This One Man's
View column by Tim O'Callaghan first published February 14, 2008 in the
Henderson Home News, a Community Newspapers of Nevada publication.
In my advocacy work to assist the marginalized in our world, I’m often
blessed with the presence of wonderful people. Once in a while, an
opportunity will arise where my family gets to enjoy the grace of those
less fortunate than ourselves.
There is man from Ghana in West
Africa who has touched our family in many ways not only collectively
but on a couple of individual occasions. Thomas Awiapo first left an
extraordinary impression on our oldest daughter, Brenna, during his
first visit to Las Vegas three years ago while talking to a group of
Bishop Gorman High School students.
Brenna came home from school and
told us about the visitor from West Africa and how he overcame great
odds to not only survive being orphaned but to eventually become
educated and is now giving back to society.
Within a few weeks I
would unknowingly be enriched by the story of Thomas, told by him to a
group of Catholic Social Action advocates from around the country in
Washington, D.C.
He spends several months of the year on a speaking
tour around the United States addressing mostly Catholic parishes and
schools on behalf of Catholic Relief Services, raising awareness of the
millions of dollars collected in the U.S. through the Lenten program
Operation Rice Bowl and how this money is used around the world to
break the chains of poverty.
Thomas was the second of four boys born
to a couple in a small village in the isolated northern lands of Ghana,
where the family barely eeked out an existence living in a mud hut.
Within a year of each other, his parents became sick and died, leaving
the four boys orphaned to fend for themselves.
Faced with
starvation, the boys did whatever they could to survive, often fighting
over a small bowl of food, which wasn’t enough. Thomas would eventually
see his two younger brothers die from starvation. Later, he would be
abandoned by his older brother, who said he couldn’t stay in the
village any longer because there was too much misery. One morning when
Thomas awoke, his brother had disappeared never to be seen again.
He
would have faced certain death with no one left to help him, until a
Good Samaritan came along help him. The Good Samaritan was not a single
person but Catholic Relief Services, which built a school in the
village. Thomas had no interest in going to school — no one in his
family had ever gone to school. He needed to find food every day to
sustain his existence, and this couldn’t possibly be found in schools.
Well,
he was mistaken. He would soon learn that food could be obtained from
school in the form of a small snack in the morning and a little lunch
later in the day. The food was provided by a program funded by
Operation Rice Bowl.
Every Lent when U.S. Catholics fast on Fridays,
Rice Bowl encourages them to take the money saved through fasting,
place it in a bowl, then donate it to the program on the last Sunday of
Lent. Last year Operation Rice Bowl raised $10 million that helped curb
hunger around the world.
Thomas would show up to the school, get
a snack then sneak away from school. The teachers figured this out, and
tricked him and others into going to school by withholding the snack
until after the lesson.
“They held me hostage” he said, “tricking me into going to school.”
Eventually,
Thomas would get an education, then an advanced education in the United
States, where he earned a master’s degree in public administration from
the University of California, Hayward. He returned to Ghana to, in his
words, “continue the practice of tricking children with a little snack
to go to schools” knowing that education is the best tool for breaking
the chains of poverty.
Last week, we hosted Thomas in our home
during his visit to Nevada, where we had the opportunity to be touched
personally by him. During Thomas’ previous visits to Las Vegas and many
other U.S. cities, he rarely had the chance to see the communities he
visits. This trip would be different, because we scheduled some down
time during which we could show him a few sites.
Donna and I had
the wonderful experience of seeing the Bellagio fountains through the
eyes of a man who grew up without truly clean water. Together we
watched as he marveled at the acres of crystal clear water on the
Strip, and showed even more amazement as the fog rolled across the lake
and the fountains burst to life with thunder and light.
As we
walked through the mall in Planet Hollywood, Thomas noted the beauty of
the evening sky, how it appeared so close you could touch it. I must
admit being a little confused until I realized he thought the ceiling
was really the sky. This is cause for pause, because we have become so
accustomed to these facades that we don’t notice them anymore. This
experience through Thomas’ eye whirled me back in time to when the
Forum Shops first opened at Caesars Palace, to my own wonderment of the
sky within the sky. How jaded we have become, our senses numb to
ever-changing technology.
