World Vision: a Social Justice Organization Essay

According to the Millennium Development Goals Report 2012, “783 million people, or 11 per cent of the global population, remain without access to an improved source of drinking water. Such sources include household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collections.” (United Nations, 2012) The United Nations Water Conference in 1977 along with a few other conferences, addressed helping approximately “1.3 billion people in developing countries gain access to safe drinking water.” (United Nations, 2012) While there is progress being made, we see that various regions without clean drinking water. Reports show, “In four of nine developing regions, 90 per cent or more of the population now uses an improved drinking water source. In contrast, coverage remains very low in Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa, neither of which is on track to meet the MDG drinking water target by 2015. Over 40 per cent of all people without improved drinking water live in sub-Saharan Africa.” (United Nations, 2012) It is shown that rural areas still lack drinkable water as opposed to urban areas. Consistent improvement has been made to supply populated areas with a reliable source of drinking water. However, research shows, “Coverage with improved drinking water sources for rural populations is still lagging. In 2010, 96 per cent of the urban population used an

Around the world people are suffering from the problem of having a safe and clean water, there are more than 633 million people lack access to safe water. Remote countries in Africa are mostly the victim of having unsanitary water sources.

Having had the chance to travel to some the most primitive areas around the world for missions work, lack of clean water affects the health and hygiene of a people. Improper disposal of human waste and trash are key contributors to water contamination in underdeveloped countries. “In 2016, 143 communities and 57 schools received clean water in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Uganda” (“2016 Annual Report”). Organizations, like The Water Project, are making great efforts around the world to make a difference in these areas by installing wells and providing water purification systems. Until the proper infrastructure is in place, bottled water is the perfect stopgap. Bottled water can provide those living in these unreached areas a way to get their daily intake of water without fear of sickness.

1. “ Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control” (United Nations, 2012).

Thanks to the United Nations general assembly recognizing the need for clean water in Resolution 64/292, the states and international organizations have been called on to provide funding and resources to help developing countries provide safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water to all. This is a step in the right direction, seeing as women and children in some countries have to walk more than 30 minutes to collect water- if there is any water to collect at all.

Each day children are exposed to violent television programs, whether through the news, or through entertainment. Each time a child casually watches a violent program they are further disposed to the concept that that violence is simply a part of a just and moral code. Such values insinuate that following one’s passion over reason holds moral ground. Each day on the news youth watch broadcastings, detailing global hardships, and poverties that different regions are facing. An overload of negative news makes these hardships seem like they simply coincide with everyday life, which compromises true good. This desensitization creates a bystander effect, in which people believe that other people will reach out and help; therefore, they do not need to. Currently millions of war refugees are fleeing Syria to prevent being killed. European countries are shutting their borders to these people, forcing them to be slaughtered, with no means of survival. Every news outlet has covered this story, yet no one has reached out to help. This issue has taken a back seat, because people have deemed these acts to be part of the injustices of life. Mother Teresa of Calcutta lived by the concept that each person has the right to not suffer, regardless of situation. This ideal is believed to be the most basic of moral principles, and is growing faint in the midst of

Social justice is the view from a person’s mind that everything and everybody is equal no matter the gender, race, social group, or religion. One of the biggest problems in the world, especially in the US, is child poverty. One third of United State’s children live with under thirty one thousand dollars a year which is below the sixty percent of the national median income. This alters their hope for their future as adults, it affects their learning, and impacts their health and safety.

The right of every human to a standard of living that ensures health and wellbeing independently of race, religion, geographic location, social status, and political views , is often viewed as a way of guaranteeing individual dignity and development (United Nations).

I am committed to social justice. My life started off rough coming out of an abusive home. I have worked so hard to get myself to a place where I can help kids that were in an abusive home and have trauma like me. I am a Criminal Justice major here at Westfield State University. My end goal is to help kids in bad living situations. I want to help juveniles that haven't taken the straight path like I did. I feel as though I can help them see that your background doesn't matter, but handwork and passion does. I have experience that not many people have. I can touch these kids in a way that others can't. I want to lead them to a path of greatness and use their painful past as fuel to make an amazing future.

Two out of every five people living in Sub-Saharan Africa lack safe water. A baby there is 500 times more likely to die from water-related illness than one from the United States. This is a serious ongoing issue that requires the rest of the world to take action. Water spreads diseases easily if the necessary precautions are not taken. Many developing African countries don’t have sewage treatment, or the people don’t have methods to filter and disinfect. Once a person is sick either there is no way to cure them, or medical care is too expensive, so they are left untreated with a high risk of death. Although many believe that the fight for sanitary water in Africa is insurmountable, people in these developing countries can overcome their challenge to access clean water and avoid water-borne diseases through proper sewage treatment facilities, universal water filtration and medical care.

Coming from a war-torn country, I was informed by the concepts of social injustice and gender inequality at a young age. Whether it was witnessing my girl-friend forced to dress up as a boy or witnessing many of my classmates forced to drop out of middle-school by their parents, I was constantly reminded of what it meant to be a teenager, a girl, in a country full of restrictions and limited opportunities. Nonetheless, I was fortunate to be raised in a household with an activist father that has dedicated his life in improving the quality of education in Afghanistan and a mother that wanted her daughters to pursue the education she could not. The values and beliefs they imposed on me gave me a clear idea of what I wanted to pursue in the future.

The notion of justice is existence of proper balance of rights and its access under the laws of land. It refers to not depriving any person from availing privileges, opportunities etc. John Rawls writes, "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"It means that the interaction in a society must be free from any sort of discrimination such as religion, race, color, caste or sex. It ensures fair distribution of assets and equal opportunity. José P. Laurel defines Social Justice as “Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the state so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated.”

Social sciences and social justice are both based on the structure of rights. Our rights were designed to create equality for all. However, there are always outliers in our justice system and these outliers can be seen by all. My background and demographic are aggressively average growing up in a small, rural community with little diversity which has affected my views about justice. The class Social Problems and Social Injustice has aggressively opened my eyes to new statistics about society and has made some of my intuitions validated and destroyed some of my prior views. My new understanding of social justice is that is was created for all by excluding some. Justice is the structure of our institutions and society.

World Vision, founded in the USA in 1950 by a young pastor Robert Pierce, is one of the largest relief and development organizations in the world whose total revenue coming grants, product and foreign donations is about $2.6 billion.

As the worlds population grows, it is forced by circumstances that it has created to face the limitations of the worlds resources. Most people in the US have always been fortunate enough to have enough of whatever they wanted. When something they like breaks or wears out, they throw it away or buy a new one, and they often don’t even make an attempt to repair an item. They neglect basic maintenance until they damage their belongings beyond repair, and expect that they’ll always have enough. But some things are beyond their control, beyond there power or financial ability to replace or repair. The world’s drinking water supply is one of these without concern, without attention, without preventative maintenance and reclamation and