internal security, and economic growth, for which all people crave.

But, in the immediate situation in which we now find ourselves, we could do a lot worse that revisiting the initiative taken by Sir John Major in 1991 during the mass exodus in the first Gulf War. The UN-mandated safe-haven and the subsequent no-fly zone enabled Kurdish refugees to return to their homes and to establish a de-facto autonomous region, which continued until the fall of the Saddam regime in 2003, and which in recent weeks has once again become a vital place of refuge for Iraq’s minorities.

If, once again, we established a nofly zone along the Turkish-Syrian border or, ultimately right across Syria, it would at least provide air cover to the FSA, the Iraqi army, and the Peshmerga as they seek to reclaim territory - the size of the UK - which has been needlessly and foreseeably lost to the Islamic State who, with an estimated 10,000 fighters, have been allowed to strike with deadly impunity. Their caliphate has now been imitated by the equally deadly Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

One other thing we must urgently do is to dry up the sources of ISIS revenue.

On June 17 this year, I asked the Government about the sources of funding which ISIS have received allowing them “to build up an amazing military capability” with the then Minister responding that she was “not sure about any direct funding”.

On July 23, in an article in The Times, I urged the West to press the Gulf States to end funding for ISIS. It is said that they garner £600,000 a day from selling oil on the black market. The sale of antiq-

uities – some 8,000 years old – and ransom money is estimated to give them a daily income of £1.2 million.

We must ruthlessly follow the trail of money and expose those who are financing the orgy of killing.

More recently, Sabah Mikhail Brakho, the chairman of Iraq’s Beth Nahrain National Union, called on the Gulf States to stop funding ISIS. He said: “Financing for ISIS comes from the Arab Gulf countries, whether through governments or individuals. This is sometimes done openly, such as by Qatar, and sometimes secretly, such as by Saudi Arabia, as well as by a number of Kuwaiti individuals.”

Intelligence

Western press and intelligence reports have indicated that states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait are the main supporters of Jihadist groups in the region.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Qatar’s Aspire Sports Academy hosted a number of religious lectures during Ramadan that were attended

by Islamist preachers known for their extremism or links with terrorism.

They included Sheikh Mohammed Arifi who encouraged Muslims to swell the ranks of militant groups in Syria: “We will not overcome humiliation except by jihad,” he said.

Although he was subsequently prevented from entering Britain, on July 14 he gave a lecture at the Aspire Festival in Doha, where he was honoured by two members of the Qatari royal family. The festival was also attended by Nabil Wadhi, sponsor of the Major Kuwaiti Campaign to support 12,000 Islamic fighters in Syria. This campaign claims that it could collect millions of dollars to buy anti-aircraft missiles and was also planning to buy thermal missiles.

The Islamic State has been years in the making and it is a crisis which we should have averted.

In a House of Lords debate back on February 27, I referred to the “Afghanisation” of Syria, and pressed the Government for more clarity about the indiscriminating way in which support had been given to soJUSTICE MAGAZINE 13

Feature Syria

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PHOTO: Michael Swan

called opposition groups, largely at war with one another; and the need to hold the Assad regime to account for its use of chemical weapons; the Sarin gas which has been used against civilians in the suburbs of Damascus; the barrel bombs which have rained down on Aleppo.

In singling out ISIS during that debate, I asked for the Government’s assessment of the areas which they controlled, their use of suicide bombers, the radicalisation of recruits, citing the example of an engineering student from the University of Liverpool who had been killed in military action, and argued that “vast tracts falling under the control of dangerous jihadist groups, would hardly represent progress.”

Earlier that week I had sent the Government a report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict which described how Jihadi humanitarian assistance teams appeared to be facilitating the entry of fighters, via Turkey.

I hope Parliament will be told the numbers of Britons involved with ISIS and the flow of money into their coffers.

I would also like to hear something about the plight of the region’s minorities.

In February, in arguing that the situation had been exacerbated by the flow of arms into Syria, I warned of the dangers posed to the region’s minorities whom ISIS required to pay tribute, to convert or to leave and asked “what we are doing to provide direct help to these beleaguered minorities”.

As long ago as 2008 and 2010 I raised concerns in the House of Lords House about the Yazidis and the “assassinations and kidnappings” which they faced.

In the debate in February I quoted the account of a Christian, Basman Kassouha, who described how ISIS had “stormed my house, giving me one hour to evacuate or else they will kill me ... I’m heartbroken. I’ve lost everything”.

I cited evidence of genocide from Bishop Elias Sleman who said that “Christians are increasingly targeted

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By definition, military action cannot kill ideas or beliefs, so our central task must be to convince Muslim majority societies that their own interests demand toleration of minorities

in horrible and unspeakable massacres” and asked that we carefully collate such accounts for a day of reckoning.

I asked in February that we use our voice in the Security Council to refer these atrocities to the International Criminal Court and said that failure to do so would bring “great dishonour

on this country.” I ask, again, what have we done to plead for the rule of international law; and, if the ICC cannot be used, for the creation of a Regional Court in which perpetrators of atrocities which the Prime Minister has described as “literally medieval in character” are brought to justice.

May I also ask what we are doing to ensure that the Government of Iraq will have a clear objective to enable communities who have lived in Iraq for almost 2,000 years to do so again and to exercise their full rights and to discharge their duties as citizens.

And what of the Yazids and Christians who have fled to the Kurdish region? What more can we do to help them? Time is not on our side. The harsh Iraqi winter is approaching.

Social tensions between Kurds and Arabs, between local governments and migrants will grow and erupt if they are not headed off.

