Remembering Nelson Mandela

Yesterday, Nelson Mandela passed from this world to the next, and the world is brimming with tributes to his life and legacy. And there is good reason. Through his life, Madiba became a symbol of freedom, of forgiveness, and justice being lived out by a human being.

The first time I remember hearing about Nelson Mandela, I was in junior high school, and I saw a music video called "A.F.R.I.C.A." by a band called Stetsasonic. At the end of the video was a chant to "Free Nelson Mandela." While I was in high school, Mandela was released from prison. Unfortunately, in my teen years, I didn't know much about the life of Mandela. I couldn't do a google search or anything like that. But the idea of someone being in prison for trying to help people and end an injustice really bothered me. And the idea of striving to work to make the world a better place really inspired me. Thankfully I was not alone.

There are quite a few aspects of Mandela's life that have been inspiring for me to live to see, and if you were not privileged to listen to the Stetsasonic song I heard in the late 80s, or maybe, like so many of us, you have not been attuned to world events and leaders, you may have missed much of it and find yourself wondering about this man.

In the time since his imprisonment, he has been an example of radical forgiveness of his oppressors, and after his release from prison, he served as president of South Africa for a season and helped bring great unity to a nation torn by racial segregation. He became a modern example of the power of loving others, even our enemies, and the power of never giving up.

And, freed from his prison cell, he became a champion for justice. And one of the greatest injustices he saw in our world was the injustice of extreme poverty. As he spoke on London's Trafalgar Square in 2005, "Like slavery, and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings." Later in that same speech, he challenged his listeners to "Let their greatness blossom."

Around the time of this speech was the same season in my life that I was awakened to the issue of extreme poverty as the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time, and I also became burdened with the necessity that we become dedicated to seeing the end of it.

And as I write this morning, my resolve is hardened, and I find myself even more inspired to live a life filled with radical forgiveness, radical love, and a passionate pursuit of the end of extreme poverty. I hope you will join me in this pursuit and that each of us can honor the life and legacy of this incredible human being. May we be the great generation that sees the end of extreme poverty.

Rest in peace Nelson Mandela.

Nuru International and Hunger In East Africa

It’s kind of hard to get our minds around a drought and what it means for people living in extreme poverty when we live in the United States. I think it’s hard because many of us have lost the connection between the weather and our food. It’s hard for us to imagine arrival at a supermarket and finding the shelves empty because food isn’t being produced. Imagine, walking through the produce section and seeing people fighting over the last small bag of potatoes, because nobody is sure when or if there will be another shipment arriving soon.

For 70% of the world’s extreme poor, they live in remote rural areas. There are no supermarkets insuring that there won’t be a shortage of food to eat. Instead, they rely on the land and work to the best of their ability to insure that their families have food to eat. And right now, there are millions in the Horn of Africa who are starving because of a drought, and because before the drought they lacked access to life-changing tools and knowledge.

Even in Kuria, Kenya where Nuru works, farmers have been affected by the drought. My friend Jake recently shared about a walk he took with a Nuru Agricultural Field Manager, James about the impact of the drought in Kuria. Nuru farmers have seen a decrease in yield of 20-30% on average, but thankfully, they still have enough food to feed their families and pay back the loan of seed and fertilizer they received at the beginning of the season. 

Other farmers did not fair so well. On the same walk, Jake and James came across a Nuru farmer’s fields and they were filled with maize that stood ten feet high.  Next to this field was a field with maize that stood 2-3 feet high and many of the plants didn’t have maize on them at all. James commented to Jake, “The drought has come again to Kenya. There will be hunger here. There will be so many this season.” James eyes grew more and more sad as he and Jake talked next to these fields.

The World Food Programme has noted that about 13 million people will be affected by drought in Somalia alone. This famine is absolutely overwhelming. It’s utterly heartbreaking, and yet, it is so difficult to imagine that in today’s world there are people who are literally starving to death.

It doesn’t have to be this way. As I mentioned before, over 10,000 people who are participating in Nuru’s agricultural programs are beginning to turn the tide.  They were trained in best practices for growing maize, took out Nuru agricultural loans, and have enough to feed their families and pay back their loans.  Programs like Nuru’s are allowing our neighbors who are living in extreme poverty to bring about lasting change through simple, scalable and sustainable ideas that can literally save lives.