In 2007, Oprah Winfrey opened a $40 million school to educate 152 girls on a 22 acre site outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. Its 28 buildings offer the best educational environment, the best beds and even 400-count percale sheets, tested by Oprah herself.
To me it is interesting that Oprah decided to build a school in Africa after years of effort to support schools in the U.S. Why the move? Simply put: It is harder here. I remember an interview where she told a reporter, that the students in schools here wanted to know if she'd be giving them Air Jordan tennis shoes or electronics of some kind. That wasn't the response she was looking for.
When she opened the African school, Madonna, George Clooney, and Angelina Jolie were in attendance. Nelson Mandela showed up as did John Travolta and Stevie Wonder. It was Hollywood in Africa and the world-wide press wrote volumes about her effort.
But what about the poor in our country? What about the poor in our own city? Winfrey is right. It is harder here. People aren't as grateful. No stars make an appearance when a local church-run food bank manages to provide sustenance for the needy for a decade, or when the child from a family in poverty graduates from college because of the work of a local charity. This is not glamorous work.
Our poor often couch surf or scuttle from one low-rent apartment to another. Their goods in a garbage bag, the broken down car stays where it is. A woman I worked with had a mentally ill neighbor across the hall of her low rent apartment who yelled all night. She had another neighbor who walked the halls with a gun drawn. A young mother I knew was late with her rent and had to move (again) to a former motel which charges exorbitant rents by the week. Her children change schools every time they move.
Then people wonder how riots start in places like St. Louis. Hopelessness. That's how.
Although government welfare programs keep the heads of our poor above water, there is no easy path to solid ground, and without the help of those who are on solid ground, we will continue to give fish to people who are completely capable of learning to fish for themselves.
There are amazing people in this town who are doing the hard work in the inner-city of Indianapolis. They dedicate themselves to the idea of empowering, encouraging, training, and loving people who have had very little of any of those things in their lives.
Africa is great, but as Mother Teresa said, "Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you." UNITE INDY is committed to the hopeless here. It might be harder here, but here is where we live. These are the people nearest us and we are blessed in this work.
Peace,
Nancy
