What Does It Mean to be a Global Citizen?
Entertaining my two-year-old niece recently included a visit to the park to feed the ducks. On the way, we stopped at the local store to buy a loaf of bread to feed them. A great time was had by all. Except me.
My experiences teaching in Samoa, classified as a ‘least developed nation,’ have given me an opportunity to rethink how I live in relation to the millions of people in our world who experience extreme poverty. I would guess that, some weeks, some of the parents of the students I teach cannot afford to buy one loaf of bread to feed their children. What seemed like a fun activity with a two-year-old became an uncomfortable outing because my conscience knew the realities of the lives of others.
There are various reports of the average wage in Samoa. I tend to believe the reports that suggest it is approximately US$2,100.00 per year.[1]Although there are no rent or mortgage accommodation costs, there are significant social costs related to the extended families. The cost of one loaf of bread is approximately US$2.00.
Samoa, with limited natural resources, relies on tourism and agricultural exports of coconut cream and taro. However, it is heavily dependent on financial aid from Samoans living and working overseas and from developed nations. Samoa has a history of cyclones and, more recently, a tsunami, causing much devastation−physical and subsequently financial.
Samoa is not the only place in our world that experiences such poverty. I have seen the television pictures, read the newspaper articles, as well as heard the firsthand experiences of some of our Sisters working throughout the developing world. Can I/we create change? How can I/we create a world where everyone can afford bread (or the local equivalent staple food) for their families?
However, I am not just asking the questions: Why are they poor? Why can they sometimes not afford a loaf of bread? I am also asking the question: Why am I rich? Why is my home nation of Aotearoa New Zealand considered to be a developed nation? Why is it taking so long for Aotearoa New Zealand and so many other developed nations to give 0.8 percent of their GDP in aid to meet the Millennium Development Goal 8 target?
Like Catherine McAuley, I keep coming back to education as a starting point:
No work of charity can be more productive of good to society or more conducive to the happiness of the poor than the careful instruction of women.[2]
I have learnt little of what Catherine’s own education consisted of, yet I know that she was able to read and write so she must have had some form of education. Being born into the influence of the Irish penal laws, including the fact that “the Irish Catholic is forbidden to receive an education,” perhaps nurtured Catherine’s passion for education. She came from a people to whom education had been denied and lived with the Armstrong and Callaghan families, to whom education had given the opportunity of so much.
I know that education has empowered me. I know that I have received numerous opportunities to gain an education and further opportunities just because I have a high level of education. My salary in New Zealand before coming to Samoa was almost equivalent to the total salary of all our staff at the College where I am teaching in Samoa. My education helped to put me at this income level.
So with a good education in Samoa will our students be capable of the same earning potential? I know that the young women and men I teach are empowered in some way by the education that they receive. However, it is hampered by language.
The language of business and commerce in Samoa is English; school examinations are in English and lessons are also supposed to be delivered in English. Yet with Samoan being the strong first spoken language in the home and community, the students struggle to develop an English literacy level that is sufficient to enable them to achieve at the academic level they are capable of reaching. If they cannot pass their school examinations, then they cannot go to university or other forms of higher education. This reduces the job opportunities open to them.
Unlike our focus here in Samoa on literacy, the focus in school education in the developed world is moving strongly towards “creating global citizens”. What does it mean to be a global citizen? When my two-year-old niece graduates from high school in 2025, what will she have learnt to help make her a global citizen? I hope that she will have learnt that every person is her brother and her sister. I hope she will have learnt from the nineteenth-century poet Francis Thompson “that thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.”[3]Basically, I hope that she will have learnt to love, to share, and to care.
I have observed in all facets from the Samoan people that when someone in the extended family is in need, it is the responsibility of all the extended family members to help out, whatever the personal cost to them. Is this the attitude that global citizens need? Like the extended families of Samoa, if we truly saw each person on earth as our brother or sister, and took upon ourselves this responsibility to help out when needed, perhaps then we would create the global community and bring about the reign of God. Perhaps when we act on the promptings of our God of Mercy and really alleviate poverty, then one day a trip to the park with a two-year-old will include feeding the ducks without the worry of knowing someone is going hungry.
Anna Nicholls RSM is a member of Nga Whaea Atawhai o Aotearoa Sisters of Mercy New Zealand. Her current ministry is teaching Mathematics, Computer Studies, Physics, Physical Education, and Religious Studies at Paul VI College in Samoa, as well as being Deputy Principal.
Notes
[1] accessed March 16, 2010.
[2] Mercy Rule.
[3] From “The Mistress of Vision,” a poem by Francis Thompson published in Nicholson & Lee, eds., The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, 1917, accessed March 16, 2010.