Alistair Dutton: In a world of bad news, it's important to remember what good we can do

Hundreds of thousands of people have been helped around the world with food aid, clean water and shelter - but support is still desperately needed as millions face a humanitarian crisis. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Aside from weariness at the number of elections in recent years, the reaction is symptomatic of a much deeper malaise – politics is failing to present an attractive vision, inspire, or appeal to our better selves. What is our understanding of what is good? For ourselves? Or for one another?

A Christian understanding of human nature is that we are created with intrinsic, inalienable worth and dignity.

As social beings we can only flourish and thrive in a rich network of relationships that create and benefit from society. Implanted deep within us is a yearning for something beyond us, that draws us to faith, religion, nature, music, art, poetry and other expressions of what, in e.e. cummings’ words, is “everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes”.

Alistair Dutton is the Director of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF).

As humans, we are also created within the natural world, without which we cannot sustainably develop or grow.

In a world that’s often full of bad news, it’s important not to forget the good that we can do. For instance, support from Scotland is helping hundreds of thousands of the poorest people in the world to get themselves out of poverty.

Last year alone, thanks to the generosity of Scots, SCIAF was able to help more than one million people to overcome the challenges of hunger, poverty, war and disease. More than 200,000 people got seeds, farm tools, training and small loans, and 70,000 people got food, clean water and shelter in emergencies like the Syrian war.

The food crisis in countries such as South Sudan remains terrifying for many families who have no food or prospect of getting any in the days, weeks and months ahead. Millions more are at risk of famine and many are already dying of starvation.

Again, money from Scotland is providing vital assistance to many of those caught up in what the United Nations has called “the worst humanitarian crisis in its history”. Unfortunately the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better and your ongoing support is desperately needed.

Understanding the problems people face in poor countries clearly is extremely important. It is too easy to fall into simplistic ways of looking at the issues people face – to think that their troubles are never ending and the situation is hopeless.

It isn’t. Huge progress has been made in recent decades to help the poorest people in our world. Since 1990 alone, more than a billion people have escaped extreme poverty.

The likelihood of a child dying before its fifth birthday has been nearly cut in half, saving around 17,000 children every day, and 2.6 billion more people have access to safe drinking water.

In an often turbulent world, it’s vital that we remember that we can change our world for the better. Every donation, each act of kindness, anything we can do to overcome injustice or care for our environment, helps.

SCIAF is always looking for ways to bring the Scottish community together to reflect on how we can make a more just world, and do so.

Every year hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland take part in our WEE BOX appeal in Lent, and thousands of people in schools and parishes work all year round to support us.

This summer, on 24 June at Strathclyde Country Park, we’re going to hold our first 5k family fun run to raise money for our life-changing work. People of all fitness levels, from across the country, are invited to join us and take part.

So, as we think about how to build a fairer world at home and abroad, by what we do and how we vote, let us reconnect with our understanding of the good.Let us uphold and enable the dignity of one another and act for the common good.

Let us build a society that values and acts for the good of all, not for the good of some at the expense of others. Let us care for our planet, without which we could not exist at all.

Alistair Dutton is the director of the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF). To enter SCIAF’s 5km Family Fun Run, or to find out more, visit www.sciaf.org.uk or call 0141 354 5555.