It comes as no surprise that the tragic earthquake in Haiti has attracted an enormous amount of media attention. In my own interviews, I’ve been asked by reporters how I account for the incredible and generous response of the American people to this disaster.

To my mind, part of it is the proximity of Haiti to our country. Part of it is the fact that Haiti was gripped by such poverty even before the earthquake. And part of it is the extent of the damage and suffering.

But clearly a big reason for this outpouring, especially among Catholics in the United States, is that so many parishes here have longstanding relationships with parishes in Haiti. Many Catholics from this country have traveled there, and have welcomed their Haitian brothers and sisters to their own parishes and homes. As a result of these “twinning” relationships, Haitians are not strangers, but are truly neighbors and friends. It is a vivid experience of being One Human Family. That is why this disaster was such a shock. It hit close to home, and has affected us deeply.

One example is the relationship between the St. Brendan Catholic Community in the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the parish of Notre Dame de Fatima in Bassin-Zim, Haiti, a rural town about 80 miles from the quake’s epicenter. St. Brendan’s is one of at least nine parishes in the Archdiocese of Atlanta that have established a twinning relationship. The parish has maintained this outreach since 2004 and has initiated several projects, including basic parish support, a drive to build a parish hall and a microloan program.

While the town of Bassin-Zim lies outside of the earthquake impact zone and the parish suffered no structural damage, the parishioners are still feeling the effects of the disaster. Many people in the town lost family members and friends in Port-au-Prince, including the pastor, whose sister was killed. In addition to these losses, they are seeing a significant influx of people displaced by the earthquake, which is resulting in inflated prices and shortages of food, fuel and other supplies—for a time, there was even a shortage of hosts for the celebration of the Eucharist.

St. Brendan’s parishioners have expressed their concern for their friends at Notre Dame de Fatima in many ways. Their prayer intentions have prominently included the people of Haiti, and an altar cloth embroidered by the members of their sister parish has covered the altar from the day the earthquake struck until Ash Wednesday. They have kept their fellow parishioners informed through special reports from Catholic Relief Services that have been distributed through their parish bulletins, websites, and a Facebook page for their Haiti outreach project.

And in a special Haiti supply mission, two members of St. Brendan’s Haiti outreach project traveled with an interpreter to the Dominican Republic, where they purchased a large truck and loaded it with fuel, food and other necessities. With logistical help provided by a local Caritas agency they met through CRS Dominican Republic, the parishioners delivered the supplies to their sister parish themselves.

And of course, the people of St. Brendan’s have generously donated to both the CRS emergency response as well as the local parish partnership with Notre Dame de Fatima.

Stories like these can be told dozens of times. They stand as a testament to the bond between Catholics in the United States and our brothers and sisters in Haiti. That bond will be continued and strengthened through the long-term relief and recovery effort that CRS will carry out over the coming years.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

I have just returned from Haiti. The destruction in Port-au-Prince is pervasive. Building after building has crumbled to a pile of rubble. Amid the broken cityscape, thousands of suffering people mourn for the dead, search for the missing and seek help for the injured. The agony is overwhelming. I have not seen a worse aftermath of an earthquake during my entire, decades-long career in humanitarian relief.

Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, who is also Catholic Relief Services’ chairman of the board, fellow staff members and I attended the funeral Mass for Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot and his vicar general, Monsignor Charles Benoit, who died along with many others when the cathedral in Port-au-Prince collapsed. Prayers and tears flowed from the hearts of the hundreds gathered to pay their last respects to these men, who devoted their lives to encouraging and inspiring poor Haitians against the most daunting of odds even in the best of times.

How ironic it seems now to note that just last month I wrote to you about the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In its wake, Catholic Relief Services mounted the largest relief and recovery effort in our history. Let me assure you that our response to the Haitian earthquake has been rapid and robust.

We were able to respond immediately thanks to emergency supplies we had stored in our warehouses in Port-au-Prince and another city to the southwest called Les Cayes. We were also fortunate that a regularly scheduled shipment of 1,500 metric tons of food aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development arrived soon after the earthquake.

To date, CRS has provided food and other essentials to tens of thousands of people. CRS volunteers in the Dominican Republic are filling buckets with crackers, sardines, canned beans and juice boxes. CRS is unloading trucks of wheat to help feed quake survivors who’ve sought haven on the grounds of a country club and are desperate for food.

