MEDA convention explores new frontiers for the needy
Efforts to help poor women in some of the world’s most volatile areas are like a Mennonite counterinsurgency force with a peace dividend of its own, says Helen Loftin, who directs Pakistan projects for Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA).
“Though the intent of counterinsurgency sounds very Rambo and un‑Mennonite, I would argue that this is what our work does,” she told 320 people at MEDA’s annual Business as a Calling convention, Nov. 5-8 in San Jose, Calif. “This is peace‑building. How are we doing it? By strengthening economic opportunities for women.”
In Pakistan, “the face of poverty is female,” she said. “When food, water or medicine is scarce, men receive it first, then boys, then women, then girls.”
This continued subjugation of women reinforced poverty and instability, she added.
Loftin said MEDA’s programs have boosted incomes for thousands of homebound women entrepreneurs whose traditions do not allow them to interact with men beyond their immediate family members. The programs utilize “go-between” sales agents recruited from less restrictive social classes to link women producers to more lucrative markets in sectors like home embroidery and village dairy production. Providing access to new markets enabled women to not only earn more money but also gain more respect (and better treatment) in their families and communities.
Loftin said there was a growing recognition that focusing on women and girls was an effective way to reduce both poverty and extremism. While MEDA “did no preaching or sermonizing” in Pakistan, the spin‑offs of women’s empowerment were more income, family stability and community strength which helped counter destabilizing influences.
She said MEDA could look at these programs as a new frontier “to showcase our brand of peacemaking.”
Loftin’s speech was one of the more talked-about segments of the MEDA convention, the most visible public event of the 2,900-member association which promotes business as a Christian calling and specializes in “business solutions to poverty.”
Under the theme New Frontiers: New Solutions, the gathering was held in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, the reputed ground zero of innovation. In keeping with that theme, MEDA chose as its opening keynoter Stephen Kreider Yoder, who as San Francisco bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal is an authority on high tech developments in the region.
He said Silicon Valley was one of the country’s “most concentrated spots of green technology,” with billions being raised every year by idealistic companies hoping to become the green tech version of Google.
Despite that idealism, however, little was being done to adapt new technologies to benefit the needy, Yoder said.
While California was a pioneer in wind technology and carbon capture, his staff of 14 business reporters were hard pressed to find examples of innovation that served the poor. “Capitalism isn’t so good at closing these gaps,” Yoder said.
New frontiers in agriculture and food security were addressed in presentations ranging from a global multinational perspective to a workshop on the slow food movement.
Keynote speaker Len Penner, president of Cargill Canada, asserted that the world had plenty of food but because of cost and uneven distribution 16,000 children died every day from hunger-related causes. Food production needed to double by 2050, but “this is something we can do” without drawing huge amounts of additional land into production, he said.
“As followers of Jesus who are taught to love God and love our neighbor, do we see the malnourished today or the growing populations of tomorrow as our neighbor? Tackling this challenge is not an option, it is a must,” Penner said.
In his view, part of the solution was “to use all the tools in the tool box” to ramp up global food production, including the use of controversial genetically modified foods. Penner cited lively debates between western environmental lobbies who have persuaded African governments to ban genetically engineered crops, and others who see biotechnology as key to feeding a burgeoning population.
Representatives of Broetje Orchards in Washington state, one of the largest apple growers in America, reported how servanthood, environmental concern and employee care can rank alongside profit in a company committed to a multiple bottom line. Keynoters Suzanne Broetje and her husband Roger Bairstow said Christian values had led the Broetjes to develop family-friendly policies for their 1,200 employees, including on-site childcare, schools, profit sharing and affordable housing.
These policies were not just a matter of doing good, they said, but could be defended as “a solid business model.”
MEDA president Allan Sauder reported to members that despite a difficult economic year the organization ended 2009 in the black, as a drop in contributions had been made up by increased revenue from grants and contracts.
“Most gratifying, we were able to help almost 2.8 million families to live healthier, happier lives (up 156,000 from last year) through 120 partners in 44 countries,” Sauder said.
More than two dozen seminars examined an array of new business frontiers ranging from green technology and social entrepreneurship to immigration issues and investing for the poor.
Denver physician Mel Stjernholm concluded his three-year term as MEDA chair and was succeeded by Allon Lefever, entrepreneur and former business professor in Harrisonburg, Va.
The next Business as a Calling convention will be held Nov. 4-7, 2010 in Calgary. – MEDA News Service