The CULTURE of CONSUMERISM: a MISSION FOCUS WEEK

Another Mission Focus Week! It's going well :)
I went to a workshop tonight led by my peer listener, Vincent from Kenya and a friend in AOC Jerry from South Africa called the Culture of Poverty.
They discussed for an audience of about 20 students the vicious cycle of the hand-to-mouth mentality, that in some cases communities blame the poor for their conditions and the myopic way we deal with the situations with our gap in communication as we do no understand the mechanisms of the culture and try to bring in our own. Also that when studying these issues we tend to look at them as projects and forget to think of them as people too.
Vincent gave an example of working in a slum in Kenya over the summer, by educating high school drop outs in how to finance their familes they would be bringing themselves out of poverty.

We spoke about so many things, I have so many notes and this is super rushed. I just have a free minute and was trying to get it on 'paper'.

Here's the whole schduele to give examples of other workshops being led:

	Saturday 19th	Sunday 20th	Monday 21st	Tuesday 22nd	Wednesday 23rd	Thursday 24th	Friday 25th
16:30-18:00		Occupy AC 10:30-16:30 Inner Court Yard General Assembly Meeting (information session) 18:30	The Culture of Consumerism: Human and Unsustainable (Luke) Economics	Consumerism: a spiritual system? (Iiris, Guillaume, Shanna) Economics	Consumerism: the individual (Iiris, Guillaume, Shanna) Economics	The Culture of Consumerism: Human and Unsustainable (Luke) Economics
18:30-19:30			The Fishing Game (Frederik) Economics	The Culture of Poverty (Vincent) Economics	Economic Sustainability in Developing Countries (Nichil and Christian) Economics	Trade Game (Global Justice) History	DEBATE: Christmas and Consumerism (19:00-21:00)  (Ricardo, Guillaume, Shanna) Great Hall
19:30-20:30	Film Screening: FIGHT CLUB Coffee lounge			Good and Bad Capitalism (Ricardo) Economics	Capitalism without Resources (Tariq) Economics
20:30-21:30			Practical Anti-consumerism (Harry) Economics			iSweat (Made in 48) History