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JUSTICE MAGAZINE 3

Feature Syria

A Syrian refugees’ camp in Cappadocia, Turkey

PHOTO: Fabio Penna

given £23 million but the Government needs to set out how they are working with international partners to ensure sustained funding for the humanitarian crisis, and efficiency of delivery.

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the UK’s response to Extremism and Instability in North and West Africa delivered a salutary warning. Of the intervention in Libya in 2011 it said “considerable resources were expended ensuring that military goals were successfully achieved (for which the Government deserves credit), but there was a failure to anticipate, and therefore mitigate, the regional fallout from the intervention, which has been enormous and, in some cases, disastrous” Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. In other words, following military action will the same thing happen again?

Back in February 1 I quoted a Dutch priest, Father Franz Van der Lugt, trapped in the old city of Homs who said: “Our city has become a law16 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

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Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results

less jungle”. He had insisted that “We love life, we want to live. And we do not want to sink in a sea of pain and suffering.”

On April 7 it was reported that Fr Van der Lugt had been murdered by jihadists.

The night before the February debate, Mosul had fallen to ISIS and 120,000 Christians were reported to have fled to the Plains of Nineveh. I asked what we were doing to protect them.

Our total failure to provide protection was illustrated by crucifixions, kidnappings and beheading of Christians carried out by ISIS and which I

raised in the House of Lords on June 11. I quoted The Times who said we cannot be “spectators at this carnage”.

Those Muslims who have spoken out or defied ISIS have suffered a similar fate.

The head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, Professor Dr Mehmet Gormez, told the World Islamic Scholars Peace, Moderation and Common Sense Initiative, that globally 1,000 Muslims are being killed each day – 90 per cent of their killers are also Muslims.

In combating the Islamic State the US and the West will argue that we are part of a coalition which includes Sunni Muslim States but, as we all know, it is much easier to take military action than it is to end conflict.

For the sake of all the innocent people who are caught up in this violence, we need to understand, and grapple with, ideas and beliefs which militate against peaceful co-existence and not place all our faith in a campaign of aerial bombardment.

David Alton is a Catholic peer

Comment Iraq

John Dear says that conflict never achieves peace, but only sows the seeds of future war

War is not the answer

PHOTO: Stephen Melkisethian

Millions of Americans oppose war as a solution to our problems. Millions were opposed to Bush’s war in Iraq, and they remain opposed now to war as a way to bring peace to Iraq.

War never brings peace, it always sows the seeds for future wars. War can’t stop terrorism because war is terrorism and always breeds further terrorist attacks.

ISIS is the natural consequence of 23 years of US war and occupation in Iraq. Bombing ISIS will not work; it will only lead to further violence and death and turn more people against the US. Killing people who kill people is not the way to show that killing is wrong!

We have been bombing Iraq for 23 years, and killed more than a million people, closer to 1.5 million, in Iraq. None of this warmaking has brought us closer to peace.

Years ago, when I led a delegation of Nobel Peace Laureates to Iraq, the Catholic archbishop of Baghdad broke down sobbing and begged us: “Stop bombing Iraq. Please tell your nation that bombing us will only make things worse.” His sentiment is still true.

Most Americans are sick of our permanent warmaking economy, despite what government officials, Pentagon generals and the media tell us.

If we want to end terrorism abroad, we have to end our own terrorist methods, dismantle our arsenals, abolish our terrorist nuclear weapons and use those trillions of dollars to end poverty, suffering and global injustice, and promote non-violent conflict resolution around the world.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed this was possible; it’s still possible, but it demands a new holistic approach and solution.

We are against this war just as Dr King was against the Vietnam War, and proposed a Poor People’s Campaign to fight injustice at home.

With Dr King, we oppose military spending, military solutions, weapons of mass destruction, and environmental destruction which hurts the poor, leave us bankrupt and threatens the climate. We want a new culture of peace and nonviolence which solves all problems nonviolently, and which gets at the root causes of terrorism, for the long haul solution of peace.

Americans need to speak out against military spending and ongoing warmaking, and call for nuclear disarmament and nonviolent solutions to the global crises.

We need to build up the grassroots nonviolent movements of peace and justice and demand that our massive resources be used for

human needs at home and abroad - to feed the hungry, house the homeless, give jobs, education and healthcare to everyone, and cut terrorism at its roots so that the world can disarm and become more nonviolent.

That’s the way real, lasting change happens from bottom-up grassroots movements that transform the systems and crises of the day. Every one of us is needed in this work of peace and non-violent transformation.

War is not the path to peace. It will never bring peace. Peaceful means are the only way to a peaceful future and the God of peace.

Join the campaign of nonviolence, renounce violence, speak out against war, poverty and environmental destruction and take the high road to peace.

That way, every step is peaceful and brings hope for real, positive change.

John Dear is a Catholic priest from the United States

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 17

Feature Communication

Clare Skelton argues that the switch to online means of communication is leaving many people high and dry when it comes to managing their finances

Are the most vulnerable being left behind by the digital revolution?

With this autumn edition of Justice, many readers may be thinking it’s now time to turn up the heating or put the boiler onto the timer – however for many households across the country this time of the year signals worries over winter fuel bills.

Figures released last year by the Citizens Advice Bureau found that four in five people on low incomes were anxious about the cost of their 2013 fuel bill. On top of the rising costs, exactly how these bills are being communicated is adding to the concern.

Increasingly, energy and water providers have introduced paperless statements and bills while moving payment methods online and have ceased sending information through the post. And it’s not just utility companies: The only way for many customers to reach their bank, local council, telecoms company or media provider is through the internet. The option to receive paper statements are often withdrawn without notification whilst some utility companies offer a discount to customers who opt out of printed letters and bills or charge those who wish to keep paper billing.