We visited what remains of the CRS-supported St. Francois de Sales hospital. Determined doctors and dedicated staff were busy mending and counseling those with injuries to body and spirit. Operations were performed outdoors beneath an unforgiving sun. And I watched with great amazement as Archbishop Dolan moved among the patients and doctors. He blessed every person he met. He comforted every child, and encouraged every medical person with inspiring goodness of heart.

Catholic Relief Services was able to rush aid to the injured, homeless and frightened so efficiently and effectively because we have been working in Haiti for 55 years. Many of our programs are located south and west of Port-au-Prince, so we had staff and supplies of hygiene kits and other necessities at well-placed warehouses beyond the reaches of the terrible destruction.

CRS works effectively because we have longstanding and deep relationships with partners. We have a great reputation for getting things done. CRS was asked to be the lead agency at one of the first formally organized camps, where as many as 80,000 people are sleeping every night.

Just like after the tsunami, CRS will stay on the ground long after the TV cameras have packed up and gone home. We will continue to have a presence in Haiti. And we will do so, just like after the tsunami, because of the tremendous generosity of you, the friends of CRS.

One Haitian told us, “The worst is not knowing the future.” Thanks to you, the future is a little more clear. We will be in Haiti to restart and rebuild the hopes and futures of our brothers and sisters.
Your prayers and financial gifts are still needed urgently, as we prepare for great challenge ahead of us. Your support has been overwhelming. Thank you!

Ken Hackett
President

Water is life.

I’ve heard this saying in so many places where I’ve traveled, expressed in a multitude of languages. Its truth is self-evident to millions of people assisted by Catholic Relief Services. That’s why you’ll see it painted on the sides of countless wells, tanks and cisterns that bring clean, life-giving water to poor and vulnerable communities around the world.

Water is a source of life for all of us as people, for the food we eat, for the animals it sustains. Because it is so basic, needed by everyone, it takes on a social dimension. Where it is plentiful, we may take it for granted.

Yet in many countries in our world, the demand for clean water for consumption, hygiene and sanitation exceeds supply. Where water is scarce, it can be a means to bring people together, through the construction of water systems, for example. Where there is not enough, it can contribute to conflict and, sometimes, violence.

Here are the grim statistics: Approximately 1 billion people lack access to clean water, and more than twice that many do not have adequate sanitation. The vast majority of these people live in rural areas, in extreme poverty. As a result, more than 2 million people, mostly children, die each year from diseases related to dirty water and poor sanitation.

Improving water and sanitation systems in poor and vulnerable communities, as well as reconstructing these systems in places hit by disaster, has long been an important part of the work of CRS. From the beginning, our water experts have focused on the physical and technical aspects of building these systems—which they refer to in terms of “tubes and tanks.”

But what we are increasingly seeing is that we must also understand and identify the social dimensions of water, particularly where there is the potential for it to trigger conflict.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his message for the 2010 World Day of Peace, speaks of this social dimension of our natural resources: “The environment must be seen as God’s gift to all people, and the use we make of it entails a shared responsibility for all humanity, especially the poor and future generations.”

That’s why CRS now develops water projects with local communities within a peacebuilding framework. In our approach to peacebuilding, as in all our work, we draw on the principles of Catholic social teaching to strive toward building a culture of peace rooted in justice, equality and nonviolence. We seek to address the personal grievances people have with each other, as well as the unjust structures and policies on the social level. We have seen that these grievances, if left unaddressed, are the very ones that can mushroom into conflict.

One example of this peacebuilding is in El Salvador, where a CRS partner, Caritas El Salvador, is taking a leading role in the Foro de Agua, a permanent water forum comprising more than 100 organizations and institutions that work to influence public policy for the just, efficient and equitable use of water resources.

And here’s one piece of late-breaking news: CRS’ specialists in water and sanitation, along with their colleagues in peacebuilding, have collaborated on a new publication, Water and Conflict: Incorporating Peacebuilding into Water Development, which provides an overview of some of the common and growing issues of conflict in international water development. CRS sees this publication as a first step to understanding how to better incorporate peacebuilding into our water programs at the country level.

It is our hope that these new approaches will help the people we serve to build communities that live in good health—and in peace.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers for a peaceful new year for all.

Ken Hackett
President

This December 26, as we bask in the warm afterglow of family Christmas celebrations, we will pause to remember the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the most horrific natural disasters in memory.

The tidal wave claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people and left millions homeless, without the means to support themselves and their families. The destruction was almost unimaginable. The human suffering was even worse.

