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“The greatest threat facing the world today is war”. Dr. Samantha Nutt is petit and far younger than anticipated, and when she speaks, she speaks with conviction. The whole room grows silent when she mentions that her outwardly exciting career has on several occasions nearly cost her life. As she gives this year’s Hancock lecture entitled The World is Our Backyard: Individual Responsibility for a Global Society, it is clear that Dr. Nutt has seen more than almost anyone in the room.

In 2001, two students along with Hart House’s previous Warden, Margaret Hancock, began the yearly Hancock Lecture Series. This year the Hancock lecture planning committee invited the founder of WarChild Canada, Samantha Nutt. She confessed that prior to the mid-nineties she knew little of the details of war. After finishing medical school and doing some fieldwork in the developing world; her mentor the late Pierce Gerety, contracted her to work alongside his team in Somalia. The contract listed her salary at one dollar. The most shocking aspect of life in her region of Somalia, to the 24 year-old Nutt, was the sheer amount of guns and weaponry. At that point it was a failed state with gangs of young men ruling with impunity. They ran the streets killing, raping and pillaging anyone who stood in their way. The AK-47’s these boys dealt with were for the most part manufactured in the 1950’s and sold to them for about six dollars a piece. When Dr. Nutt asks the audience to guess just how many AK-47’s there are floating around in the world today, no one estimates the roughly 200 million she states.

WarChild was founded upon the ideal: if people know they will care, and if they care they will act. The organization provides humanitarian support to women and children in war affected regions. They see children who once held arms in school with a renewed hope for the future. Throughout her speech Dr. Nutt encourages the audience to do just that. She provided four major suggestions for anyone moved enough to take action:

1) Stay informed, Connected and Get Involved.
Commit to reading the International News section of the paper. Join mailing lists of aid organizations that interest you. Organizations depend upon volunteers and workers who are willing to give of their time. They are looking for talented, ambitious and hardworking individuals and that means that your Arts degree is welcome.

2) Give.
Less than 5% of Canada’s contributions actually get to aid agencies and we rank 56th in the world in terms of aid, just ahead of Malawi. She urges individuals to commit 0.7% of their annual earnings to aid.

3) Make incremental changes to consumer practices that are socially conscious.
That’s a long one but it is perhaps the easiest. It simply consists of knowing where your products come from and being sure that the companies involved in the manufacturing are not involved in socially unjust practices.

4) Stop believing that life and loss are more important over here than there.

There is a fervent standing ovation at the close of her speech. The audience is impassioned in their new resolve that the inhumanity of war threatens all who are dear to them. And I can’t help noticing the scattered empty seats throughout the Great Hall where a few potential activists are greatly missed.

If you’re thinking big check out WarChild. Or choose to have an impact locally!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 2:01 am and is filed under We've Got Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.