The United Nations proclaimed the Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, all with a deadline of 2015, that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Meeting the long-standing donor commitment to contribute just 70 cents of every $100 of income to the fight against poverty can generate the funding needed for developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals has been endorsed by the Episcopal Church at General Convention 2006 and by our new Presiding Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. Programs are already underway in our Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

Check the links below to become educated about the Millennium Development Goals and learn about ways you can do ONE thing to help eradicate proverty and hunger.

Check this list of idea-starters on what ONE person can do.

Read these stories about projects already underway in our Diocese and get folks in your parish to participate.

The Millennium Development Goals

Stories About MDG Activities in Our Diocese

This Isn't Just Chicken Scratch

Ingathering in Pittsfield

What ONE Person Can Do to Cut Global Poverty

By Jenna Putnam, a Westfield State College senior who assists the editor of the Pastoral Staff.

Archbishop Oscar Romero has a saying "Each of us can do something," and that is the premise behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which outline a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015, in part by looking at what each person can do to help.

Jane Griesbach and Peggy Prynoski have each discovered their one contribution.

Jane Griesbach reported to Convention '06 delegates
on the Millenium Development Goals

For Peggy, it's making and selling quilted fabric chickens and donating the profits; for Jane, it's helping to support children in El Salvador. (Jane also helps with Peggy ís Project Chicken Scratch by doing some of the hand sewing of the chickens and helping to market them; Peggy does the piecing and machine stitching.)

Project Chicken Scratch was inspired by Nobel Peace prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, which developed the principle of microcredit, small loans that make a difference in people's lives.

Peggy, an artist and quilter, found a pattern for a small quilted chicken. Using small bits and pieces of fabric, she creates the quilted creatures, and sells them.

All profits are used to make micro loans to women living in rural areas of El Salvador in hopes that they might create their own business and make their own living.

Inside the chickens, Peggy uses 1/2 cup of rice as stuffing as a reminder that much of the world survives on 1/2 cup of rice a day.

Peggy and Janeís chickens are sold at the Charlton Sewing Center, where store owner Cathy Racine has also donated much of the fabric and thread. And they will also be sold on line at www.projectchickenscratch.com.

Jane's idea to support education in El Salvador came after she traveled there and met many children whom she immediately took a liking to. Jane speaks some Spanish and asked the children why they werenít in school. She learned that children are only schooled by the government until the sixth grade. After that, parents must pay for it. For many parents, this is not an option because families have so little money.

So, Jane did some research on where to send money to support a childís education and began sending $250 per year. This is how she met Sonia, who is 18 now and was 16 when Jane began supporting her education. Each year, Jane travels to El Salvador to visit her ìlittle sisterî and check on the status of her grades.

"We are attempting to educate folks in our Diocese of the many ways ONE person can make a difference," Jane says of MDG.

Three Shipments to Liberia in 2006

It was to a hearty round of applause that the Rev. Mark Beckwith announced to convention that the Diocese reached a goal it set last year of raising money to purchase a truck for the Diocese of Liberia.

Mark said the Diocese has raised over $30,000, through Lenten gifts, a tithe of a capital campaign from St. Stephen’s, Pittsfield, and from the Alleluia Fund.

Parishioners from Epiphany, Wilbraham, work at boxing up supplies
that were sent to Liberia in an August ingathering.

Mark also said a second dimension of the work with Liberia has involved the sending of goods — from books to liturgical materials — over to Liberia. Our Diocese sent shipments in May and August, and it’s expected that a third shipment will be sent before year’s end.

Jane Griesbach, the chair of the Global Mission Commission, said she has received letters of thanks from the people of Liberia in response to the gifts that have been sent, such as this letter from Father John Freeman, a vicar in a Liberian parish:

“We cannot thank you enough,” John wrote. “Please send my personal thanks to all those people whom we will never meet but to whom we give thanks for their generosity.”

Mark said, “Our task now is to continue to develop the relationships with our brothers and sisters in Liberia.”

For more information on the Liberian Project, click here.