In response, Catholic Relief Services mounted the largest relief and recovery effort in our history. Nearly five years later, I can proudly say that our ambitious reconstruction goals have been met. Thanks to an incredible outpouring from members of the Catholic community in the United States, many contributing though their parishes, their dioceses and national Church organizations, CRS received an overwhelming $170 million in private donations to assist survivors. Another $32 million came from U.S. government and other institutional donors.

This incredible gesture of solidarity has accomplished a great deal. Working in collaboration with the local Church partners and other organizations, many of our projects were completed within four years, a year ahead of schedule.

In the three countries that were hardest hit by the tsunami—India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka—CRS has constructed more than 13,000 permanent homes, providing thousands of families with better places to live than they had before the disaster. But these houses are more than just a place to live. The recipients consider the house an asset that can be inherited by their children. It can be used as the basis for generating income, as collateral for a microfinance loan, or as a center for a small business.

Another area we focused on was the health of the people affected by the tsunami. In the immediate aftermath, the quick availability of funds enabled us to take measures that prevented the spread of waterborne diseases. We embarked on many projects to improve the quality of water and sanitation, which will preserve the health of communities. We helped to build and repair numerous health centers, and we trained community health workers to provide services in their communities, including basic prevention and management of diseases for children and pregnant women.

CRS recently wrapped up our final tsunami projects by completing work in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where we repaired and, in many cases, reconstructed more than 300 community infrastructure projects, including piers, markets, bridges, roads, schools and clinics. In addition, CRS constructed 13 central markets that support fruit, vegetable and fish vendors and help keep a market-driven economy in motion. The jewel of this effort was the construction of the Banda Aceh Mother and Child Hospital, a full-service facility that is the first of its kind in the region.

These good works stand as a tangible symbol of the connection of Catholics in the United States to their brothers and sisters who endured such great suffering. We were brought together in tragedy, but we will remain united as one human family.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

Just a week after we gather with our families to celebrate Thanksgiving, we pause to commemorate a more somber occasion: World AIDS Day.

This observance each December 1 is a time to take note of the toll this awful pandemic exacts: the lives taken, the futures dimmed, the families broken apart.

But to my mind, World AIDS Day is increasingly an observance of hope. Thanks to advanced drug therapies that prolong the lives of people with HIV, this dread disease is no longer a death sentence. This has been the case for a while in developed countries like the United States, and it is now a reality in the poorest places in the world, thanks to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Catholic Relief Services is part of a coalition called AIDSRelief that has one of the largest PEPFAR grants and is providing lifesaving drug therapy to more than 170,000 people. Another 460,000 people are receiving related medical care.

And here’s the connection between World AIDS Day and Thanksgiving: This hope that you provide through the U.S. government and through your support of CRS begets gratitude from the people we serve.

CRS recently sponsored a forum in Washington, D.C., on our holistic and compassionate approach to the care of people with HIV. The event attracted some of the leading figures in the medical community. We were also privileged to hear from patients at a clinic in Uganda funded by the CRS and the AIDSRelief consortium. I’d like to share some of their words with you.

One gentleman, who has been receiving antiretroviral drug treatment since 2007, wrote to his “Dear brothers and sisters from CRS”:

“Thank you very much for this service,” he says. “I am now very strong and I can help my family a bit…Therefore I also praise the Lord, while praying that the Almighty should bless all you are doing.”

Another patient wrote to “sincerely send a word of appreciation to CRS for having constantly supplied us with [antiretroviral medications] and other necessities that have made our lives what they are today…May the Almighty reward you abundantly.”

A staff worker wrote that “Our clients who are on [antiretroviral therapy] are healthy, physically fit and they are doing well. [They have an] improved way of living economically, socially and medically, etc. Therefore with a great and loving heart I say ‘Thank you very much, CRS,’ for that kind help. And may our beloved God continue blessing your programs.”

Finally, a doctor wrote to say “I am very grateful for the support you have given to the Ugandans through your services at CRS.

“I would like to say that, had it not been for the existence of CRS in Kasanga…the poor people in the remote peripheries of Uganda would never have received any hope of living up to today nor been able to see a doctor.

“The doctor to patient ratio in Uganda is 1 to 18,000 people, and most doctors prefer to work in the urban setting. So the clients in the most distant rural places hardly get quality care.

“I have been able to leave my family, friends and all the good things that the urban places provide just to serve the poor and needy people here and because CRS has given me an opportunity to care.”

For many of these people, who had given up hope of a future with their loved ones, life has begun anew. And through your generosity, you have been a part of this rebirth.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

As the summer was drawing to a close, we heard of the death of Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, which lifted millions of people, mostly in Asia, out of hunger through the production of high-yield varieties of wheat.

