 Global Integration UpdatesCommon Ground for the Common Good Be the people we need--Build the world we need
Special News--April 2024Inequality, Inc.
Exploring Our Poverty-Prosperity Divides "In Panama City inequality is seen side by side. Panama, April 2020."
Photo: UNDP/Grey Díaz UNDP Photos of the Year 2020
And in so many other places throughout our world!"As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest...Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times - times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation - that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils...millions of people in the world’s poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved, and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free." Nelson Mandela, 3 February 2005 (speech text)--Make Poverty History (video) ------------------Perspectives
This has been one of the most challenging Updates to do. Delving into the inequalities of poverty in our world is disturbing. I have never known poverty, much less multi-dimensional poverty. And it is not on my bucket list. My family, friends, and I have access to plenty of resources for wellbeing. Yours too? I hope that this Update's glimpse into the inequalities of poverty may encourage us to make some adjustments in our lives and to do good on behalf of our fellow humans. Kelly
Overview
In this Update (#94), we explore inequality in our world--primarily from the air. We feature the drone journalism of Johnny Miller who takes us into the skys to get a different--and actually closer--view of our world's poverty-prosperity divides (Part One). Let's venture into the aerial heights in order to explore the visual depths of poverty!
“Inequality threatens long-term social and economic development, harms poverty reduction and destroys people’s sense of fulfillment and self-worth...Inequalities based on income, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnicity, religion and opportunity continue to persist across the world. Inequality threatens long-term social and economic development, harms poverty reduction and destroys people’s sense of fulfillment and self-worth. This, in turn, can breed crime, disease and environmental degradation.” UN SDGs--Inequality
In Part Two we feature the new Human Development Report 2023-2024: Breaking the Gridlock...in a Polarized World. See especially the "Snapshot" which summarizes the Report (in six languages). We encourage you to also review the targets and progress for three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 1 ("end poverty in all its forms everywhere"), SDG 10 ("reduce inequality within and among countries"), and SDG 11 ("make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable").
We conclude the Update with some personal perspectives on being "people of faith-hope-love" in the Christian tradition who embrace "common ground for the common good" (Part Three). This inclusive approach encourages active learning and collaboration with a diversity of colleagues on behalf of wellbeing for all people and the planet. Suggested Applications--Making It Personal - Review the materials in this Update. Identify a couple items that you want to explore more.
- See the section below from the Unequal Scenes website. Choose one of more countries and/or cities to view images of their poverty-prosperity divides from the air. Note any thoughts and feelings that get stirred up for you.
- Share this Update with your friends, colleagues, organization(s), and network(s). Discuss practical applications for your life and work.
See these Global Integration Updates: Warm greetings,
Kelly and Michèle   MCAresources@gmail.com
Featured Resources
Inequality, Inc.
Exploring Our Poverty-Prosperity Divides
"The drone video that sums up global inequality"
Unequal Scenes "The scale and regularity of urban structures constructed to separate people, in many different cities and cultures all across the world, points to the systemic nature of inequality. Evidence shows that high levels of inequality are correlated with worse health outcomes, like lower life expectancy, higher rates of heart failure, and higher levels of infant mortality. More equal societies are happier and more cohesive, and to a large degree more prosperous. Countries that are more equal tend to have far more generous, encompassing and egalitarian social systems." Johnny Miller, Unequal Scenes, September 2022 --------------------
Part One
Unequal Scenes
Aerial Perspectives from by Johnny Miller
"This is what inequality looks like"
Johnny Miller, TedxJohannesburg "Severe economic inequality is largely a consequence of human-enacted policies. Tin shacks in Cape Town are separated from mansions with barbed wire and concrete walls. Millionaires in high-rise aeries in Mumbai gaze down on informal settlements, their roofs covered in blue tarps to keep out the monsoon rains. Pollution-spewing highways belch toxins onto playgrounds in underserved areas of New York City.