Keep Me Posted, a coalition of businesses, charities and other concerned organisations, campaigns against this default towards the digital, stating that making information solely avail18 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

The only way for many customers to reach their bank, local council, telecoms company or media provider is through the internet. The option to receive paper statements are often withdrawn without notification

able online denies customers both choice and a voice. Working in communications and being in my mid-twenties, the author of this article is computer-literate, regularly uses online banking and pays council tax online, yet still wants to be able to receive paper documents speak to real person and not an automated voice recording.

Internet

It is an issue of most concern for the vulnerable in our society. Digital Landscape Research in 2012 from the Government Digital Strategy reported that 18 per cent of the UK population are offline and left out: 16 million adults don’t have basic online skills whilst recent ONS figures show that four million households do not have access to the internet. Elderly and disabled people, who make up approximately a fifth of the population, often require support accessing online services: Only 37 per cent of adults aged over 75 have ever used the internet.

This is not just a concern around how companies interact with customers; it’s how countries interact with their citizens. In Britain, 80 per cent of government interaction with the public is with those in the lowest quarter of socioeconomic categories – and yet within this demographic,

A resident at Caritas Anchor House. The education, training and employment schemes oer residents one-to-one support and e-learning courses that develop IT skills

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 19

Feature Communication

49 per cent of people are without internet access. Seven in every ten people living in social housing aren’t online. If you are asked to pay a bill, bid for a council house or apply for a job online, you can see how quickly having no computer skills will leave you marginalised from society, unable to access opportunities and vulnerable to financial trouble.

It’s not just a move from paper to digital, there’s also a shift away from telephone lines and face-to-face interaction.

Raj, a benefits adviser at Brushstrokes project in the Smethwick area of Birmingham – an area with a high rate of unskilled manual workers, and residents on benefits – reflects on contact with government services: “If you look at the last five, seven, ten years, the face of the social security office, their presence in the high street, their responsibility and their communication, or their contact in fact with the public, with the people who they are out to serve, who are needing those benefits, often not through their own fault, instead of promoting that take-up and being there and showing their presence, opening up offices and increasing the contact, they are actually doing exactly the reverse.”

Facade

He continued: “Now we are finding people who when they ring about their problems when their benefits have been stopped, they often talk to a contact centre person who has got no connection, often they are very badly trained ... often with a very short period of experience within the services, and hence they have got no idea of what’s happening to the people out there.

“That’s probably the reason why they are simply hiding behind this computer facade, to say ‘oh well, computer says you didn’t sign last week and that’s the reason your benefit is stopped’. Whereas the person whose benefit has stopped, it matters to them a hell of a lot, they want to know why, they want an explanation, they want to know what they can do to sort things out, to perhaps get back on track and so on.”

20 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

The automated voices and the keypad options cause problems too: Selecting which department to speak to, being transferred between callhandlers and long waiting times means that both clients and advisers struggle with communication. Raj added: “Often we are on the phone a long, long time before somebody answers. And it’s ringing and ringing and ringing but then somebody answers and you are listening to this music and you are obviously being charged while you are listening to their stupid music! So it’s really an insult to injury, or the injury adding to the insult, when you are having to spend money listening to some stupid music you don’t want anyway. And there’s your client waiting desperately for an answer.”

Julia, a single mother of 20-month old Luke and two teenage sons, comes to Brushstrokes for support with food

and material support and advice on her benefit payments.

The day she was interviewed, she’d walked all afternoon carrying Luke as his pushchair had been stolen from outside their home. Julia uses Universal Job Match to look for work, which provides evidence for Jobseekers Allowance; she has to use the Job Centre website yet this has its own challenges. Some of the jobs publicised have expired yet are still open for applications and others are duplicated with four or five different reference numbers. “I applied for 10 jobs,” Julia says, “two I think were OK but the rest were all expired. I said ‘how is it possible it is expired?’ really because I don’t know how to use the computer. All of the time my son he helps me to find the jobs because I’m looking for a cleaning job. I don’t know because I don’t have any paper.”

It’s a line she says often: “I don’t know

PHOTO: Keith Williamson

because I don’t have any paper”, nothing to provide a paper trail, nothing to take to her case worker who will help her translate.

But in many cases, even printed letters and documents aren’t communicating important information clearly and effectively.

Legalistic

In his ‘Independent review of the operations of Jobseekers Allowance sanctions validated by the Jobseekers Act 2013’ published in July of this year, Matthew Oakley established that the DWP letters designed to inform an individual they have been sanctioned often do quite the opposite. Deemed to be overly long and legalistic, vague in language and unclear around appeal processes or hardship funds, many letters lack any personal explanation as to the reason for the individual’s sanction referral.

Oakley adds that the letters are “particularly difficult for the most vulnerable claimants to understand – meaning that people potentially most in need of the hardship system were the least likely to be able to access it”.

Dunni, the personal finances coordinator at Caritas Anchor House, a life skills centre for homeless people in east London’s Canning Town, echoes this point: “People get sanctioned for silly little things: You haven’t filled your job search out right, you haven’t filled it out online – but the person has the paper proof to say OK, I did this and this and this which is what I should have done ... now, there’s a difference between a sanction and you not being entitled to JSA (Jobseekers’ Allowance) or housing allowance but the problem is, when DWP communicate this to housing allowance, they don’t say ‘it’s a sanction’, they say ‘oh, this person

is no longer entitled’.

“There’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of phone calls, a lot of wasted manpower just trying to resolve it”.

Regardless what information is being communicated – be it a utility bill or a welfare letter – if it is not conveyed clearly or through easily accessible channels, the recipient will never fully understand the system in which they are a part, never know their responsibilities, let alone be empowered to take these responsibilities on.

