by Hugh Evans
My Story
My passion for issues of global poverty took hold when I wasn’t even a teenager. I took part in the 40 Hour Famine when I was 12, setting high targets for myself and then next year helping my school become the highest fundraising school in Australia. I was 14 when I visited the Phillipines to
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see firsthand the work being carried out by World Vision and was deeply impacted by what I saw. I stayed in a sumb with a Filipino guy my age who was about to become his gang’s leader. His body had many tattoos, that was his initiation. In his house laying on a concre
te slab with cockroaches crawling over us, I thought I can’t turn my back on this. Sleeping in a slum sharpened my focus to help the world’s poorest and most desperate people.
I established the The Oak Tree Foundation, Australia’s first entirely youth-run and youth-driven aid and development agency. More than 15,000 volunteers and supporters under the age of 25 take part in an effort to empower developing communities through education in a way that is sustainable.
I also established the Youth Ambassador Program with World Vision, which enables young people to go and see the work and participate themselves.
Everyone deserves opportunities and the way we should provide this is through education. Something which we in Australia take for granted as our given right, many have to fight for (or have no hope of) attaining in developing countries.
In our first year, the Oaktree Foundation oversaw the development of a community resource centre in the Valley of Embo in South Africa. This centre gives more than 1,000 people the opportunity to receive education for the first time.
God’s Word on poverty
One of the most common themes in the Old Testament is ethical behaviour, particularly, how we treat the poor and what we do with our money. There are over 500 verses in the New Testament on that deal with issues of injustice and our use of money in light of the poor, marginalised and dispossessed in our world. If you remove this issue from Biblical discussions, you remove one of the most important Biblical ideas – loving people. As we grow in faith and God’s ideals, we grow to love, and serve, the poor.
Despite the great hardships many people face in the developing world face, in many cases their expression of faith is very strong. Faith tends to be more barren here, living dream lifestyles in the ‘land of opportunity’.We have the capacity to create change as the Bible asks us to.
Straight from the Bibl
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Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
To act justly is to make a difference, not to ignore a problem and hope it goes away. It’s to use our ability to help others, an ability which we all have.
Walk humbly with your God - know him better and give your life new meaning. Follow his example, work to end the suffering of others. Love mercy - care for others and feel their pain. Long to relieve their suffering.
Other Verses to look up:
- Psalm 140:12 “I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”
- John 3:17 “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?”
- Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
On a Global Scale
Every day 30,000 children die from poverty, that’s one child every three seconds. Imagine how long it’s taken you to read this and think about how many children will have died in that short space of time. But it’s not just that, with poverty comes increased levels of violence and desperation. It’s an environment no human being should live in. And as Christians and fellow humans it’s up to us to put an end to the suffering of so many others.
Almost half the world’s population, 2.8 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. Of these people, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day.
Change needs to occur on a greater scale, such as giving the poor access to the trading market and abolishing third world debt.
The Millennium Declaration commits rich and poor countries to do everything to combat poverty and bring about peace, democracy and ecological sustainability.
The UN recognises that we are in a unique place in history where we actually have the ability to end extreme poverty if everyone does their bit!
As part of the Millennium Development Goals, there are a set of agreed measures all nations need to adopt in order to halve world poverty by 2015. Not many have heard of this, but they have heard of Make Poverty History - a non-partisan coalition of more than 60 aid organisations, community and faith-based groups, working together to move the hands of change. Make Poverty History is not a fundraising campaign but a call to global action. A coalition of community groups, aid agencies and religious organisations are working to ensure our government creates policies that help third world countries and honour the commitment made to the Millennium Development Goals.
Everyone needs to think about what they can do to see Australia achieve this objective. It’s as simple as the Australian government saying I want to end poverty. In 2007 when the government increased its commitment to foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of its gross national income it was inspiring and shows that solutions are achievable.
What Can You Do?
All of us in Australia are relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the world so we all have to ask ourselves: ‘What am I doing?’. By listening to the Word of God and following his example we can all make a difference. And it’s going to take more than just sponsoring one child, more than the occasional few dollars in a charity tin.
As a young person you want to do a million things and be so many things to so many different people, but it’s important to focus on doing one thing well. It’s not always an easy journey but it’s sure worth it. There are more and more young people taking on the challenge of ending the suffering of others. There’s no excuse. Organisations are always looking for volunteers to help with the cause. To find out how you can help visit www.makepovertyhistory, or go to www.theoaktree.org. For more on Hugh Evans visit www.hughevans.com.au.
Proverbs 14:31 “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.”
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