Compiled by Fr. Rocco Puopolo

Published March 15, 2008

Two hundred and fifty Notre Dame Students attended a one-day student-led symposium on human development studies at Notre Dame on February 23, 2008.  Mr. Ray Offenheiser, a Notre Dame graduate who is now the president of Oxfam America, offered the keynote.  What started in September 2006 as the Millennium Development Initiative at Notre Dame University has become the Ford Family Program for Human Development Studies and Solidarity.  Now in its second year of development, this symposium was the first public event of the Ford Program.

The Millennium Development Initiative was to be the vehicle through which Notre Dame would participate in the Millennium Villages Project, inspired by the work of Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute.  It was also foreseen as a creative way to promote solidarity and human well-being with Uganda Martyrs University in Nkozi subcounty, about 50 miles west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and the Catholic Church’s development arm, Caritas. This moves the program beyond the Millennium Villages Project framework.

The Ford Program encourages an interdisciplinary approach to the study and practice of human development that emphasizes the inherent dignity of the human person.  This is guided by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.  In this way, the Ford Program affords Notre Dame the opportunity to serve the Catholic Church through scholarship and to strengthen the Catholic Church’s service and outreach to the wider human family.

January 03, 2008, Baltimore, MD —

As violence erupts across Kenya following the Dec. 27 general elections, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is responding with assistance to a growing number of people displaced by armed mobs, looters and other violent groups. The agency immediately committed $50,000 for the emergency response, money that will provide food and supplies to displaced families and support the peace and conciliation efforts of the Kenyan Episcopal Conference.

At least 300 people have been killed, and the Kenyan Red Cross estimates the unrest displaced at least 70,000 people in the Rift Valley alone. Many Kenyans are seeking refuge from the violence in churches, police stations and other public compounds. Other families are holed up in their homes, and will face dwindling supplies of food and water. Stores have been looted, homes burned down, and hospitals report an overwhelming influx of patients seeking care. Some communities have barricaded roads, completely cutting off access to some towns and villages.