Matthew Oakley adds: “If communication is ineffective and understanding poor, a wide range of evidence shows that compliance with the system will be lower and, overall, the system will be less effective at moving claimants from benefits into work”.

Government departments and businesses need to work hard on their communications strategies, ensuring that they are using the easiest, clearest and most accessible channels available.

Requiring subtlety and human judgment rather than a blanket approach, such a focus is hugely important if we are to make systems fit for purpose.

Communicating important information properly and clearly is the only way to empower and enable.

Raj added: “In the 21st century when we should be mindful of people’s problems and supporting them emotionally ... in the long run we are as a society paying for it one way or another, by increasing mental health problems, by increasing crime, by increasing violence, by increasing whatever, and I think that cost nobody realises at all “And where are we going? We are going, I would say, in the wrong direction to be honest.”

Clare Skelton works for CSAN. In some cases, names have been changed Brushstrokes is a project of Father Hudson’s Society. Both Father Hudson’s and Caritas Anchor House are members of CSAN

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 21

Feature Dominican Republic

Karina Cuba Corimaita, a Progressio food security specialist, reflects on how her work with women in a remote, rural community on the Dominican Republic’s border with Haiti not only helped families to eat more healthily, but also supported women to tackle isolation, discrimination and domestic violence Life for women in the rural region is tough. Every woman I met in the Dajabón region, where I worked as a Progressio development worker alongside local NGO Solidaridad Fronteriza, has a personal story to tell, but Elena’s is definitely one that made a big impact on me.

Elena Tusen, 42, arrived in the Dominican Republic as a migrant from Haiti when she was still a young girl. Being an illegal immigrant made Elena’s childhood very difficult. She was constantly running away and experienced abuse, marginalisation and discrimination.

As she grew up, Elena faced even more difficult realities and got caught up in a series of violent and abusive relationships. When she met the man who is now her husband, a Dominican, with whom she has had seven children, she thought her life would get better. Sadly, the violence continued in her home and family life. In his frustration at not being able to put bread on the table for his desperately hungry children, her husband sought refuge in alcohol, making things much worse.

Unable to support herself and her children alone, Elena had no option but to stay and endure a difficult relationship. Elena, in her anguish and desperation, looked for work, but found little. When she did find work, it was in the fields where she was paid with the leftovers after crops had been harvested. It was enough to appease the family’s hunger, but she could not 22 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Growing food, growing in confidence

PHOTO: Fran Afonso/Progressio

feed her children properly or support their nutrition on so little. Consequently, Elena has lost three of her seven children to illness.

When we started to work on the food security programme, we knew that Haitian migrants, like Elena, were among the most vulnerable people and needed to be included in the project. We started working with a big group of women, who have all stuck with the programme, but Elena really stands out as one of the most committed and active participants, passing on what she has learnt to others in the community.

Initially, the Dominican women would keep their distance from those of Haitian descent, but slowly we managed to breakdown this divide. I remember how shy, insecure and fearful Elena was when we first started working together. Nevertheless, she always had a vivacious look that seemed to say ‘I want to learn, I want my story to change’. As we progressed we saw that change happening and Elena started to smile her beautiful smile that you know comes straight from the heart.

After a while, Elena started to see the results of what she had learnt through her training. Elena and her family now have an easy-to-manage vegetable garden that they can rely on for a balanced diet. She is also keeping chickens, whose eggs provide the family with protein. Elena has become a ‘champion farmer’ in the community and teaches others the techniques that I taught her. Not only that, but having gained knowledge and feeling surer in herself, Elena now feels able to confront the other problems in her life as well.

During the time we worked with Elena, she fell pregnant with her eighth child. Two months into her pregnancy her husband struck her a serious blow. This time, Elena knew she had to find the courage to report him.

When we met, Elena told me: “This has happened to me many times before, but now I know it’s not right.

I am a person and I have learnt that I can look after myself and count on my community. I have managed to JUSTICE MAGAZINE 23

Feature Dominican Republic

report my husband because I know my community is looking out for me.

Now, the Dominican women, who wouldn’t look at me before, always ask after me. We have formed a strong group. Everyone looks out for each other.”

Understanding

Later, in another conversation with Elena, she explained: “My husband is a good man, it’s just that when he drinks, he turns bad.” As she says this, Elena’s husband, Osiri, comes and sits with us, introduces himself and says how pleased he is to meet us. I take the opportunity to talk to him, sincerely, with understanding and without judgment.

Osiri breaks down in tears and tells us: “I want to be better, to give my family another life, but I can’t. This land isn’t mine. I don’t have the deeds to any property. I can’t get a loan to improve my output. I get hardly any work and when I go to the city, it costs me more than I can earn. I love my children and my wife, but life in the rural areas is very hard. Poor people stay poor because the big producers get everything: machinery, loans, seeds, everything. But we small-scale farmers get nothing. Now at least we have our vegetable garden, our chickens. I hope we can keep working with you, not so that you can give us things, but so that you can teach us.

We made this vegetable garden ourselves. We look after it. We maintain it. Before, we didn’t even think it was possible.”

“I am Dominican, but ever since I

married my wife, who is Haitian, the community set me apart,” he explained. “Since Progressio and Solidaridad Fronteriza started working in our community things have changed. Others in the community even offer me work now when it is time for harvest. I no longer have to chase after my wage packet,” said Osiri, smiling.

Together we spoke about how facing problems calmly, together as a family, is the first step to making sure that the situation improves. Osiri has promised Elena that he will not let what has happened in the past ever happen again.

As a food security specialist, I didn’t expect to find myself supporting women to overcome domestic violence, but Elena’s story is by no means unique.