Despite Dr. Borlaug’s achievements, we commemorate this year’s World Food Day on October 16 facing the fact that more than a billion people around the world suffer each day without enough to eat. The fight against global hunger continues.

And to add to the complexity of our task, we are facing some new challenges in increasing agricultural production and preventing famine. For example, over the last several weeks, we’ve received some confounding news about disasters in Africa.

In East Africa, the nearly complete failure of seasonal rains has resulted in drought that is causing suffering and hardship for almost 4 million people in Kenya. At the same time, a storm last month in Burkina Faso poured more than 10 inches of rain on the capital city of Ouagadougou in a 12-hour period, breaking a record that had stood since 1919 and causing floods that drove more than 100,000 people from their homes.

There is no conclusive link among these two weather aberrations and global climate change. But the fact is we are witnessing shifts in climatic conditions around the world.

Our overseas staff and partners report that climate change is accelerating disasters and altering rainfall patterns and traditional agriculture. And those shifts are causing those who contributed the least to global climate change, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, to suffer the most from its effects.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, under Vatican leadership, have accepted the overwhelming scientific consensus that global climate change is real and is caused by human activity, and that it is disproportionately affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. The United States bears a special responsibility in our stewardship of God’s creation to shape responses that serve the entire human family. As Pope Benedict XVI said in his message about last month’s U.N. summit on climate change: “The economic and social costs of using up shared resources must be recognized with transparency and borne by those who incur them, and not by other peoples or future generations. The protection of the environment, and the safeguarding of resources and of the climate, oblige all international leaders to act jointly, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the world.”

And let me add Pope Benedict’s words from his most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, in addressing the topic of development, the rights of peoples and the environment: “The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole.”

Catholic Relief Services’ overseas programs have already developed more than $60 million in adaptation-related projects. And in partnership with the U.S. bishops, CRS is contributing our experience and observations to the U.S. administration and congress as they develop our nation’s response to climate change.  A new initiative of leading national Catholic organizations, including CRS, is calling on Catholics throughout the United States to reflect and act on our obligations to care for creation and for “the least of these” as a distinctive Catholic contribution to the climate change debate.

As we mark this year’s World Food Day, let us reaffirm our commitment and redouble our efforts to do all we can to end global hunger.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

In 1943, as war raged across Europe, a Polish-American priest from Chicago was dispatched on an urgent mission of mercy.

Thousands upon thousands of bedraggled Polish refugees fleeing Soviet forced-labor camps in Siberia were streaming into Iran, seeking safe haven. The refugees, most of them women and children, along with some elderly men, were ill and emaciated. Many had died on the perilous journey.

The priest, Father Aloysius Wycislo (pronounced Veh-chee-slo), was sent on behalf of the American Catholic community to provide lifesaving aid. He organized temporary centers in Iran to provide immediate assistance, and later oversaw the resettlement of these refugees to East Africa, the Middle East and a small village in north-central Mexico. It was this emergency response that gave birth to the agency that would become Catholic Relief Services. And Father Wycislo, who later became a bishop, was a pioneer in that effort.

More than six decades later, our mission has vastly expanded as we serve the poorest of the poor in more than 100 countries around the world. But assisting refugees and families who have been displaced from their homes by natural disaster or armed conflict remains an important focus for us. Whether providing shelter to people displaced by fighting in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, helping Iraqi refugees to deal with psychological trauma or providing humanitarian assistance to migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border, CRS seeks to help protect the dignity and basic human rights of refugees and migrants.

Sudan is another place where CRS is providing vital assistance to people displaced by years of violence.
Our humanitarian aid, reconstruction and peacebuilding activities support more than 650,000 Sudanese in Darfur, the Khartoum area and throughout the south. Across the border in eastern Chad, CRS also helps to manage three camps that are home to more than 50,000 refugees from Sudan.

I can think of no better exemplar of the pioneering spirit of Aloysius Wycislo and his dedication to the needs of refugees and displaced people than Mark Snyder. Mark led our program in Sudan until his death in late July from complications of malaria. We are still deeply grieving this loss.

Mark spent most of his decade and a half with CRS in Latin America. He joined CRS in November 1993 as a project manager in Peru, and went on to lead our programs in Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Peru. Four years ago, Mark took on an especially complex and sensitive assignment in Sudan, which is one of our most challenging operating environments. In recent months, his task grew even more daunting. After several aid agencies were expelled from northern Sudan earlier this year, Mark managed a rapid expansion of CRS assistance in West Darfur to fill the gap. We are now providing lifesaving relief to more than 400,000 people, more than double the number we served previously.

