Reflection

                                Maureen Riddel, Member, Justice and Peace/SCIAF Group

The Justice and Peace/SCIAF group at St Joseph’s in the West End of Dundee was set up more than 25 years ago. In that time it has undertaken a wide range of projects - but two strands have been consistent.

One strand is the weekly soup run that the group has done for most of those years to a unit for homeless people. Even during the economic uptimes the soup was much appreciated.

The other strand has been fairly continuous fund-raising for the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF). SCIAF and her sister organisations work with local communities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to fight against injustice and to help people of all religious backgrounds to free themselves of poverty. The St Joseph’s group made contributions to SCIAF’s emergency relief funds for Haiti and the Horn of Africa. In

Scotland SCIAF campaigns with other organisations to tackle the root causes of poverty and injustice as in the IF campaign - “Enough food for everyone in the world IF . . .”

SCIAF works very closely with the communities it supports and from time to time its supporters get the opportunity to visit the projects. One such visit was made by Nick Marra of the St Joseph’s group.

“I remember we did a variety of fundraisers for a project in Asia - supplying livestock and fruit trees for indigenous people who were being pushed off their ancestral lands by multinational banana companies.” There was a real risk not just of hardship but that the indigenous people would lose their land, their culture and lifestyle - their very existence.

A visit left a deep and lasting impression on Nick. He visited a women’s co-operative - “The pride in their achievement, of opening a village store, shone in the women’s faces. Scottish people had made this possible.

“Shortly before coming home, we stayed with tribal people in the highlands of Mindinao. I slept on the floor of a hut, just above the pigs. The hospitality and generosity of the people was humbling. As we ate our evening meal the village leader told how his people were tired of moving from place to place losing their land to foreign people - and then his face brightened as he said that other people had come and given the village livestock and fruit trees to help them settle where they were.”

With both these strands of work a small contribution is being made to sustain individuals and communities - and from time to time a glimpse of how we as a society are part of the problem as well as a necessary part of the solution.