I have learnt that when facilitating development work, we have to think of people as whole people. Our problems are often interrelated.

Supporting women, like Elena, to solve their family’s food security problems is sometimes the first step to breaking a cycle of violence rooted in poverty and frustration.

Elena has gone on to teach the sustainable farming techniques I taught her to many others.

I believe that when people know and properly understand why and to what end they are carrying out development activities, as Elena does, the resulting change will be more sustainable and will influence the future not just for the families involved, but for the community as a whole.

PHOTOS: Fran Afonso/Progressio

24 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Elena Tusen with Progressio's Karina Cuba

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 25

Feature Seafarers

26 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

The deadly perils of seeking a better life

Many people seek a new and better life by taking to the sea, but as Greg Watts reports, the Apostleship of the Sea is increasingly helping those who ďŹ nd themselves the victims of traďŹƒckers The discovery in August this year of 35 Afghans, including 13 children, inside a container at Tilbury docks in Essex, grabbed the media headlines.

One of the group was found to be dead when the container was opened.

Police later charged three men in connection with the death.

Yet what happened at Tilbury is part of a much larger picture of global human trafficking at sea.

Because of famine, poverty, political or religious persecution, natural disasters, armed conflicts and many other causes, thousands of people take to the sea in search of a better life.

But these journeys are perilous.

The boats are usually not properly manned, equipped or licensed for carrying passengers on international voyages. Migrants can be at sea for days and in very dangerous circumstances. Generally they travel without documents, in cramped conditions, facing severe weather at sea, and often even death.

A few weeks after the shocking discovery at Tilbury, more than 500 migrants died when their boat sank off the coast of Malta after a trafficking gang rammed it. The mainly Syrian, Palestinian, Egyptian and Sudanese migrants had set out from Damietta in Egypt and were forced to change boats several times during the crossing towards Europe. The traffickers, who were on a separate boat, then ordered them onto a smaller vessel, which many of the migrants feared was too small to hold them.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, about 2,900 migrants have died this year in the Mediterranean, compared to JUSTICE MAGAZINE 27

Feature Seafarers

Chaplains from the Apostleship of the Sea are on hand to help the victims of trafficking

700 in 2013. But there is another kind of trafficking at sea.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a growing number of migrant fishermen impoverished nations in south-east Asia, such as Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines, are trafficked to serve as “forced slave labour” on fishing boats.

The men often turn to Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) chaplains such as Fr Isagani Fabito for help.

He is based at the Iglesia Filipina Independiente Church in Aklan in the Phillippines.

It was thanks to him that Vincente, a 34-year-old working 20-hour shifts on a tuna boat in the Indian Ocean, was able to escape. He had been initially promised a monthly salary of 28 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

I was afraid someone from the agency would come and get him at the airport and put him on a ship again

US$550 by a broker in his village but after paying close to US$560 in broker fees, he found out he was only going to be paid US$200 when he arrived at a staffing agency in Singapore.

“The first time I saw the contract I was shocked,” he said. But it was too late and saddled with debt, Vincente signed off the next three years of his life to an uncertain fate.

When, after 10 months, his boat docked at Cape Town, South Africa.

For the first time since he set sail, he was able to call his family, who told him to come home.

His family contacted Fr Fabito, who managed to find someone from the International Transport Workers’ Federation in Cape Town to help Vincente get off the boat and on a plane home.

When he arrived in Singapore, where he had to change flights, another AoS chaplain was waiting to meet him.

“I was afraid someone from the agency would come and get him at the airport and put him on a ship again,” said Fr Fabito.

However, flying fishermen like Vin-

cente home incurs early termination fees and flight ticket costs, which often offset the already meagre wages, said Fr Romeo Yu-Chang, the AoS east Asia regional coordinator.

Fr Romeo tries to use church funds to put fishermen on a flight home and sometimes offers them a bed in the church’s retreat centre.

AoS in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, also has a shelter and assists seamen. The shelter can house about 40 people and is usually fully occupied, mostly by fishermen, said port chaplain Father Ranulfo Salise.

Shelter

He added that AoS has been observing an increasing number of complaints from fishermen since 2009, mostly from Indonesians. Yet only 32 have filed legal cases to pursue their unpaid salaries since 2009.

“Most of them come to our shelter to sleep and go home. They don’t usually chase legal disputes,” said Fr Salise.

In June, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted a new protocol to eradicate contemporary forms of slavery, a move welcomed

by AoS national director Martin Foley. “Seafarers and fishermen work

in one of the most dangerous environments and yet all too often governments and authorities turn a blind eye to the appalling conditions many are forced to endure,” Mr Foley said.

“We’ve read about the brutal treatment of workers in Thailand linked to seafood production. Sadly such appalling conditions are not confined to Thailand.”

Bishop Patrick Lynch, chair of migration policy for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, who attended a meeting on human trafficking at the Vatican earlier this year, said: “It is becoming increasingly apparent that vulnerable men, women and children are being exploited by criminals all over the world and that we must respond compassionately to their cries for help.

“We support the Home Secretary in her commitment to making Britain a hostile place for human traffickers, and hope that the criminals in this case are speedily brought to justice.

“We need to help ‘first line respondents’ - priests, doctors, leaders and chaplains to ethnic communities, embassy staff - to be alert to the signs

and responsive to the suffering of those who are trafficked but also informed as to where help can be sought.”

Roger Stone, AoS port chaplain to Southampton and Portsmouth, echoed his words: “Human trafficking is a growing problem across our society, as many reports on BBC and media reveal.

“In the maritime world, it’s rare on ships that come into UK ports, but when it happens it’s very serious.