Walls, highways and other infrastructure usually keep us from seeing the extent of the problem, usually by design. That always bothered me. By using drones and helicopters for this project, I wanted to peek over those walls, and enter into forbidden liminal territory. For the first time in our history, drones and social media are a cost-effective solution for depicting and then disseminating these separations. It’s hard not to look straight down on the divisions and not have an unsettling realization that we, the people gazing at these scenes, are also complicit." Johnny Miller, September 2022
Have a Look at Aerial Views of These Locations
South Africa Manila Brazil Mumbai Peru
Jakarta Mexico City Lagos Bali Pakistan
Buenos Aires Cape Town Detroit Namibia
Nairobi New York City Tanzania Louisiana
Durban Seattle / Portland Dublin Minneapolis
San Francisco / Los Angeles Baltimore Johannesburg
"I enjoy the freedom that aerial photography allows, an expansive sense of travel and distance. There is a beauty in the composition and color of the earth as seen through a rectangular frame, much as the pages of atlases and maps captivated me when I was younger. I hope that the discussions around equity, design, and justice are somewhat furthered by this project, as well capturing some essence of strange beauty in our built environment." Johnny Miller, September 2022 “Johnny Miller is a photographer and multimedia storyteller based in South Africa and the USA. He is interested in exploring social justice issues from the ground and from the air. His photographic project Unequal Scenes has garnered widespread praise and been featured in many of the world’s top publications.” (quote from website) See also his Time magazine cover photo and the article (5 May 2019) and his video presentation (11 minutes) for UN-habitat Worldwide.
Part Two
Global EffortsExploring the Details of Inequality  Click HERE or on the map above to access
the interactive map and more information by country.
Part Three
Personal Reflections
Being People of Faith-Hope-Love
As people of faith who practice Christian spirituality, we are committed to responsibly engage with others in the challenges facing our world, locally through globally, while holding firmly to our belief that we are in God's hands. We pray that God's purposes "will be done on earth as they are in heaven;" acknowledge that prayer, repentance, and relationship with God are key to human-planetary wellbeing; and live in hope for the time when God through Jesus Christ will decisively intervene in human history with equity--righteousness and justice--to restore all things. And in the meantime, we seek to embrace lifestyles of integrity that prioritize a deep, practical love for truth, peace, and people--and this includes being willing to acknowledge, resist, and confront evil in its many forms (starting with ourselves, etc.)
We do not want to further problematize our world's plight by focusing primarily on the negative. Rather we want to also promote the many examples of the good going forward, as people of integrity find common ground for the common good.
Finally, we want to highlight that the despair and disillusion that result from seemingly intractable problems like climate, conflicts, poverty, and corruption can also be quite positive. They can embody a crucial existential message about reality that can be "revisited"--explored and heeded--rather than simply "resisted." They can point us to Someone who is bigger than ourselves, the SDGs, humanity, and our world--the knowable, Eternal One who is both in and beyond space-time and who loves us all dearly.
The above thoughts build upon the Personal Reflections in Perils, Paralysis, Hope: Sustainable Development-Sustainable Destruction? (Global Integration Update, October 2022).
Member Care Associates
MCAresources@gmail.com
 Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a non-profit, Christian organization working internationally from Geneva and the USA. MCA's involvement in Global Integration focuses on the wellbeing and effectiveness of personnel and their organizations across sectors (e.g., mission, humanitarian, peace, health, and development sectors) as well as global mental health and integrity/anti-corruption, all with a view towards collaboratively supporting sustainable development for all people and the planet. Our services include consultation, training, research, resource development, and publications.
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Global Integration
Global Integration (GI) is a framework for actively and responsibly engaging in our world--locally to globally. It emphasizes connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity, commitments, and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based). GI encourages a variety of people to be at the “global tables” and in the "global trenches"--and everything in-between--in order to help research, shape, and monitor agendas, policies, and action for all people and the planet. It intentionally links building the world we need with being the people we need. Our Global Integration Updates are designed to help shape and support the emerging diversity of global integrators who as learners-practitioners are committed to the "common ground for the common good." 2015-current (90+ issues).
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Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability;
it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God,
and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (April 1963) |
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