Thomas Awiapo was only a small boy when his parents died, leaving him and his three brothers to starve in a rural village in northeastern Ghana.
They lived in mud walls with a grass roof and had no electricity or clean drinking water. The village had no hospital, no doctors and the only water source was a river miles away filed with bacteria. The children were lucky if they had a small bowl of food to share at night.
“We would sit in a circle around that bowl of food and sometimes just cry. And sometimes we fought, fought like we were enemies. It was all about survival,” Awiapo said.
His two younger brothers died of starvation and his older brother ran away because of the misery. He was never seen again.
Awiapo said he is just one of millions of children who suffer the same fate across Africa because of poverty, war and disease.
In Africa, he said an estimated 155,000 die of hunger and starvation each week; nearly 6,000 people die of HIV/AIDS daily; and another 3,000 die of malaria each day.
The difference is Awiapo survived and he visits Catholic schools and parishes across the U.S. to explain how a “little box” saved his life.
On Feb. 20 he spoke to Arkansas Catholic school principals at St. John Center in Little Rock where he stressed that dropping coins in the cardboard box, known as Operation Rice Bowl, may seem like a little thing, but to him and so many others in Africa, it means freedom from hunger.
Operation Rice Bowl is the Lenten fundraising program of Catholic Relief Services, the international relief and development agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Those who participate in ORB put money they might have spent on special treats or eating out in their rice bowl each day. At the end of Lent, these donations are sent to help people in 40 developing countries around the world. In 2007, CRS raised more than $8 million through the program.
“I am a living testimony of all those great contributions you have made to Catholic Relief Services over the years,” he told the principals.
Last year 111 parishes and schools in the Diocese of Little Rock raised nearly $25,600 through ORB.
Awiapo said his life began to turn around when CRS came to his village and built a school that served “a little snack and a little lunch” which got him and other children in the village to attend.
He had no interest in education; it was all about the chance to eat daily. Awiapo said he was well behaved and punctual because he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize his opportunity to eat.
Awiapo got an education and today holds a master’s degree in public administration from California State University at Hayward. Part of his job as senior program officer at CRS-Ghana is to tour the U.S. telling his story to encourage participation in ORB.
This was his first visit to Arkansas. As of Feb. 20, he had already visited nine states in eight weeks and was scheduled to return to Ghana on Palm Sunday. During his two-day visit to Arkansas, he also spoke at St. Joseph School in Conway and Mount St. Mary Academy, Catholic High School for Boys and Christ the King schools, all in Little Rock.
In Ghana, “I coordinate the program that continues to provide that little snack and lunch to trick more children to go to school,” he said. “I just love it. They tricked me and I trick them.”
“I just want you to imagine the power of that little snack to a hungry child,” he said. “That little snack saved my life. That little snack changed my whole life. It brought me love, hope, compassion and justice.”
Awiapo does not know his birth date, but estimates himself to be 39 years old. He is married with three children and said education is “the only tool that can actually break down the chains of poverty.”
For his children, it doesn’t matter if the school serves a snack or not, it is about getting an education “because today I can provide a snack; I can provide a lunch.”
Seventy-five percent of the money raised through ORB goes overseas while 25 percent stays in local dioceses. The 25 percent that stayed in Arkansas was $6,406 in 2007. This money helped those in need pay utility and housing bills and for prescriptions, hearing aids and eyeglasses.
For more information, call Rebecca Spencer at (501) 664-0340.