“I have supported Filipino victims of human trafficking. Seafarers from other countries such as Ghana, for example, are also victims.

“Another seafarer I met who was almost certainly a victim was from Kenya. The victims don’t necessarily realise that they are victims.

“They can be trapped and beholden to their traffickers.”

He said ports need to be more alert to the possibilities of human trafficking. “Ports can be slow to realise that the seafarers who reveal the parlous conditions in which they have to work don’t immediately recognise them as potential victims of trafficking. Sometimes not at all.”

Greg Watts is a freelance journalist

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 29

Feature Trade unions

30 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

The ďŹ lm, Two days, One night, stars Marion Cotillard as Belgian factory worker Sandra

Paul Donovan suggests the Church could look at its own track record of support for trade unions to ensure that human dignity is upheld in the workplace

Dignity or slavery – does work still work for the common good?

The film, Two days, One night, starring Marion Cotillard as Belgian factory worker Sandra will have struck a chord with many workers.

Sandra is told she will be made redundant unless she can persuade her fellow workers to give up their bonuses. She goes one to one seeking to persuade the different individuals of her cause. In the end, she succeeds in converting half the workforce to her cause. This is not enough, but the boss is impressed at her fortitude and says she can have a job when one of the other workers is released. She refuses, knowing that it will be one of those who voted to support her who will be let go.

The lesson of the film is the need to show solidarity, organise collectively and work for the common good.

The film is so timely at a moment of unprecedented insecurity in the workplace. The much-lauded economic recovery has, in the main, been prefaced on forcing more people into low paid, insecure work. This is most clearly evidenced with the movement of more than one million workers,

since 2010, from the more secure better paid employment of the public sector to the lower paid insecure work of the private sector.

There are now 1.4 million people on zero hour contracts, with two in every five of the new jobs created over recent years being self employed.

Entrepreneurs

Some 4.5 million are classified as self employed. The official figures published by Parliament found that the average annual income from selfemployment is less than ÂŁ10,000 for women - in case anyone should think that self employment is the exclusive status of aspiring entrepreneurs, the number of whom have incidentally declined by 52,000 over the four year period (2010 to 2014).

Then there has been the growth in part time workers, who now account for 8 million out of the 30 million workforce. They account for half of the jobs created between 2010 and 2012. And it is not a life style choice or a matter of work life balance, most of those on part time jobs wanted full JUSTICE MAGAZINE 31

Feature Trade unions

time employment but they had to take what was on offer.

At the same time real weekly wages overall have fallen by eight per cent since 2008, equivalent to a fall in annual earnings of about £2,000 for a typical worker in Britain.

In-work poverty has also been on the increase with a growing amount of the benefits budget going to those in rather than out of work. An example is housing benefit, which has gone up by 59 per cent since 2010.

The number of housing benefit claimants in work rose from 650,561 in May 2010 to 1.03 million by the end of last year.

The House of Commons Library calculated the amount spent on inwork housing benefit will rise from £3.4 billion in the 2010-11 financial year to £5.1 billion in 2014-15, making a total of £21.9 billion over the five-year parliament ending at next year’s election The increase has been because of rents going up whilst wages have fallen or remained static. This situation is a good example of welfare for the 32 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

rich, with landlords profiting out of the benefits budget whilst the poor struggle, less able to pay, but still getting the blame for their own poverty.

Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty - surviving on less than 60 per cent of the national median (middle) income - were from working families.

Difficult

This whole situation is very difficult to understand, set as it has been against a background of increasing wealth, evidenced by the presence of more than 100 billionaires (up by 12 over the past year). The wealth created though seems to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

What has been surprising amid this worsening situation for life in the workplace has been the lack of any significant comment from Church leaders in the UK. Yet the teachings of the Church are very clear on the world of work. “If the hours of labour resulting from the unregulated sale of a man’s strength and skill shall lead to the destruction

of domestic life, to the neglect of children, to turning wives and mothers into living machines, and of fathers and husbands into - what shall I say, creatures of burden? - I will not use any other word - who rise before the sun and come back when it is set, seared and able only to take food and to lie down to rest; the domestic life of man exists no longer, and we dare not go on in this path,” said Cardinal Henry Manning in 1874.

The encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) indicated that the Church recognised the inequality of the lone worker with just his or her labour to sell versus the overwhelming power of the employer or owner of the means of production. In order to even out this inequality, the existence of trade unions was vindicated.

More recently Pope John Paul II, in Laborem Excercens – “On Human Work” (1981) - asserted that the interests of labour must always take precedence over those of capital.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states that unions are “a positive influence for

PHOTO: xpgomes12c

social order and solidarity, and are therefore an indispensable element of social life”.

Indeed, Pope John Paul II seemed to suggest the scope and role of unions’ activity needed to expand to meet the demands of the new globalised workplace.

“Today unions are called to act in new ways, widening the scope of their activity of solidarity so that protection is afforded not only to the traditional categories of workers, but also to workers with non-standard or limited-time contracts, employees whose jobs are threatened by business mergers that occur with ever increasing frequency, even at international level; to those who do not have a job, to immigrants, seasonal workers and those who, because they have not had professional updating, have been dismissed from the labour market and cannot be readmitted without proper training.” Clearly, a pope ahead of his time.

It is a great irony that so many of the country’s trade unions are led by individuals who received their early

‘‘

The House of Commons Library calculated the amount spent on in-work housing benefit will rise from £3.4 billion in the 2010-11 financial year to £5.1 billion in 2014-15

social justice formation in the Catholic Church.

General secretary of the TUC Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union Billy Hayes and general secretary of PCS Mark Serwotka are just three of those brought up as Catholics.

