At the start of the 1980s the choice wasn’t that difficult: there was Thatcher’s neo-liberal assault on the poor and Ronald Reagan deployed Cruise and Trident missiles in an arms race that would bankrupt the Soviet Union and fuel the debt crisis. School staffroom conversations bemoaned the trends but did little more than raise my blood pressure.

But meeting the national secretary of the recently formed Justice and Peace Commission quickly led to setting up a local J&P group, a branch of Parents for Survival as part of the peace campaign, and helping establish a credit union (still active today with several thousand members). From the start, this was a shared commitment as a married couple, ably assisted by child-minding support from wonderful grandparents.

Since my student days I had an interest in development economics, so working with SCIAF was a logical progression. I was attracted by the commitment to education written into its founding mandate, recognising that there was more to “aid” than sending money abroad. Significant effort was put into raising awareness of our responsibility in creating global inequality. Early visits to East Africa and Haiti reinforced my view that our project partners had much to teach us about community organising here in the “developed” north.

I met and worked with exceptional and courageous people – not all from other countries – whose commitment put me to shame: literacy workers and community activists from Haiti, El Salvador and the Philippines, who worked under threat from right-wing death squads; land reform workers in Brazil; anti-apartheid campaigners from South Africa, including some who had found a home in Scotland. Many - if not most - were women of incredible stamina and courage.

My education colleagues from Catholic agencies in Europe, North America and Australasia were important to me; all deeply committed and highly creative individuals. Some became lifelong friends. We lived out Paul VI’s encouragement to take up our legitimate role “without waiting passively for orders and directives, to take the initiative freely and to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws and structures of the community in which they live (Populorum Progressio §33).”

At SCIAF I met and worked with amazing teachers, parish activists and priests who took the social message of the Gospel seriously. Working across denominational boundaries on community projects in Scotland also convinced me that our efforts have added value when we work alongside other people of faith and goodwill. Working with the Xaverian Missionaries, sharing a vision of one world with respect for others and acceptance of difference, was my greatest encouragement to become involved in inter-faith initiatives.

Unlike paid employment, we don’t get to retire from humanity. Forty years ago, human existence seemed more threatened by nuclear incineration. Today, we are more likely to be casseroled by the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the poor stay poor and daily the world becomes more unequal. Each generation must face its own challenges with the knowledge at its disposal.

We grew up in the sixties. We witnessed the end of the Cold War (since replaced by numerous smaller but hotter conflicts), the end of apartheid, peace (of a sort) in Northern Ireland and (some) improvement in gender equality. This generation will take on the enduring challenges of poverty, inequality, and all forms of prejudice, made more challenging by the rise of populism and the confusing interference of social media. I pray that my grandchildren don’t inherit a world where it is nothing unusual to see the bodies of migrants floating in the Mediterranean or the Rio Grande or falling from the undercarriage of aeroplanes.

Was it enough? Probably not. Maybe we should have tried more divine inspiration instead of human perspiration. Did we fail completely? Not if we have raised and enthused a new generation of committed, creative and prayerful activists prepared to put the Gospel into action.

“The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason to hope.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