NEWS FEATURE: Priest Works to End the `Festering Sore’ of Child Poverty

c. 2003 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ The man was sitting alone on top of the hill, away from the several hundred people _ mostly children _ crowding around an emergency supply truck for a warm meal of chicken and rice. The Rev. Donald Dunson saw a deep sadness in the man’s face. He decided […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The man was sitting alone on top of the hill, away from the several hundred people _ mostly children _ crowding around an emergency supply truck for a warm meal of chicken and rice.

The Rev. Donald Dunson saw a deep sadness in the man’s face. He decided to stand in line for the man, desperately wanting to do something, however small, to help amid so much suffering. In line, he braved the stares of needy people wondering why a well-fed North American was taking food meant for earthquake victims in central El Salvador.


When he brought the food to the man, the look he received in return was etched in his memory. Dunson, who feared the embarrassment of standing in line and perhaps rejection of his gift, said his soul was touched by the man’s expression of gratitude that someone cared about him. The Catholic priest would later learn the man had lost his wife in the earthquake.

Why did he get in line that day?

“I was asked by God to be true to myself,” Dunson said in an interview at St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio, where he is a professor of moral theology. “To say no to that man was to say no to my better self.”

He shares his sense of personal responsibility for the world’s poor in a new book, “No Room at the Table: Earth’s Most Vulnerable Children” (Orbis Books, $15).

The book mixes the shocking statistics of world poverty _ 11 million children under age 5 die each year from malnutrition or preventable diseases, 300,000 children serve as soldiers in the world’s conflicts, 250 million from ages 5 to 14 work for a living _ with the personal stories of children.

There are the stories of Sunday Obote, a 15-year-old who was kidnapped by a rebel army in northern Uganda when he was only 7 and forced to kill in their name, and of a 15-year-old girl named Siri in Northern Thailand who was sold into sex slavery and prays each night to be spared HIV infection.

Throughout his elegant testimony on behalf of the needy, Dunson appeals to people in the developed world to do something, however small, to be companions with the world’s poor.

In the foreword of the book, Roman Catholic Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Uganda tells readers he prays Dunson’s stories will move them “to compassionate action that will transform the suffering of the world’s children into redemptive love.”


Dunson spent a six-month sabbatical in Africa and Central America in 2001, where he moved from refugee centers to an AIDS hospice to a transitional camp for child soldiers and other youth rescued from rebel kidnappers.

“When I came home, I could not not act. Not to act would be morally reprehensible,” he said.

The issues he raises are ancient ones: how to help the needy without being overwhelmed by the seeming intractable issues of poverty and starvation.

Dunson says the three keys for greater involvement are observing, judging and acting.

In a society struggling with issues of childhood obesity _ an issue that would be unthinkable in parts of Africa _ many people are unfamiliar with the developing world, Dunson said. Once they acquire a greater understanding, Dunson first asks individuals to examine their own lives.

Rather than measuring their wealth against their next-door neighbor, Dunson suggests individuals “judge it against the human family” and consider ways they can act in solidarity with the poor.

Every day or each week, Dunson suggests people spin a globe and, wherever their finger lands, pray for the children in that nation. He also recommends setting aside the cost of a weekly McDonald’s Happy Meal and sending the money saved to an organization such as Catholic Relief Services.


Other suggestions include purchasing and donating a book about children in the developing world and donating it to a library, volunteering to serve children in your own community and finding out about children’s needs through organizations such as UNICEF, UNESCO, the International Red Cross, Amnesty International and the International Save the Children Alliance.

Dunson speaks on the issue at churches and schools, and he works on behalf of the St. Kizito Scholarship Initiative to provide education to African children.

The suffering of children “is an open wound, a festering sore that calls into question our very humanity: Do we possess hearts that know how to nurture our own offspring?”

The answer is yes, Dunson believes.

“In the end, it isn’t a great privilege to be wealthy in a world where so many live in abject poverty,” Dunson said.

KRE END BRIGGS

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