Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

WCR Letters to the Editor

Grassroots NGOs cut from Canada's bounty

On April 23 ROHFC, founded by St. Joseph High School teachers Hank Zyp, Jim Salyzyn and John Macdonald, celebrated its 30th anniversary in the presence of hundreds of volunteers who made possible remarkable projects with the poorest of the Third World as well as extensive global education programs here in Alberta. CFC founded a year later by Hank and Tillie Zyp has been engaged in the same kind of work.

Many of the projects funded by ROHFC and CFC benefitted from CIDA funding which was arbitrarily cut for 215 NGOs (at least 46 based in Alberta) on Feb. 22.

The IPS talks of "involving ordinary Canadians in the foreign aid effort." We are involved. We have been involved for over 30 years and we have second and even third generation involvement such as the Grade 7 students in Wainwright who are raising thousands of dollars for AIDS treatment in South Africa.

El Salvador and Guatemala are not on the new list of Canada's 25 development partners. I suspect it's because only countries below US $1,000 in average per capita annual income are considered as development partners. In these two countries, as in most Third World countries, there are more people living in poverty and in extreme poverty than ever before.

A better criteria for choosing project partners would be the percentage of people living in poverty and in extreme poverty. With over 50 per cent, Guatemala and El Salvador would most certainly qualify.

In El Salvador earlier this month, someone asked what was the average wage in the region we were visiting. The answer was that you cannot talk of average wage.

One day you might make $4 working from dawn to dusk cutting sugar cane, another day find nothing to do, a third day you earn $2 selling tomatoes by the side of the road. It's not enough to feed a family, let alone send the children to school or take care of a health problem.

I suspect that Martin has never lived in a dusty Central American village with no electricity or water.

I'm sure he doesn't know that many people whose adobe houses crumbled during the earthquakes of January and February 2001 didn't qualify for aid money to rebuild because they did not own the land on which their house had stood.

It took local NGOs from these dusty villages to garner funds from grassroots Canadian NGOs such as ROHFC to buy land to build houses for the poorest who had no hope of ever rebuilding.

Nor does he know that funds made available for banks to finance agriculture don't benefit the large majority of small farmers because they don't have the type of land title that the bank will accept. It is grassroots NGOs that provide loans to small farmers not the World Bank or the governments of First World countries.

In the seven years, I lived in these dusty villages, I had plenty of opportunity to see bilateral projects - direct donations from government to government. It was easy to spot them. There was always enough money for a big sign painted in blue and white (government colours) indicating that this school or this clinic had been built with the aid of this or that country.

Many of these projects deteriorated as quickly as the signs since the government didn't provide teachers, health personnel or equipment to go with the building. Community organization is essential for the success of development projects, whether it is housing, health, education, wells, dry latrines.

In the nine countries I have lived in or visited with more than 20 delegations in which I've participated, the governments failed to support the poorest. Like our own government, they promote a "Western-oriented market economy."

Multi-lane highways for commerce and the comfort of the rich and the tourists heading for luxury beach resorts are more important than subsistence agriculture, education and health for backward areas of the country.

"Roads are good," complained one campesino, "but we can't eat cement."

CIDA is ready to spend billions of the taxpayers' dollars in a sweeping new aid scheme designed to make Canada look good. Is it too much to ask that Martin restore the $15 million (double or triple it would be better) for the NGO Project Facility and the Environment and Sustainable Development Program? ROHFC and CFC promise it will be spent very "effectively."

Cecily Mills
Edmonton

Catholic Church of Christ is the Church

I would like to comment on the "denominations" part of this article. The Catholic Church of Christ is exceedingly more than just another of many denominations, if even it should be regarded as a mere denomination at all. It is the Church.

This glorious Church blossomed from Judaism. Though besmirched by some, it is the only Church in all history to be founded by Christ the Messiah himself. Jesus Christ was also the only one in all history who was given authority from God the Father on high to found a Church.

Christ delegated this authority to Peter and his other apostles and their successors only to forgive or retain sins, to pronounce and administer the Holy Eucharist - or they would have no life in them - and to carry out many other sacred duties.

God wants all to be saved, but those who reject his Son Jesus and his teachings are not forgiven by his death on the cross and, being left to their own devices, they have no remedy for their sins. On the last day, they will be judged. "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:49).

Christ thought of everything. He made Peter and all the succeeding popes the necessary unbreakable chain upon which the Catholic Church of Christ has hung for 2,000 years and will until the end of time.

Without this chain, Christ's Church may have been lost long ago, but it was not to be. It is also the only Church in which Christ promised the Holy Spirit would dwell until the consummation of the world.

Helen Ferguson
St. Albert

God is in charge

With a flair for worldly cunning and aplomb, Father Rolheiser typically and skillfully walks the thin line between grudging obedience to and open rebellion with a Church he seems to have lost touch with altogether.

Yet here he gives himself away entirely, as he desperately seizes upon the most divisive adjectives he can muster in an attempt to downplay the significance of Benedict's election.

Dissidents of all extremes seek to politicize the faithful, and Father Rolheiser is no exception.

However, as I recently pointed out in a letter to a local newspaper, labels such as liberal or conservative hold little meaning for faithful Catholics who are in full communion with and obedient to the Church we trust God to govern.

Benedict's election was not so much a matter of anyone's "choice," as Father Rolheiser would like us to believe.

It was the Holy Spirit's inspiration that led to the present pontificate, and a clear sign to the faithful that God is still in charge of his Church.

Jim Verreault
Red Deer

Letters to the Editor

Opinions expressed in letters to the editor do not necessarily represent the views of the WCR.

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