Buen Vivir

My TV watching, with the back-to-back political ads filling every commercial break, was interrupted a couple evenings ago by a program highlighting the community development efforts of several Brazilian organizations working in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. What stayed with me from the program were some of the stark visuals. A bare, wind-blown hillside covered with ragged tents stretching as far as the eye could see – still the only home for thousands, now almost three years after the quake. The mixed feelings of curiosity and distrust reflected in the eyes of a beautiful brown-faced child – maybe 7 or 8 years old – orphaned by the quake and to this day without a permanent home. The smiling faces of a group of women who have formed a crafts cooperative that provides both community and income for meeting some of their basic needs. The clear water flowing from a white pvc pipe, part of a recently dug, simple, well – and the crowd standing impatiently, each waiting their turn to collect a limited supply of the precious liquid for cooking, bathing, etc.

The other thing that caught my attention were the numbers. More than two thirds of the Haitian work force do not have formal jobs! 54% of the population (that's nearly five and a half million people) live in extreme poverty (on less than $1.00 a day). Half of the children under five years of age are malnourished. 583 out of every 100,000 women die giving birth (compared to 8 maternal deaths per 100,000 in Europe). 80 out of every 1,000 infants in Haiti do not live to their first birthday. 50% of primary age children are not enrolled in school and of those who do attend school, 60% will abandon their education before completing the sixth grade.

As the program concluded, I flipped back to another channel and was jarred back to my own reality as I was subjected once again to the almost non-stop political ads. And I couldn't help but reflect on the in-congruence. While the majority of a nation struggles to achieve even the most basic needs for housing, food, clean water, health and education, with over 50% of the population scraping by on less than a dollar a day (!!), during this election season the two major party candidates for president here in the USA have spent over one and a half Billion dollars on campaign ads alone (not including the additional millions being spent by PACs). And one of the key disagreements between the two candidates is whether millionaires and billionaires should pay more or less taxes!

What kind of world would it be, if we all agreed that each and every human being is so valuable that we would collectively ensure that every person has their basic needs met - for housing, nourishment, healthcare, education, community, and meaningful work and leisure? If that were our vision and priority, don't you think we could find a way to harness the resources of this earth to achieve that purpose? And we could rid humanity of the absurdity – no, the obscenity – of some living on as little as one dollar a day while others scramble to protect their millions and billions. A world built, not  on a vision of living with more and more, but of all living well.¹

1  The concept of buen vivir or living well draws on the wisdom of indigenous peoples and was brought into political discourse by Evo Morales, the first indigenous President of Bolivia, elected in 2005.