Thomas spoke of growing up without
electricity, how excited they were when the moon shined full, lighting
the village so they could dance and drum into the dawn. Having
experienced the darkness of Africa last September, I recalled listening
to the drums and singing, how the stars hung so low you could almost
touch them.
With that in mind, we thought it would be
appropriate to show him Hoover Dam, where electricity begins for much
of the Southwest.
As you probably well know, a trip to Hoover Dam
isn’t complete without stopping at the marina to feed the fish. While
he and Donna strolled the dock, I ducked into the store for a bag of
popcorn. The rest is history if you have ever experienced the feeding
frenzy of giant carp.
However, Thomas was even more frenzied
watching the last quarter of the Super Bowl after I explained the game.
He rooted relentlessly for the underdogs, his new team, the New York
Giants. He understands being the underdog. I think that’s why he asked
me before the game started, “Who is the underdog?” then said, “That’s
who I will cheer for.”
Even observing Thomas watch his first Super Bowl brought more excitement than the game itself.
Tim O’Callaghan, co-publisher of the News, can be reached at 990-2656 or tim.oc@vegas.com.
Ghanaian speaks on relief work in Africa
This article first appeared February 7, 2008 in the Henderson Home News, a Community Newspaper of Nevada publication
By JEREMY TWITCHELL
Thomas Awiapo was orphaned, alone and hungry when, at age 12,
workers from Catholic Relief Services came to his small village in
Ghana and constructed a school.
Awiapo said he began attending the school because he’d get a snack
and a lunch for going — often theonly food he ate in a given day. But the journey he began as a child has led him on a round trip to the United States, where he earned a master’s degree in public administration, and back to Ghana in West Africa, where he works for Catholic Relief Services to provide he same help that saved him.
“Whatever education I reach in this life, it all goes back to Catholic
Relief Services tricking me into going to school with a little snack,” Awiapo said with a smile.
Awiapo recently spent a week as the guest of the Catholic Church’s
Las Vegas Diocese to share his story with area schools and community
groups.
It’s a long way from his childhood in the village of Wiaga, where he and his three brothers were orphaned at an early age and left to fend for themselves. The two youngest brothers died of malnutrition and the oldest brother left to seek a better life. Awiapo has not seen him in nearly
30 years.
“We suffered a lot of things in our lives, but I think the worst was just hunger,” Awiapo said. “We used to fi ght for food. We didn’t know what breakfast was; we didn’t know what lunch was.”
Now, Awiapo said, he can see a difference in Ghana. Some villages
have pumps for clean water, schools and electricity. Infant mortality rates are falling and overall health is improving, he said.
But there are still too many that are like the village where he grew up, and workers sometimes face rigid challenges in changing the cycle of poverty.
Bringing true change to Ghana, Awiapo said, requires aid workers to enlist the aid and support of village chiefs and elders, then help parents see the value of sending their kids to school even if there is no lunch and even when their help is sorely needed on family farms.
“In the process, you try to change the attitudes so they see that the life of this child is more important than food,” Awiapo said.
In some villages, he said, residents have begun providing the school
lunches themselves.
Some villages are even forming parent-teacher organizations.
On his regular speaking trips to the United States, Awiapo said, he wants people to put a face with the help they have sent to Africa, to
see that lives have been changed.
“I’m just one person,” he said, “but there are millions more children
who have benefi tted as well. I speak for them, to say thanks.”
On his visits to schools, Awiapo said, he asks children to think twice before throwing away their unwanted food, to reflect on their
good fortune and to remember those who have been less fortunate.
“I know that a lot of good things happen (in the United States),” he said. “This country is fortunate and so blessed. I tell the children here that they are so blessed that they don’t have to think for a second about where their next meal will come from or where they’ll go for water.”
Awiapo said he thinks a world where everyone was rich would be boring, but said a world with rich and poor who are asked to share makes a lot of sense.
“I think God blessed this country and this people for a reason,” he said. “He blessed you so that you can be a source of blessings for other people.”
Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 702-990-8928 or jeremy.twitchell@hbcpub.com.