![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ecostat.unical.it\/2003agtradeconf\/images\/Logo_Convegno_2.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>The suffering of the world today demands action.<\/span><\/span> But often enough, far too often, our action increases suffering because we lack understanding.<\/p>\nThe story that always comes to mind for me is of the Peace Corps project to bring reliable water to a small village in Africa. By all western measures the project was a success: a well had been dug, a hand pump installed, a filtration system implemented. But for the villagers, especially the women, it was a disaster. Before this, you see, the women would walk together every morning to get water from a river a ways off. On this journey they would talk, share stories, solve problems, and comfort one another.<\/span><\/span> After returning home the women worked separately, silently, under the watch of husbands or other men in this extremely patriarchal society. Now, without that journey, the lives of these women were entirely alone. The wisdom they had shared on those walks was lost, and village life deteriorated.<\/p>\n More recently I read of a small group of indigenous people in the jungles of northern Thailand. They have lived for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years in a small area through subsistence farming, which required \u2018slash and burn\u2019 clearing of small parts of the jungle every couple of years, and small scale hunting. Now, thanks to the influence of western NGOs, Thailand is making their land \u201cNational Forest\u201d and outlawing their ways of life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n So before we act, we need understanding. <\/span><\/span>We need to empty ourselves of notions of how it is supposed to be. From there we can look at the world anew, just soak it up. And from there also we are able to respond without preconditions, without prejudices.<\/p>\n