Addressing global poverty in UN PlazaStory and photos by Sarah Morrison
It seemed only fitting that San Francisco’s first ever public eulogy to honor the thousands of people who die around the world from poverty-related causes took place yesterday at the UN Plaza – a link that almost all the speakers paid tribute to.
While religious leaders, educators and volunteers came together last night to honor individuals who have lost their lives to poverty, they also told the crowd that action must be taken to ensure that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals – which strive to end poverty and hunger – are embraced by all.
“For decades, the UN has tried to help people all over the world with the limited resources it has,” said Imam Suleiman Ghali from the Islamic Society of San Francisco as he began addressing the audience. “This gathering is to bring us together, to tell people what is going on in the world, and to say that it is something we no longer can accept.”
In an attempt to personalize often incomprehensible statistics – for example that 26,000 children under the age of five die around the world every day from poverty-related causes – the speakers at the Honor the Dead event each told the story of one victim who had died as a result of global poverty.
Rabbi Wolf-Prusan from San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El began the ceremony by paying tribute to Richu Baliram, a two and a half year old girl who lived in Madhya Pradesh in India and died of malnutrition on May 10 of this year.
“In our time, in this time, there is no reason for someone to be fed and for someone else to starve,” said the Rabbi to onlookers who held up candles to honor Baliram’s name. “There is no reason for one child to be comfortable and for another to die of malnutrition, or for some people to have healthcare and others to not.
“In our time, in a day soon, there will be no reason to gather here anymore - but until then - we must
stand and acknowledge where we have gone wrong.”
As Vukani Mawethu - a nonprofit multiracial choir that sings freedom songs of Southern Africa, gospels and engages in civil-rights movements across the world - began to perform, a silence descended upon the usually bustling UN Plaza.
“We have seen and met with these people and want to join forces with all those who are trying to help in the struggle,” said musical director Thomas McKennie who has recently returned from a trip to South Africa where the choir met Nelson Mandela and discussed issues of extreme poverty.
He added: “When people who want to make a difference call us and say come, we show up and help however we can.”
Another woman who impressed the listening crowd was Marcellina Otii, the founder of Educational Resources for Africa, a non-profit that brings much-needed resources and support to communities throughout the continent.
Otii honored a woman named Lucy Lamwaka, who died from AIDS in Uganda when she could not afford the medicine that was needed to treat her condition.
“Lamwaka was my sister in the African relationship tradition and was a woman of great strength and determination to make a wonderful wife and mother,” Otii said. “She would be alive today if she had enough money and education to live in any city in Uganda.”
She added: “People like her die every day - people who are too poor to travel to the city or when the corruption around them is too strong that medicine is sold only in clinics for those with money.
“May she be a reminder to us to advocate our responsibility, may we be the first to learn what happens to these people around us.”
While Reverend Shari Young, the leader of the Interfaith Millennium Development Goals Coalition – set up to mobilize public, political, and media support for the Millennium Development Goals – said that poverty was a reality that everyone lived with, she said the goals can provide a new vision of a future without it.
“The UN has said that if every member country just gave 0.7 percent of its GDP, then global poverty would be history,” Young said. “The UN Millennium Development Goals are really not just about charity – they are about justice.”
For one spectator, the Honor the Dead event had taken precedence over even her own birthday celebrations. Traveling from Sunnyvale, Betsy Beauman said the event was just the start of what she hoped could be a greater movement.
“There should be many more of these events,” Beauman said, as she praised each speaker for offering differing viewpoints on the complex issues at stake. “It means we know the stories behind the statistics and it means that we are not just talking about poverty but we are talking about real people.”
During her speech, Sister Chandru Desai from the San Francisco Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center, said poverty is not just an issue that affects the developing world.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are dying in these preventable conditions, and not only in poor countries but in rich ones too,” she said. “We must remember that we are people, we are human beings, and we live in the same planet and the same world.
She added: “This is the time, the critical time to act. These people all need help and they all need care.”
The Honor the Dead event was set up by numerous local, national and global groups in an attempt to make poverty history. Groups including RESULTS and The ONE Campaign will also be involved in Stand Up and Take Action 2009 – a three-day mobilization - taking place October 16 -18.
For the fourth year in a row, millions of people from around the world will Stand Up and Take Action to show their support for the fight against poverty and for the Millennium Development Goals.
In 2008, 116 million people around the world participated in the Stand Up and Take Action event.
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