Mark handled the challenges he faced with great skill, grace and a profound sense of hope in the midst of great suffering. That hope shone through in his New Year’s message to all of you: “As we welcome 2009, we share your hope that the world will soon emerge from economic crisis and that we will see more peaceful times. In Sudan, one of our biggest hopes is the attainment of a lasting peace so people in Darfur can return to their villages and people in the south can enjoy the fruits of their tireless efforts to construct a new and peaceful environment.”

Among the hardships of life in the field are diseases that are unknown in the United States. In Africa, malaria is a constant threat. Mark contracted the disease in Sudan and became much sicker while he was on leave in Peru. He died in a Lima hospital on July 29.

During this time of sadness and grief, we ask for your prayers for Mark and his family. And we also ask you to remember the people Mark served with skill, faith and dedication.

Ken Hackett
President

More than two decades ago, several theologians wrote a book titled Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret.

At the time, it was true. Hopefully, with the publication of Pope Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), more people will become aware of the treasure that is Catholic social teaching.

Caritas in Veritate builds on Pope Benedict’s first two encyclicals: Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) and Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope). As an agency, we at Catholic Relief Services have grown in a deeper understanding of our own mission through our study and reflection on these encyclicals.

In particular, Deus Caritas Est spoke to us in its emphasis on the centrality of charity in the life of the Church, alongside celebration of the sacraments and proclamation of the word of God. It affirmed our work as a Catholic charitable agency to serve the poor with heartfelt concern, and reminded us that humanitarian action must be rooted in selfless love (agape) and should always be done in a spirit of humility.

Caritas in Veritate, with its emphasis on the themes of Catholic social teaching and integral human development, will have even more to say to us. Integral human development, an approach that encompasses the whole person and includes the physical, political, economic, psychological and spiritual dimensions, is central to the mission of Catholic Relief Services. It is integral human development that sets CRS apart from other humanitarian agencies.

In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict says he wants to pay tribute to and honor the memory of Pope Paul VI and his encyclical Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples),  “revisiting his teachings on integral human development and taking my place within the path that they marked out, so as to apply them to the present moment.” This “present moment” is one marked by the phenomenon of globalization as well as the reality of the global financial crisis.

Like many popes before him, Pope Benedict states that markets cannot go unregulated and that “every economic decision has a moral consequence.” Economic activity, Pope Benedict says, must be directed toward the pursuit of the common good. It should foster the development and work to the benefit of the whole person and of all people. In that spirit, he suggests, there must be a space in our economy between the traditional profit-based companies and nonprofit institutions, for a business venture that “does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends.”

Pope Benedict invokes the continuum of Catholic social teaching, clearly proclaiming the sacredness and dignity of the human person and the obligation to protect life in all its forms. He writes: “The Church forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that ‘a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized.’ ”

The themes of solidarity and our connectedness as one human family also pervade the encyclical. Pope Benedict notes that this phenomenon known as globalization may have erased borders and brought diverse cultures into closer contact, but that’s not enough.

“Today humanity appears much more interactive than in the past: this shared sense of being close to one another must be transformed into true communion,” he writes. “The development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side.”

The Holy Father also sounds a clarion call for greater engagement in the fight against global hunger. “The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination,” he says.

This profound and inspiring document will give us much to think about, and to act on, in the coming months and years.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

The answer is: Moldova.

The question is: What is the most destitute country in Europe?

And the category is: Needless Suffering.

That’s how it might go if this were the game show Jeopardy. But life in a place like Moldova is far from a game.

A former Soviet republic that declared its independence in 1991, Moldova has struggled in its transition to democratic governance and a market economy. It has weathered three economic collapses, each as devastating as the Great Depression.

Due to poverty, unemployment, weak rule of law and widespread corruption, Moldova is now a major country of origin for trafficking in human beings. Most victims are Moldovan women and children, sold into the sex-slave industry, but also trafficked for forced labor, begging, petty crime and organ harvesting.

Catholic Relief Services first arrived in Moldova in 2004 to begin reaching out to young people, particularly women, living in remote villages throughout the country. We are working in parish social ministry, which improves local churches’ ability to provide for the poor and vulnerable in their communities. We are also providing young women with job training and other opportunities that reduce the need to choose high-risk offers often used by traffickers.