The main effort of the Church in the UK regarding the workplace appears to have come in its support of the concept of a living wage, a minimum wage that will keep people

above the poverty line; this has been set at £8.80 in London and £7.65 in the rest of the country. The Church has supported this idea that was first put forward by community organising groups like London Citizens and the trade unions.

The Church in the UK must recognise that the mass of its membership is caught up in this unjust and unequal distribution of wages. A cursory examination of the concept of the common good should result in some reflection on the present situation whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

There needs to be radical change in order that wealth is redistributed on a more just and equitable basis.

Trade unions have traditionally been an institution in society that helps ensure a more equal distribution of wealth. So some Church support, or recognition, of their role would be welcome.

Paul Donovan is a freelance journalist (www.paulfdonovan.blogspot.com) JUSTICE MAGAZINE 33

Feature Ethiopia

Sara A. Fajardo reports on how microfinance schemes are making a huge difference to the lives of Ethiopians

Abaynesh Legasse pours a thin stream of injera batter on to the sizzling metal disk. Her wrist circles gently as she forms the large fermented flatbread.

The Ethiopian staple is stacked like hotcakes beside her on a large plate two-and-a-half-feet wide. Over the course of four hours, Abaynesh will prepare 100 injera along with a variety of spicy sauces for sale in her small restaurant.

In the past year, Abaynesh has seen her business grow five-fold thanks to a small-loan and the business skills she’s acquired through the Savings and Internal Lending Community (SILC) she joined.

Like most village entrepreneurs, Abaynesh, had no shortage of willing clients, what she lacked was capital to grow her business. Previously, Abaynesh could only afford to purchase enough teff, the main ingredient in injera, to prepare 20 injera a day for sale.

Her earnings were just enough to keep the business afloat. All that changed when Abaynesh took out a £30 loan from her Gudina Tokuchuma (Unity is Development) SILC group and purchased a 160-pound sack of teff flour.

SILC is a Catholic Relief Services approach to microfinance that teaches people financial literacy and shows them how to pool their money and how to make funds available in the form of small loans to group members.

SILC was first introduced in Beben Village by CRS partner, Meki Catholic Secratariat with generous funding from the US Agency for International Development’s Food For Peace programme.

Abaynesh joined the group in March of 2013 and immediately 34 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Sustaining people with financial literacy

PHOTO: Sara A. Fajardo/Catholic Relief Services

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 35

Feature Ethiopia

began saving $1-$2.50 a week. With 18 other SILC participants in her group the savings quickly added up and were made available as small loans to group members.

Abaynesh took out her first loan three months after joining SILC. “Previously I had no idea how to save money,” says Abaynesh. “Now I know how to save. How to take out loans…

I am expanding my business because of SILC. I had no access to money before the program.”

It’s almost noon and Abaynesh’s daughter Tarikua, 8, busies herself washing glasses and taking a wet rag to the vinyl tablecloths in restaurant’s dining room. Music from the nearby market plays loudly as Tarkiua works.

As the mother of four daughters, Abaynesh worries about their future.

She was forced to marry young and abandon her studies. She wants more for her daughters. “I tell my daughters to get an education,” said Abaynesh.

36 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

“Women are vulnerable to forced marriage and early pregnancies.

When you learn, you will change your thinking. You protect yourself with learning.”

Learning how money works has given Abaynesh more of a voice in her marriage. Her husband appreciates the money that she brings to the family. She’s used her earnings to help purchase an additional 100 pounds of fertiliser to use on the family farm and is now saving for Tarikua’s schooling.

“Previously women had no ability to speak up,” said Abaynesh of being financially dependent on her spouse.

“We were just at home. But now we have a voice and we can explain how we are feeling. We can make decisions in our group.”

When the afternoon rush hits, the tables at Abaynesh’s restaurant quickly fill up. Repeat customers line the wooden benches and ask Tarikua to

add another spoonful of her mother’s spicy shiro (chickpea stew) on to their portion of injera. There is never an empty space at her table. As one customer leaves, another quickly takes his place.

In a few months time Abaynesh will get her SILC savings back in a lump sum complete with the interest she’s earned from making her savings available to others in the form of loans. She has big plans for her restaurant.

“I want to expand this business more,” Abaynesh said. “I want to add to my menu, maybe hire another worker and have a staff. I will begin selling meat. People ask me to add to my menu. There is a demand. I sell out every day. I never have leftovers.”

Sara A. Fajardo is the CRS regional information officer for East Africa and southern Africa.

She is based in Nairobi, Kenya

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JUSTICE MAGAZINE 37

Comment Housing

Tony Magliano urges more support for the charities that strive to help people without accommodation

No place like home

38 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

PHOTO: scribbletaylor

Just imagine for a moment that you have no home.

What will you do for meals today?

Where will you shower? Where will you sleep? If you have children, how will you provide for them?

And how will you cope with being homeless tomorrow, next week, next month?

Such imaginations are distressing, aren’t they?

Last winter I took imagining what it would be like to be homeless one step further. I lived one day in Baltimore, Maryland, as a homeless man trying to stay warm and fed.

From street, to soup kitchen, to shelter I ventured.

I learned a lot that day about how rough it is to have no place to call your own. But later that night my experience as a homeless person ended. I got in my vehicle and headed for home.

But for 100 million people throughout the world, not having a home to go to each night is a hard, sad reality (61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights).

And in America, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless (www.nationalhomeless.org), 3.5 million people – 39 per cent of which are children – have no place to call home.

Recently I spoke with Ken Leslie, a former homeless alcoholic and drug addict, who is now a leading advocate for people who have no home.

Based in Toledo, Ohio, Leslie founded 1Matters (www.1matters.org), an organisation inviting each of us to “Be 1 that matters to 1 that matters.”

