Latest Posting: September '09

Hello young adult friends. Welcome to the September issue of You asked for it …, NCP's monthly email to people like you. In honor of Labor Day, this month's edition highlights work—your work and the work others have to do.

Six weeks ago this weekend, our Learning Tour group was being led on a Sunday morning walk through the coffee groves outside Las Americas, El Salvador by a woman named Fatima. Fatima is a slight but strong woman, an illiterate single mother of four young children. It was a nice morning stroll for us—during the coffee picking season, it is anything but that for Fatima . Like most others in the community, her economic life revolves around coffee. Fatima has few other options for income. The tourist trade provides a bit of work for cooks, hotel cleaners and artisans. And some leave for the cities and the sweatshops, where the pay is $.50 an hour to make clothes destined for Rich World consumers. So for the picking season of November to February, she's working 12-day stints picking coffee. The rest of the year she occasionally gets hired to cut weeds with a machete ("It rubs my hand raw," she said), paid $40 for a 12-day shift.

The most striking moment was when Fatima showed us how she crawls up the hillside on all fours, the 100 pound bag strapped around her forehead. She couldn't weigh more than 100 pounds herself.

What does she earn for picking the beans that are the raw ingredients for the second most-traded commodity in the world? $3-$5 for 100 pounds, which can take all day. From that same 100 pounds, a US coffee shop might brew 3000 cups of coffee and earn $10,000. So somebody makes money on those coffee beans—just not Fatima and millions of small farmers and coffee pickers around the world. Read more about her, see some photos, and explore some alternatives on this new page on our website.

In this edition of You asked for it …:

• What's worse than no job at all?
• Green in your future (and not just $)
• Plan B
• Justice Fact: We're No. 1! (in weapons sales)
• Enviro Fact: We're No. 1! (in accumulation of stuff)
• Faith Fact: We don't need to be No. 1—Oscar Romero's last words…

Keep the faith. Share the love. Labor for justice.

David Radcliff

Slavery—not a thing of the past

Some 27 million men, women and children slave away (literally) in dangerous and demeaning work—without the benefit of being paid. They are found in mines, brothels, households (domestic servants), vegetable fields, cocoa plantations, the military, and factories in nearly every country of the world. Typically, they are there as a result of powerlessness—they are poor or female or illiterate or desperate to immigrate or some combination of these, and there is someone—or a criminal network—ready to exploit them. NCP works at given people the power to avoid the slave trap through skills training and school scholarships. Find a summary of the dynamics and possible solutions for slavery on this new page of our website.

More than a job

If you're looking for an alternative to work, school or gaming your life away, there are lots of organizations waiting to help you out. Check out idealist.org , a global clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities. And there's Greencorps , an org that helps people find work in environmental fields in the US or abroad. These positions often lead to a career (with an actual paycheck) in a related field.

Plan B

If you can't get away for the year that many service groups require, have we got a deal for you! Take a look at our 2010 Learning Tours —10-day to 2-week trips to Burma , El Salvador , the Amazon, Guatemala or Alaska . And check out NCP's Solidarity Worker page—see the world, meet new people, learn useful skills—and all in the course of one summer!  Here's an excerpt from what Christian Kochon of Lycoming (PA) College had to say about his time as an NCP Solidarity Worker in Sudan this past summer: I honestly didn't know what to expect when I joined the solidarity worker program that NCP offered. I didn't know and couldn't guess what my experience in Sudan would be like. Before coming here I was a little anxious and apprehensive maybe though I wouldn't have admitted it then. But I had no reason to worry. This has been the best summer of my life and whatever expectations I had about living in Sudan for three months were surpassed greatly! I helped out at the reforestation project down by the Nile River and taught at a secondary school in the village—by the way, 86 girls were able to go to school there thanks to NCP support for girls' education!

I'm back home now and I meant what I said in the beginning of this update: this has been the best summer of my life. I've learned a lot here; a lot about myself, life, and God. I came over here to help and in the end it was I who was helped more. It's ironic how things can turn out in life. We grow up with a dream and a plan to achieve that dream but when we let go of them and trust in God our lives turn out to be better than we could have ever imagined.

Justice Fact: The US is by far the leading weapons exporter in the world, providing 68 percent of all arms sold on the international market at a price of $37.8 billion. Most of the sales went to developing countries like Egypt, India, Morocco and Brazil — all of which could have put the money to better uses, and most located in volatile areas of the world.

Enviro Fact: US consumers rented 2.3 billion square feet of storage space in 2009, another indication of our addiction to stuff. Creating all the goods for our society requires the equivalent of 27 tractor trailer loads of materials from the earth per person per year.

Faith Fact: The present form of the world passes away, and there remains only the joy of having used this world to establish God's rule here.  All pomp, all triumphs, all selfish capitalism, all the false successes of life will pass with the world's form.  All of that passes away.  What does not pass away is love.  When one has turned money, property, work in one's calling into service of others, then the joy of sharing and the feeling that all are one's family does not pass away.  In the evening of life you will be judged on love. - Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, just before he was assassinated in March 1980. He was killed primarily for calling for the poor to have sufficient work and land to live a decent life. (Thanks to Athena Gibble for sharing this quote.)