Hunger in Africa

Last week was released good news finally, for people facing hunger in Africa: the 52 countries comprising the African Union, many in the economic situation is not so favorable, joined in the rescue suffered Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, three nations devastated by drought.

A phrase spoken by Jean Ping, president of the African Union Commission, summarizes the importance of that act of solidarity: "This is no time for rhetoric, but concrete actions to minimize and combat hunger in Africa."

Member countries of the African Union will help alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Horn of Africa called with a help of over 240 million Euros (350 million U.S. dollars). The decision was announced earlier this month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The goal is to minimize the extent of the crisis and assist the millions of people who are in extreme conditions of survival, because of drought and tribal conflicts in that region of Africa, experiencing its worst crisis in 60 years, which is affecting about 1.5 million people.

Addition of aid in cash, an additional fund was also created in donations of genres such as food and medicines, the amount, ten days ago, was close to 19 million Euros (around 28 million U.S. dollars).

Jerry Rawlings, representative of the African Union in Somalia, said the decision shows that African countries are able to help each other. "We must ensure that efforts are heading for these causes. We cannot just use the money and then wait for another emergency", emphasized the representative of Somalia at the conference.

They are acts like this that indicates that there is a possibility to face any crisis. All it takes is that there is goodwill and that men understand that we are all brothers and we cannot be happy while people around us are suffering and we can alleviate suffering hardship.

This is one of the goals of our presence in the world.

Doing our part in God's creation fits in, here is a commitment we made in the return to bodily existence and whose achievement has a direct influence on our own journey towards progress.

We should also recall the lesson that the superior spirits have given us, in response to question 930 of "The Book of Spirits": "In a society organized under the law of Christ, no one should die of hunger."

Helping the hungry is therefore a duty not to be postponed, and it was certainly this thought that inspired the leaders of 52 countries attended the conference held by the African Union.