Calvin College

CALVIN - Minds in the Making

Faith & International Development Conference

Conference

Breakout Session #1

Fri, Feb 6: 2.45-3.45pm

 

Ending Poverty Through Relationships

  • Bo White, Chief Messaging Officer and Senior Manager of Internships/College Initiatives, Food for the Hungry.

Global Poverty will not end unless we work together. And we will not understand how to work together without a deep understanding of God's grace. This session will address the need for gospel centered collaboration and cooperation with special emphasis given to applying this in the internship program and City Initiatives efforts at Food for the Hungry. You will hear how nearly 80 interns have wrestled with the gospel in the context of relationships while working in 12 countries and 4 North American cities. You will also hear how we are attacking the problem of child sex slavery in the United States through collaborative efforts with church leaders, law enforcement officials, and government leaders. Come prepared to wrestle with issues of forgiveness, cooperation, collaboration, and a vision for ending poverty through healthy relationships.

 

Ending Hunger: The Uganda Amaranth Project

  • Cindy Leep, volunteer, Partners Worldwide

This breakout will discuss the success and challenges of one of Partners Worldwide's programs, the Uganda Amaranth Project. The Uganda Amaranth Project has partnered with Ugandan farmers and business entrepreneurs to increase food security at local and regional levels through the introduction of grain amaranth. The introduction of this grain has helped thousands of rural African households provide a healthy, locally grown food for their families and communities. This project raises the question of how to make a project sustainable, capable of reproduction, and locally supported. The facilitators have seen God open up amazing opportunities, which have used their spiritual gifts and professional training as an agronomist, nutritionist, engineer and college administrator to the glory of God.

 

Using Development for Peace: Exploring the Borderline Development Strategy

  • Rev. Joshua Amaezechi, President, Pax Africana
  • Prof. Tibebe Eshete, Chairman of Pax Africana and Calvin College history professor

Development efforts in Africa are often undermined by violent conflicts and wars. The borders are often the frontiers for these conflicts. The Borderline Development Strategy is an innovative approach which seeks to transform the African frontiers of wars and conflicts into frontiers of peace and development. Join us to explore the three models of the Borderline Development Strategy and its potentials for restoring peace and sustainable development to troubled nations and ethnic communities of Africa.

 

ECHO, Empowering those who Work with the Poor to be More Effective

  • Stan Doerr, President, ECHO

This talk will present ECHO's experience with strategic partnerships and how this is used to enhance ministry activities. It will include discussion on providing technical support, training and networking opportunities to those who work internationally with the poor in both agriculture and appropriate technologies. We will review the various services ECHO provides and give examples of impacts that have been experienced.

 


Measuring Success When Measurements Do Not Matter

  • Matteah Reppart, Program Management Information Systems, International Aid

Barriers persist that prevent organizations from measuring success. Despite a general growing interest in evaluation, many FBO's and development organizations are not able to collect reliable information. Evaluation approaches are varied and lead to different kinds of data. Program objectives are often complex. In some cultures, measuring success is not a norm. There are no systems and routines that are in place to collect data. Village women who generally run household events may not have the necessary numeracy to understand indicators, benchmarks and targets. So, who are development organizations responsible to? What is the purpose of our evaluations? How do we satisfy reporting requirements of donors, government programs and NGO headquarters? Some alternative methods of monitoring and evaluation are presented from International Aid's experience in Honduras.

 

Justice Served: The Role of Short Term Missions in Setting the Captives Free!

  • Jeff and Danette Johnson, Director of Community Health , World Hope International

Injustice in the world is rooted within 2 very complex issues; poverty, AIDS and human slavery. Short term mission teams and volunteers can engage effectively in this struggle. To engage, however, the volunteer must understand both the physical and spiritual forces at work in this struggle. They must also make sure they are properly prepared for the spiritual battle involved. Participants in the workshop will be provided the tools required to: prepare themselves spiritually for this type of ministry, to understand how to effectively partner with established ministries, and to develop an insight and strategy for battling these issues in the spiritual as well as physical realms.

 

A Narrative Overview of Christ-Centered Microfinance

  • Chris Horst, Human Resources Specialist, HOPE International

An overview of Christ-centered microfinance set in the context of HOPE International client stories. Through the stories of Milan from the Dominican Republic, Mama Atiya from Congo and others, the history, objectives, purposes, methodologies, principles and practices of microfinance will be unpacked and examined.

 

Better Development Aid for Today's World: What Bread for the World Challenges Congress (and You!) To Do

  • Larry Hollar, North Central Senior Regional Organizer, Bread for the World
  • Sarah Rohrer, North Central Field Organizer, Bread for the World

The law governing U.S. development assistance was enacted in 1961, well before many of today's global challenges were recognized. In our changing world, people who are hungry and poor deserve a more effective and supportive aid program that partners with them in bettering their lives. Learn how Bread for the World and other groups are campaigning in 2009 to convince Congress that aid must be changed to make it more efficient and more focused on reducing poverty. Discuss practical ways to organize a letter-writing event to Congress (known as an Offering of Letters) on your campus, and see what tools Bread offers to help you. Go deeper on why faith and development are vital mandates in embodying our faith.