At the center of our efforts is the Jobs Plus program, which provides sheltered employment training for rural women at risk, jobs for the unemployed, and cash incomes for impoverished families. Besides job skills, the program teaches these young women how to make a household budget, and to prioritize and maintain savings. It empowers women and other villagers to improve the quality of life in their communities by undertaking self-financed community improvement projects.

Over the last four years, CRS Moldova has created 800 jobs for vulnerable women and has plans to create more than 2,000 additional jobs over the next three years. This project is funded with support from the Argidius Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the COFRA Group, an international corporation.

Jobs Plus has had a transformational effect in the lives of the women who have completed the training. You can read their stories on our website. Marina Svarciuc was a young widow who had no way to support herself and her twin children. After training with Jobs Plus, she got a job at the deli counter at a local grocery store. And she has big plans. She intends to study business administration and economics with an eye to becoming a manager.

After Olessa Rozovel fled and divorced an abusive husband, she lost her means of supporting her three children. Life is especially tough in Moldova for single mothers. Olessa faced the grim prospect of leaving her children in the care of others to seek work abroad. But through Jobs Plus, she was able to get work as a seamstress in a newly  built clothing factory in her village. CRS is committed to working with companies that care for their employees: the factory is clean, well-lit and has the only flush toilets in the village. Says Olessa, “I am building my own life.”

Through your generous support to CRS, women like Marina and Olessa can live a life of dignity and do not need to submit themselves to exploitation and degradation.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers.

Ken Hackett
President

This time of year, I have the pleasure of engaging in one of the favorite parts of my job: offering a few words of wisdom to graduating college students.

In years past, I’ve spoken at commencements across the country, from the University of San Diego on the West Coast, to Siena College and New York Medical College in the East, and Villanova and the University of Notre Dame’s business school in between. This year, I had a trifecta: the University of Great Falls in Great Falls, Montana, Cabrini College near Philadelphia and the College of Notre Dame right here in Baltimore.

In each place, I am constantly inspired by the achievements of the graduates and the enthusiasm and hope they place in their future endeavors.

All commencement speeches have a few common elements. You extend congratulations to the graduates, their families and friends on making it to this great day. You convey some words of inspiration as they embark on whatever comes next. And you offer a bit of advice on how to approach the future.

Here’s my two cents:

First, take a risk. Breaking out of your boundaries will broaden your vision and enrich your life.

Looking back to my own college years, I recall that I was finishing my degree at the Boston College business school, doing the requisite interviews with corporations like Standard Oil and AT&T. I was destined for a career going to an office tower every day wearing a suit with a starched white shirt and black tie. And then one day a buddy and I were walking through campus and we saw a recruiters’ table for the Peace Corps. And he says, “Hey, let’s sign up!” And I said, “Sure, why not?” So we filled out some papers and I promptly forgot about it. A few months later, I came home the night of my senior prom and my mom tells me, “You got a letter from the Peace Corps.” I opened it up, and I said, “Mom, I’m going to Ghana.…Uh, where’s Ghana?” She said, “I think it’s somewhere in South America.” That leap of faith began my four-decade career in international humanitarian work. And it has been many things…but it has rarely been boring.

Second, your education doesn’t end with commencement. Now begins the seminar called “life”. And you will have many teachers along the way. Some of them you may find in unusual places and circumstances. When I got to Ghana, I got a crash course on the latest in agricultural technology and the Twi language that was spoken locally. So then, this city boy was sent to an agricultural cooperative to learn how to help the local farmers improve their crops.

What I uncovered was a treasure of immense wisdom among illiterate farmers, hunters and market women. The calculus they adopted to measure their important life decisions—decisions on their farms, their major purchases, how they balanced social commitments—often were made in a context that meant the difference between having enough food to eat, or sending their kids to school or going into heavy debt. But it took me a while to realize what I had found.

Finally, I try to give graduates a sense of the wider world out there beyond our borders and how they are connected to it. As I told the Class of 2009 at the University of Great Falls:

Move beyond your safety zone. Move out of your comfort area to embrace the wider world. Those immigrants who you have seen at the 7-Eleven, they have values of family and faith that are to be admired. Those folks you see on the news in Pakistan actually have values that they hold dear, just like you. Engage the world, open yourself to others. You will find that it makes you a better person.

Indeed, by embracing our brothers and sisters around the world as one human family, we can all be better people.

Thank you for your continued support and your prayers. And congratulations to all the graduates out there!

Ken Hackett
President