The reaction to a chance photo of a Filipino boy studying on the street by the light of a McDonald’s restaurant has shown the power of social media. Daniel Cabrera, 9, was photographed doing his homework outside a McDonald’s outlet in Mandaue City, Cebu, by medical technology student Joyce Torrefran. There is no lamp in Read more
Observant New Zealanders, who have noticed the number of children with poverty-related skin diseases soaring while gated communities proliferate, may be surprised to hear a think-tank claim that New Zealand has ‘no problem of rising inequality’. That surprise would be justified, since the gap between rich and poor has in fact widened dramatically. And the Read more
Awful fact: by 2030, half a billion people will be practicing open defecation. That’s an improvement. The current numbers are staggering: 2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitary facilities; 849 million practice open defecation. In Southeast Asia, that means 38 percent of the population; in sub-Saharan Africa, 25 percent meet their needs without safety and privacy. Read more
Back in the mid-1980s, I was working as a director of religious education at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in western Maryland. That part of Maryland, like parts of 12 other U.S. eastern states – from Alabama to New York, and all of West Virginia – is part of the Appalachian Mountain region. In those days, Read more
A food company marked the 500,000th loaf of free bread delivered to Salvation Army food banks with a celebration in Lower Hutt. The Goodman Fielder Cares Trust has provided baked bread for 10 Salvation Army food banks around the country for about the last six years. That is enough bread to stretch from Wellington to Read more
Josephine was facing a cold, wet winter with no glass in the windows of her home. That was until City Impact Church volunteers heard about her situation. The home the Otara woman shares with her daughter and baby granddaughter has been in the family for decades but was badly in need of repair. Continue reading
Things may not be as rosy as they say in God’s own country. A Canterbury Community Law (CCL) investigation, which looked at access to justice for beneficiaries, says beneficiaries felt they were treated as “non-humans” by Work and Income – not even allowed access to toilets during lengthy waits at offices. “Beneficiaries are uniformly scared stiff Read more
One of the founding fathers of Liberation Theology has acknowledged a clear “change in atmosphere” in the Church under Pope Francis. Fr Gustavo Gutiérrez said that with Francis it’s easier to push the global Church to have a special concern for the poor, “something we find in the Scriptures”. But the Peruvian theologian said there Read more