As their motto indicates, 1-on-1 relationships help break down homeless stereotypes and build

community. One major stereotype is the word “homeless” itself.

Because the word “homeless” often conjures up negative images of people – which in most cases are completely untrue – Leslie prefers using the word “unhoused”.

A model project of 1Matters is “Tent City”. Every year on the last weekend of October, Tent City brings together doctors, nurses, medical students, social workers and more than 500 other caring souls to serve the unhoused.

This October, Tent City celebrated its 25th anniversary. On Toledo’s Civic Center Mall, under several tents, approximately 1,000 unhoused and marginally housed fellow human beings received medical treatment, prescriptions, job and housing assistance, ID acquisition, haircuts, food, clothing, commitment to follow-up care and lots of love.

To watch an inspiring video on Tent City go to www.1matters.org/tentcity.

And then kindly consider how a Tent City could be started in your town or city. You can contact Ken Leslie for assistance at ken@1matters.org. Another outstanding programme of 1Matters is “Veterans

Matter”.

According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs there are more than 49,000 homeless veterans on the streets of America. And while many of them qualify for government rental assistance, they lack the upfront deposit needed to get an apartment.

Veterans Matter has provided deposits for approximately 500 veterans to date in several states. You can help an unhoused veteran get off the street and into decent housing by making a donation at www.veteransmatter.org.

Everyone deserves a home. The social doctrine of the Catholic Church clearly teaches that safe, decent housing is a basic human right. And that individuals, governments and society in general have a moral obligation to help end homelessness.

In the spirit of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who help the unhoused, for they shall find a home in heaven.”

Tony Magliano is an internationallysyndicated social justice and peace columnist

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Feature Asylum

‘Sebastien’ attends the Jesuit Refugee Service UK’s Day Centre and is a member of JRS UK’s Men4Men discussion and reflection group. He is seeking asylum in the UK and has been waiting for several years for a positive outcome. He took part in a series of photography workshops organised by JRS UK in association with Fotosynthesis. The workshops led to an exhibition in the summer of 2014 in London. Here he looks back on his experience of producing the images for the show as part of the group and, countering much of what we hear in the media about asylum seekers, proposes a positive vision for himself and family to look ahead to

A message from the future Photography is like a message from the future. Through this workshop, through the many messages we presented, I can see I still have a future.

When you are in detention, for example, your life is nothing, you cannot move. Life is like that here for us.

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You can’t see outside, but from this experience with JRS you can move from there. You need to know what you want really in life, then you can start at the beginning and move forward…move forward to a better future

The experience of taking part in the photography workshop was powerful.

It was like, how in life, the stone blocking your way is difficult to move.

You can move this stone, you can pass over it, but you need to be ready.

This project makes you strong for any

challenges coming your way. It helps the way you think, you can change your focus, something like that.

Through the different situations in the workshop, you can put everything together to face the challenges together as a team. To make this exhibition alone, it was not possible, there were many hours work.

The camera is something that can help you communicate, to let you know different people, different communities. We were together in the team in this project to explore something with others - you don’t share this experience with everyone.

We learned how to choose the message we wanted to send and to be able to explain it: Your need, your complaint, how you feel, what you want.

You need to choose properly something that people can understand through the picture.

At the beginning you are lost you don’t know where to go, I learned to organise myself to organise with other people. Then I could see how I could say something. I can create many pictures and show them to people. Afterwards to put them together, you learn about how to choose the images and join the exhibition.

Working with my colleague, here

‘‘

One of the images I presented is of my hand. Everybody had something to say about this picture!

we are writing the captions for the photos. We come from different backgrounds: I am a Christian, he is a Muslim. Everyone came together to have this opportunity, to see someone from the north, someone came from the south, to learn together something to produce something, you see a man, a woman…everyone learning together. We put aside our differences to produce something together.

Trainers

At the beginning you are limited, but the trainers were always ready to help, to explain what you need to know.

One of the images I presented is of my hand. Everybody had something to say about this picture! God gave a hand to everyone, he gives a hand to everybody. But in this country they go for finger printing, to use it for ID, they use it so they can identify you.

You need your hand to do the workshop, you need your finger to use the camera. Everybody has a different hand, you can’t have two pictures the same like that! You can do anything you want from your hand.

When people came to the gallery, for me it was a good experience.

Before this, as an asylum seeker, I did not feel I had a right to speak. Now I The project in action, above and left was given this right. People were

interested in the project, in my pictures.

They came to ask me: why did you do this photo? I met many people, new people. When I learned that people wanted to meet me, to know about my life, I learned how to speak.

People asked: How can I help? So through this programme they can help others, not only me.

My daughter came to see the exhibition with me. She saw me speaking to people and saw my photographs.

Now she tells everyone, this is my father, he is a chef.

She is proud of me and my profession. Since the exhibition, I know I need to be focused. I now see the world differently.

When she grows up, my daughter wants to be a police woman. I want to be sure for her so her dream can be true.

Before I did not have this insight.

I did not realise I could make this happen for my daughter.

With this new vision for her, I can’t stop there, she can do better, so I won’t stop.

I want to let people know with your difficulties you can learn from any challenge. I could stay at home, but I prefer to come out and meet new people, learn new things, don’t stay with the negative!

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Final thought

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PHOTO: Eoghan Rice/Trócaire

Alice Nanuaga (50) holds one of her chicks on her farm near to Chuka in the Tharaka district of central Kenya. Farmers here have struggled to survive because of increasingly erratic rainfall. However, Alice has benefited from a Trócaire-funded irrigation project that has brought water directly to 8,000 people in the area

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