Success against poverty an untold story: journalist

By DEBORAH GYAPONG

TORONTO (CCN) -- The success of churches and faith-based organizations in providing disaster relief and fighting world poverty is one of "the greatest overlooked stories of our time," said veteran CBC television journalist Brian Stewart.

Brian Stewart

Speaking to a conference of the Canadian Church Press (CCP) and the Association of Roman Catholic Communicators of Canada (ARCCC) in Toronto May 3, Stewart praised the "courageous" work of churches and faith-based NGOs, calling them "uniquely efficient engines of human development."

These organizations have had a "profound impact" on human rights, peace, health care, clean water, and education around the globe, said Stewart, who has covered more than nine wars in his 43-year career.

Intractable world poverty is the "greatest problem of our time, with the exception of global warming," he said, yet the successes churches and NGOs have had are "almost always overlooked by the mainstream media.

This success story began during the 1984 famine in Northern Ethiopia. One million people died in "the worst hell on earth," Stewart said. The disaster gave birth to the modern NGO movement and left lasting positive results. Today, he said, these NGOs represent "the fastest growing sector of the world economy."

In Ethiopia and other trouble spots, the aid and development organizations stayed behind long after the cameras and the reporters had left. In Africa alone, churches and NGOs have left a legacy that includes 40 million more children in school, and tens of thousands who "made it from famine camps to college."

Christians arrive first

Concentration on Africa's failures contributes to a sense of defeatism and ignores the marked improvement in the lives of millions through the efforts of small-scale, often faith-based projects, he said.

The story of those successes parallels Stewart's personal transformation that eventually led to his becoming Presbyterian. The role of faith in those successes is not taken seriously enough, even provoking "titters" among mainstream journalists, he said.

In the 1960s, Stewart's generation declared organized religion was on its death bed. They underestimated the strength of spiritual hunger and the "human drive to serve and to help others." Since then, he has witnessed the "galvanic force of faith in action," a faith he described as "hard, institutionalized, organized and clear-sighted."

Since the Cold War, aid has shifted from "big aid battalions" and "five-year plans" he said, to smaller, independent NGOs who "partner" with local people and have "refused to give up their sense of mission."

He said he regretted the fact that the words "muscular Christianity" had passed out of fashion, because that is what he has observed on the front lines of famine, war, and catastrophe, where he and his crew have almost always been greeted by Christian workers who arrived first.

Stewart emphasized the important work the CCP and the ARCCC was doing in getting the word out about these successes. At the conference CCP celebrated its 50th anniversary, and ARCCC its 25th. The CCP represents religious newspapers and magazines from a range of Christian denominations. The ARCCC represents Catholic communicators for dioceses and organizations.