Heather Smith’s Blog at the One Voice of Faith Conference in San Francisco

"Wow, what a whirl-wind of events that happened over the course of the
2-day conference in San Francisco. As anticipated, I certainly came back
inspired and more knowledgeable than when I left.

The attendees who were active leaders in their communities and were making
a difference inspired me. It was incredible to meet so many people who,
despite their differing belief systems, all live out the obligation
embedded in their faith tradition to try to put an end to poverty. It
helped me to briefly learn about other faiths as well as more about my own
faith as I reflected and expressed why I can to the conference and felt
motivated by my Christian beliefs to try to eradicate poverty. I left the
conference filled with the contagious passion and energy of the people I
met.

As for the mass of information presented at the conference, I learned a
lot from what the speakers said (thankfully I was taking notes!). Among
the many things I learned two things that stood out to me the most were
the importance of sustainable, community-based initiatives in development
projects, and the impact of advocating. On Tuesday evening, I spent a fair
bit of time chatting with Jessica Beckerman, from project Muso and I was
blown away by the unique strategies she and her fellow leaders had
developed to ensure sustainable changes. By working alongside mothers in
the communities and the Malian government, they are not only reducing the
number of cases of malaria, but are assisting the country to, in the
future, provide accessible healthcare and malaria prevention to its
people. Also associated with government involvement is advocating.
Citizens of developed countries need to keep their government accountable
of their actions on pressing issues that are intertwined with the
millennium development goals. The leaders of our country control
considerably more money than I could ever fundraise on my own, thus, I
need to talk to them about how they control our tax money.

With this inspiration and greater understanding, I have come away from
this conference with a more global and informed perspective of the MDGs
and the ways in which peoples’ faith-inspired work can contribute to
eradicating poverty. I look forward to applying this into my daily life!"