Starthrower Foundation Canadian Charity Haiti | Sharon Gaskell

Social Justice -- Something to Think About
Every organization needs a devil`s advocate, and Starthrower Foundation has one of the best: Our webmaster. When I am lulled into complacently thinking that the rest of the world sees life through my lens, I am challenged by her commentary. (See Haiti Diet and Haiti Diet Update).

And so some thoughts on justice. If you subscribe to the classical definition of justice -- vis. the act of delivering what is owed to another -- you must decide what each person is owed.

Are we owed a daily meal?
There is enough food (3,500 calories/4.3 pounds) for each person each day. Yet more than half of us go hungry, and many of the rest buy diet books.

Are we owed safe drinking water?
Some 12 percent of the planet uses 86 percent of the natural resources. While we wash our cars, fill our swimming pools and water our lawns, more than 3/4 of the planet is thirsty. Dehydration kills as painfully and as surely as malnutrition.

If we stop at food and water without supporting the tools needed for permanent change -- education, medical, dental, housing -- we are in a 'charity' mindset. Justice demands that you don`t just teach a man to fish, you test the water he uses for sustainability.

To stand in solidarity with, and to create a preferential option for the poor, we need clarity of intent and vision. For the poor to want a job and an apron to protect their clothes when working is part of doing justice. For the poor to keep cats to kill the rats, mice and cockroaches is doing justice. For the poor to have cat food to sustain the cats so that the cats are able to do their job, and feeding the people so that they do not have to eat the cats is part of doing justice in all its many aspects: distributive, redistributive, retributive, social etc.

Starthrower Foundation exists apart from the charity status quo mindset, and is constantly discerning and striving to stay true to our mission. Justice is more difficult than charity but infinitely more necessary to the planet.

Martin Luther King`s vision that every person have 3 meals a day for their body, and education and culture for their minds and dignity, and equality and freedom for their spirit is a vision of a just world. This Starthrower Foundation's vision. Is it yours?

Dom Helder Camera wrote, "When I give bread to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are poor, they call me a communist."

There are no saints in Starthrower Foundation. Justice is not easy and it's certainly uncomfortable.

I challenge each of you to push your personal comfort level in relation to those who live in absolute poverty. Everyone can do something. You can change the world.

Wishing you SHALOM, the fullness of peace that comes when there is justice for all. For more information, see social justice vs charity

Sharon Gaskell
Founding Director, Starthrower Foundation

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“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."
(Albert Pine, English author, d.1851)

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A man was walking on the beach one day, and noticed a boy who was reaching down, picking up something and throwing it into the ocean. As he approached, he called out, "Hello! What are you doing?"

The boy paused, looked up and said,"Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the man.

"The tide stranded them. If I don't throw them in the water before the sun comes up, they'll die," came the answer.

"Surely you realize that there are miles of beach, and thousands of starfish. You'll never throw them all back, there are too many. You can't make a difference. Go home."

The boy listened politely, then picked up another starfish. As he threw it back into the sea, he said, "It made a difference for that one!"