The American people strive to be kind and charitable. We want to see ourselves as people willing to help a neighbor. The American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans has engaged with Episcopalians across the United States to partner with the church in the Sudans over more than 20 years. This has been a friendship that has grown in amazing ways by linking Sudanese and South Sudanese in the Diaspora with American friends to do good work with and for the Episcopal Church in Sudan and South Sudan.
Now we see with growing concern that one of the main institutions offering need humanitarian aid is in grave danger – The United States Agency for International Development. All Episcopalians and people of good will should voice their concern.
Since the end of World War II, our Government has established mechanisms to invest in the rest of the world to rebuild shattered economies, to foster democratic governments, to fight disease and supply food and humanitarian assistance to famine stricken populations as well as those hit by natural disasters. USAID is one of those mechanisms, established by Congress, funded by our tax dollars. And yes, it is not only altruistic to help suffering populations around the world but it helps to make the world a more stable place. A more stable world leads to peace for us too.
Some of the most vulnerable people in the world are suffering and dying during the current administration’s freeze of the miniscule 1% of the U.S. government’s budget allocated to foreign aid. As citizens of the richest country in the world, we have a moral obligation to help these people. Not doing so thwarts the laws passed by Congress, in allocating these funds, and damages Americans’ image around the world as a charitable and caring people.
“The programs that have frozen or folded over the past six days supported frontline care for infectious disease, providing treatments and preventive measures that help avert millions of deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. They also presented a compassionate, generous image of the United States in countries where China has increasingly competed for influence,” The New York Times reported on Feb. 1.
In addition to the shutdown of clinics for malnourished Sudanese children, “emergency medical care for displaced Palestinians and Yemenis fleeing war, heat and electricity for Ukrainian refugees, and mpox surveillance in Africa,” the nonpartisan, nonprofit news site, ProPublica.org, reported on Jan. 31.
I ask you now to think expansively about who your neighbors are. Love one another as I have loved you is our command.
Contact your Congressional representatives and urge that all U.S. humanitarian aid appropriated by Congress be immediately restored. To contact the members of Congress who represent you, go to: congress.gov/members/find-your-member.