2 posts from October 2006

There's a good blog post on Keely Stevenson's blog, From Tribeca to Tanzania called, "Today I Applied for Food Stamps and an Abortion."  Keely is an Acumen Fund Fellow, which is a 12-month fellowship for seven individuals “with the dedication to serving the poor in the developing world and the business skills to effect change.”

Here's a short excerpt about one of her tasks last week that prompted this blog posting:

The seven Acumen Fund fellows showed up to work this morning and were asked to empty our pockets. We were given a paper explaining that our assignment for the day was to write an article from the perspective of the poor about the quality of New York's social services. We were given a $6 metro card, a $5 bill and a paper listing the instructions and some homeless shelters, clinics and food stamp offices. Our challenge was to live for a day as if we were poor so that we could understand better all the day to day struggles of our clients—the poor.

I encourage you to check out the reflection.

Next year, Bread for the World's legislative campaign will combine both our domestic and international hunger work.  We will work on the Farm Bill which needs to be reauthorized next year. The Farm Bill is massive in what it includes (much larger than just agriculture issues) and we'll be working to make the bill more just for farmers both in the US and around the world, improve rural development, and meet the needs of hungry people through the nutrition programs.  More details about our campaign will come in the next few months.

In the mean time, we can start preparing for this campaign by learning more about the issues around the Farm Bill beginning with agriculture and farming here in the U.S.  The New York Times published a good article today that I would encourage you to read about a Kansas farmer reflecting on life as a farmer.