The Relationship between Environmental Degradation and Poverty

  • Brad Lewis, Development Officer, Floresta USA Inc.

There is a clear relationship between environmental degradation and economic opportunities in much of the world, particularly in rural areas. From watershed reforestation to sustainable agroforestry, come learn more about these connections, the challenges they create, and what people can do to overcome this issues.

 

The State of Children Internationally

  • Aleida Guzman, Intern Coordinator, World Vision US

Did you know that every minute, 20 children under five years of age die mostly from preventable diseases, while a child under the ago of 15 becomes infected with HIV? Did you also know that while 21% of the world's population lives on less than $1 per day, a child dies every three seconds from hunger, malnutrition, or related diseases? Would you like to know who is addressing some of these issues? If so, I am looking forward to sharing with you how World Vision-A Christian Humanitarian Organization--- dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide is addressing some of these issues by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice nationally and internationally to help communities reach their full potential.

 

Partnering for Community Transformation

  • Andrew Ryskamp, US Director, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee

This workshop explores the principles that go into successfully transforming lives at the community level. The principles apply to communities both in the South, as well as the communities we worship in on Sunday in North America, and how they partner for reciprocal mission. The workshop also looks at how communities can partner nationally and internationally to address the systemic causes of poverty.

 

North/South Partnerships as a Way to Strengthen the North American Church

  • Wendy Hammond, Church Relations and 16:15 Church Missions Coach, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee

Development workers often see church partnerships as a way to increase funding. Missional and intentional partnerships, however, can go beyond financial transactions and unleash the church's potential for missions. This workshop will provide an overview of what the North American church should do to prepare BEFORE participating in partnerships

 

Partnering to Serve People Living with HIV and AIDS

  • Heidi Lidtke, HIV and AIDS Program Officer, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee

Join us for an interactive discussion about HIV, the call to serve HIV-positive people and their families, and discover how to establish and support integrated HIV programs with other community development work. We will examine CRWRC's HIV work and how it helps North Americans and local communities out their faith into action and healthy community development.

 

How to Choose Good Partnership Organizations that will Promote Mutual Transformation

  • Larry Groff, Former representative in Cambodia, Mennonite Central Committee

Larry and his family spent 10 years working with MCC in Cambodia. During the past several years MCC has placed an increased importance on how developing partnerships have potential for mutual transformation. Emphasis has been placed on how partnerships are initiated and carried out so that expectations are clear and attainable. Larry will share this process and give examples of how MCC works with a wide range of local organizations in Cambodia.

 

Can NGOs learn to learn? An FH Case Study in Organizational Culture Change

  • Michael Pucci, International Director of Academic Programs, Food for the Hungry

NGOs like to talk about doing good, but for many development practitioners, the culture they operate in doesn't provide much time and space for things like innovation, reflection, cross-fertilization and integrity. Food for the Hungry (FH) has attempted to break out of this mold by pursuing partnerships with the academic world. Plugging researchers into our persistent field problems in Christian development sounded like an ideal solution. We had real-world problems; they had ideas. What we found was a clash of organizational cultures. This case study of field-based research unpacks the tensions between these two very different worlds of development academics and practitioners that must merge if we are to bring new life to development in the form of a learning culture.

 

The Croatan School: Learning from the Eldership of the First-Nations

  • The Psalters Band

Predating Jamestown and the pilgrims' landing of 1620 some of the first colonists of Virginia faced starvation before learning the superior ways of life of the native population and eventually being assimilated into the Croatan tribe. Today modern culture is starving spiritually and communally...and those raised in privilege are flocking to the wisdom of ancient culture and tribal identity to combat the lonely emptiness of mass-culture. How should this dynamic inform our fundamental approach to international development?

Psalters (a non-profit musical team associated with the Mennonite Central Committee) will lead a group discussion while importing what they have learned from their world travels and experiences wrestling with these very questions during the last 12 years. They also will share insight from the most recent "World Gathering of Indigenous Christian Peoples" they attended in Palestine and Israel last September, where over 40 tribal nations were represented. Their will be a focus on ethnomusicology, with several live performance demonstrations of west-African ensemble pieces. Be ready to dance, clap, shout, and question.

 

Short-term Missions: Threat or Opportunity for Sustainable Development?

  • Mary Dykstra, Service Learning Coordinator, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
  • Ruth Ann Majawa, Service Learning Manager, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee

Many people say that short term missions are a threat to sustainable development and it's better for churches or individuals to just send the money to developing countries. How do you avoid the trap of "just another good mission trip" which doesn't make a sustainable difference in the volunteers or the communities served?

 

Advocacy as ONE: Lifting our Voices in the Fight against Extreme Global Poverty

  • Adam Phillips, Faith Relations Manager, ONE

ONE is a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization backed by more than 2 million people from around the world and every walk of life who are committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. In this workshop we will explore the role of faith in advocacy as well as look at ONE's "From Vision to Action," a briefing on realizing the potential for development in President Obama's administration.