The Howard County
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F O C U S
VOL.7, NO.5
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P E O P L E
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5 0 MAY 2017
More than 30,000 readers throughout Howard County
A global mission to help others
I N S I D E …
PHOTO BY SAM TARLING FOR CRS
By Robert Friedman Ellicott City resident Sean Callahan has spent half his life — 28 of his 56 years — working in countries throughout the world for Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS). What accounts for his commitment to this organization? “Once you have had the opportunity to work with people — to offer them ways for respect and dignity in their lives — you feel something deep inside, you feel you have to continue. It becomes a vocation, not a job,” he said. In January, Callahan was named president of CRS, the global humanitarian arm of the Roman Catholic community in the U.S. The nonprofit works to make life better for 107 million people in 101 countries.
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Refugees on the rise In early April, when we spoke, he was set to take off for Uganda and South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, where famine and starvation have become the norm for millions. “The most recent figures show that 20 million people are at risk of starvation in the poor countries in Africa and the Middle East,” Callahan said, which makes getting enough food to people one of the two principal concerns for CRS. The other main concern is for the 66 million people who have been displaced from their homes around the world, causing the most serious refugee problem since World War II. “I don’t think Americans understand why so many leave their homes,” Callahan said. “It is not only for economic reasons, as many believe. But there are wars, there are threatening gangs and other violence in their everyday lives.” He added: “Many Americans seem to feel that displaced people simply want to come to the U.S. But if we provide those people with better opportunities to stay at home — with good livelihoods, with education, and with health opportunities — they do tend to stay in their own countries.”
Aid cut concerns These humanitarian efforts of CRS — to improve the lives of potential refugees so they will be able to remain in their homes
Sean Callahan has spent half his life working for Catholic Relief Services, becoming its CEO earlier this year. Here he speaks with young Syrian refugees at a school in Zarqa, Jordan. Callahan helps the organization work to combat poverty and hunger and help refugees in 101 countries around the world.
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— could seem to jibe in one respect with the Trump administration’s stance on limiting immigration to the U.S. But the administration is also proposing massive budget cuts for such aid. Of the $900 million in private, church and government donations distributed by CRS last year in its overseas programs, almost $500 million came from federal grants, Callahan pointed out. “We have not been directly impacted — so far,” Callahan said. “But if some of the proposed reductions in foreign aid go through, even though we have had bipartisan support in Congress for our work around the world, well, then we can definitely be impacted.” According to Callahan, most countries in the Middle East and Africa, some of
which he recently visited in his CRS work, still see the U.S. as their best source for help in fighting poverty and health problems. “The assistance of the U.S. in the Ebola outbreak is still greatly appreciated in Nigeria,” he noted as one example. CRS serves countries and peoples of all religions, including Muslim countries, wherever its services are needed. “People of all faiths need to see that people care about them and are committed to helping,” he said. “We do what we do because we are Catholic, not because others are Catholic.” The scope of the organization’s work is mind-boggling. CRS focuses on three areas: emergency response, agriculture and health. In 2015 alone, for example, the See SEAN CALLAHAN, page 31
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