Habitat Fund Raising Dinner

Tonight we had a fund raising dinner at Bangkok Thai here in Spokane (http://www.spokanebangkokthai.com/). The restaurant graciously provided the venue and a very affordable (and tasty) dinner so a majority of the dinner price went to the fund raiser. There was also a silent auction to help raise additional money.

Many of the items at the silent auction were cross stitch items provided by Glenn, one of the other participants going to the project. Glenn has a connection with a wonderful woman named Sirirat, who lives in a town about 200km (125 miles), near Chiang Rai. I understand that as a young girl, she grew up in a family who was not destitute as so many are there. Somewhere around 11 years of age she started noticing other girls in her class just simply disappeared. Over time she came to learn these girls had been sold into prostitution by their families who were desperate for money. She has since dedicated her life to helping provide an orphanage/shelter where these girls can escape. As a big part of this, she teaches them cross stitch and they make extremely detailed cross stitch designs on bags, table runners, clothing and other things to raise money for the orphanage. Glenn is planning a trip to visit her while there.

I had a great talk with Michone, tonight about how important it is for people to understand the challenges the rest of the world faces. We were both dismayed a bit at how prevalent it is to hear westerners complain about their situation. As Denise commented "I get mad when the avocados aren't ripe at the store." and most of the world is lucky to eat twice a day. It’s really easy for us to get self absorbed and complain about things because for most of us, our experience of life is very sheltered. The vast majority of people in the US grow up with a roof over their head, access to transportation, access to food, free education, and clothing. Even in the economically depressed areas of the US its common to have TVs, stereos, and video games. To be sure, there are many people in the US who need help and it is great to see the organizations there to help them (like Habitat). But because we live such sheltered lives filled with MTV, evening soaps, filtered “news” and “reality TV”, we are simply blind to the difficulties of the rest of the world. Until people see first hand the deplorable conditions that people in "3rd world" countries live in, it’s difficult for people to grasp how badly these people need help.

Denise and I had the opportunity to visit Chennai, India in April 2008. While there we traveled by bus into the outlying areas. I really hit me how unbelievably blessed we are when I saw how people lived 8+ to a 3 walled, tin roofed shanty with no furnishings. Outside were their children playing outside amongst trash, some squatting on the porch in front of their “home” as raw sewage flowed beneath their feet. While horrified as I considered the prospects for these peoples’ lives, I was struck by something even more amazing. As deplorable as the conditions were for these people, almost all of them had one thing in common; the ability to smile and be genuinely happy as they waived to us when we drove by. Yes there was pain in the eyes of many, but they were able to get past that and connect in happiness with complete strangers who were just driving by. They were great teachers to me of how we can simply make a choice to be happy. And at the same time it was a reminder that at a global level we need to find a way to help lift the world up.

Sadly we’re so removed from how our economy is linked to them as a supplier, and how little they get for the luxuries we consume and discard, it’s simply difficult for us to see that we have a responsibility to help improve conditions globally. On October 6, Jim Jubak posted an article on Time for Capitalism to Pay It’s Way http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/time-for-capitalism-to-pay-its-way.aspx The article does a great job of talking about “externality”—an economic concept where there is a cost or benefit to society that is not included in the price of a good or service. He sites an example of a village in China (Hengjang) that is home to a manganese smelter that seems to be releasing lead into the air, poisoning the children. The smelter sells their product to people who live thousands of miles away. Because the factory has no regulation regarding toxic releases, they are able to operate the plant very cheaply and sell their product at a low price. The people thousands of miles away enjoy the benefit of getting manganese cheaply and don’t see what is happening to the people in the village. In the mean time, the village bears the cost of the poisoning. These poisoned children are simply an “externality” of the manganese production that the consumers don’t pay for (but the village does).

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend a conference in Calgary with an incredible line-up of business and spiritual speakers including four amazing keynote speakers; the Dalai Lama, Richard Branson, Stephen Covey, F.W. de Klerk. I was very encouraged to see a shift beginning to occur in which businesses are becoming more conscious in their actions and are helping to make the world a better place. Richard Branson spoke of some of the great work Virgin is doing to help women in Africa who have contracted a horrible disease after being raped. The disease infects them physically and causes them to smell horribly. They become outcasts from their villages. Virgin has worked to make a $150 treatment available to these women, curing them of the disease, allowing them to reintegrate with their societies. We also saw a fantastic slide show from a gentleman whose 4th grade daughter picked a family vacation to help at schools in Cambodia. I spoke to him to get ideas on what we can do when we go to Thailand to increase our impact. What I learned is that sometimes it’s not just shelter and food that helps; it’s giving people a very simple experience in life that they may never otherwise get. In his case, they brought colored chalk and some basic art supplies and allowed the kids to decorate their school—the joy on the kids’ faces was a great reminder of how easily we take our blessings as mundane and unimportant.

I have to say that of the amazing and wonderful international trips I’ve had in my life, I think I’m looking forward to this trip the most. It will be really great to work with the others, have some fun, see a new place in the world, and enjoy the warm tropical air. But this time I’m going to take some extra time to really connect with the Thai people and learn more about the challenges they face and get some ideas of how we can make some shift in our lives that can help make their lives better. And as I prepare mentally and logistically for the trip, it occurs to me that one of the best places to get a start is in how we think about what we have, how we got it, and what we can do to live for something bigger than ourselves. We don’t all have to be a Sirirat and build orphanages, and we don’t all have to be Jimmy Carters. But we all can learn to notice when we are becoming self absorbed and find something, even small like a piece of chalk, to contribute to the part of the majority of the world we never see—the majority that is lucky to have food.