Justice—or Just Us - One of Three Articles from the New Community Project

Burma: Trouble in Paradise

Burma is the largest country in southeast Asia, used to be one of the world’s leading rice exporters, gave birth to a UN General Secretary (U Thant) and Nobel Peace Prize winner (Aung San Suu Kyi), possesses precious gems, petroleum, extensive forests, good farmland—and yet the majority of its 53 million people live a hand-to-mouth existence of poverty and repression, and its Nobel Laureate is under house arrest.


The main problem is a military government with little respect for its people or concern for the opinion of the outside world. While US sanctions have cost thou-sands of jobs, the regime still does plenty of business with its neighbors, including Thailand and China.

“My dream will come true”

In cooperation with our partners and with community leaders, NCP will be providing $11,000 in aid for tailoring and thatch-making projects for women’s groups, and for a reforestation initiative to provide seedlings of the Pin Sein tree to hill tribe communities where deforestation is rampant. The tree grows quickly, sends up new shoots when cut for firewood, and its leaves are both medicinal and the base for a favorite sour soup. NCP also hopes to send $5000 in scholarships for children from the delta whose families are still recovering from 2008’s Cyclone Nargis.

Article submitted by NCP Director: David Radcliff -- Based in Elgin, IL, David travels widely around the U.S. doing presentations in schools, congregations, youth events, community settings, and regional and national gatherings. His areas of emphasis are living responsibly with the earth, living respectfully and justly with our neighbors, and generally confronting the culture of consumption for our own spiritual health and for the good of the planet, its people and coming generations. David is a graduate of Bridgewater College and Bethany Seminary (MDiv, DMin [peace studies]); teaches courses at Elizabethtown College in the areas of globalization, environmental care, and poverty and hunger; leads Learning Tours to the Arctic, Amazon, Nepal, Burma, Sudan, and Central America; received the 2008 West/Whitelow Humanitarian Award from Bridgewater College; and has traded in his car for a bicycle. Contact him at dradcliff@newcommunityproject.org