GLOBAL SOLIDARITY Embracing Global Solidarity n 1943, as war raged across But emergency relief is only a part of the agen­ cy's work. CRS also helps communities develop Europe, thousands of bedraggled the resources they need to sustain themselves. Polish refugees fleeing Soviet Our overseas assistance efforts in 99 countries 1 around the world involve programming that forced labor camps streamed across The Rwandan helps farmers improve their yields; provides assis­ the border of Iran. Most were tance to vulnerable people such as women, chil­ Genocide Forced dren, and orphans; assists poor people in access­ women and children, or very old ing credit; improves community health and nutri­ this Catholic men, their bodies emaciated, their tion; and increases opportunities for education. Underlying this work is a commitment to the Agency to Change feet swollen and bleeding. Realiz­ U.S. Catholic bishops' call for global solidarity. the Way It Works ing they had reached sanctuary, CRS sees itself as an agency that promotes global solidarity, justice, and human dignity through in the World many fell to their knees and wept. programs of relief and development. But this has There to meet them were representatives not always been how CRS saw itself. of a newly formed agency, War Relief This is the a story of a relief agency that experi­ Services, representing the mercy and good­ enced tremendous growth, struggled with its will of American Catholics. From these identity, and went through a transformation fos­ beginnings, that charitable organization tered by rediscovering a source of its Catholic tra­ would become Catholic Relief Services dition. (CRS), the official relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic community. CRS's HISTORY Today, CRS is known for its response to From its beginning, CRS has always understood the world's high-profile emergencies and itself as a Catholic agency. But for much of our disasters, like the Indian Ocean tsunami, the history, our identity and mission was as an agency earthquake in Pakistan, and the ongoing that performed the corporal works of mercy: to conflict in Darfur. feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, and so forth. We first did this in the context of war relief: resettling refugees, min­ istering to orphans, and providing other assis­ tance. A confluence of events in the mid-1950s helped the agency to expand: the end of colonial rule in Asia and Africa, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the granting of U.S. government funds to CRS as a result of the Truman Doctrine. BY KEN HACKETT & DAVE PIRAINO The agency's name was officially changed to Ken Hackett is president and Dave Piraino Catholic Relief Services in 1955, and the next 10 years saw it open 25 country programs in Africa, is director of human resources, Catholic Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Our Relief Services, Baltimore. programming focused on the provision of basic relief, including simple distributions of food, 14 • JULY - AUGUST 2006 HEALTH PROGRESS SPECIAL SECTION clothing, and medicines. As we grew, our programming focus widened, adapting to meet the needs of the post-World War II Catholic Church and the circumstances of the people we encountered. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an evolution toward socio-eco­ nomic development and more efficient emergency response. Although this evolu­ tion was for CRS a positive step, it was largely secular in nature and driven by increased funding from the government. Events in the late 1980s and early 1990s fundamentally changed the world in which we worked. Those years brought two new factors. The first was the end of the Cold War, which led to volatile politi­ CRS agent Abdoulaye Bawa distributes grain in Niger cal and social climates in many developing during a 2005 food crisis. and Third World countries. Throughout Africa and parts of Europe, Asia, and Latin America, governments were weak­ expanded our programming. There was ened—and sometimes destroyed—by eth­ an increasing sense that the agency's iden­ nic conflict coupled with famine, tity was being obscured, and this caused drought, and other natural disasters. our mission to come under question. At the same time, many CRS staff That process of introspection intensified members began to reflect seriously on the under new leadership when Ken Hackett strengths and weaknesses of the agency's was named executive director of CRS in approach to development. This was the 1993. second factor. There was a growing Then came an event that forever recognition that CRS had slowly drifted changed us as people and as an institu­ from its moorings. On the one hand, we tion: the Rwandan genocide. knew what we did when we handed out By 1994, CRS had been working in packets of food in Europe and, later, in Rwanda for three decades, since before the developing world. But now we had that nation won its independence. Our SUMMARY For more than 60 years, Catholic latter part of the 20th century, it Changing the way the organization Relief Services (CRS) has provided wasn't until the mid-1990s that the approaches relief has been an exten­ emergency relief overseas. But the agency questioned its foundational sive process. Staff members developed guiding principles underlying the orga­ principles and made an organization- a strategic plan, held retreats and work­ nization's work have evolved over wide move toward change. shops to define the concept of justice, time—particularly over the last The impetus for change was the educated colleagues worldwide on the decade—as staff members have 1994 Rwandan genocide crisis. CRS new approach, facilitated "Justice adopted a new view of their role in staff members were deeply affected: Reflections" to explore the basics of supporting people in need worldwide. not only were their aid programs Catholic social teaching, and developed In CRS' early years, its focus was on destroyed; they also lost friends, col­ guiding principles and a vision. corporal works of mercy: providing leagues, and family members. CRS Despite challenges, CRS is success­ food, drink, clothing, and other materi­ staff realized that unless they fully transforming itself into an agency al goods. Although the organization's addressed the justice issues underly­ that not only provides physical relief breadth of services and geographic ing their beneficiaries' concerns, their but also strives to help build a culture presence expanded throughout the aid would have minimal impact. of justice, peace, and reconciliation. HEALTH PROGRESS JULY - AUGUST 2006 • IS staff was aware of the ethnic tensions between better handled at a more local level, by people Hutus and Tutsis. But we had concluded that who know the cultural, social, and political con­ addressing these tensions was not a part of our text better than CRS people do. mandate as a relief and development agency. We At the same time, the principles of Catholic simply tried to work around them. social teaching speak universal truths to people of Then, in April 1994, the genocide began. other faiths. As an international agency, we faced More than 800,000 people were murdered over the challenge of regrounding ourselves in our three months. It deeply affected us. Our CRS Catholic identity while at the same time maintain­ staff lost friends, colleagues, and family members. ing and strengthening our community of staff And we learned that all the good work we had and partners, who represent religions and cul­ Embracing been doing—the silos and schools we built, the tures from every corner of the globe. Catholic children we fed, the farms we planted—was not social teaching promised to make that possible. enough. Our programs were wiped out within The operational changes demanded by these Global days and many of the people we had served per­ insights did not happen overnight or easily. And, ished. in fact, it is still a work very much in progress. Partly because of the Rwandan genocide, CRS There have been a number of milestones along Solidarity began to take a hard look at itself. What we the way. learned from the horror of Rwanda was that our Beginning in late 1995, CRS embarked on a work in relief and development, though carried strategic planning process to guide its choices and out effectively and efficiently, was not enough. actions. People throughout the agency entered Our identity as "development professionals" the process ready to expand their understanding came under serious question. We realized that we of our mission to include justice, peace, and sys­ had not addressed the justice issues relating to temic change. This involved a good deal of the structures that perpetuated societal imbal­ debate, as would be the case any time a successful ances in Rwanda. We had failed to support pro­ organization considered making a change to what grams that fostered right relations among peo­ it had been doing well for decades. ples, among institutions and people, and inside In 1996, as the result of a series of retreats and the church. executive workshops, we determined that the concept of justice, as defined in Catholic social THE ADOPTION OF THE "JUSTICE LENS" teaching, was a distinct strategy. From this came After much reflection, we resolved to address not what we call our "Justice Lens," a commitment just the symptoms of crises—burned-out houses, to "build a culture of justice and peace through homeless refugees, and food shortages—but also the promotion of just and right relationships." the systems and structures that cause crises. We Having done that, we launched an agencywide concluded that this was sound policy as well as a education effort. Because CRS has nearly 5,000 moral imperative.