Stanford Undergrad Receives Award For Social Justice From US Bishops

     Thank you, Bishop Soto. Good evening everyone. I’m a little nervous, but I’m also very excited and I feel very blessed to be here. First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone working with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, all of the bishops in attendance, Father Isaiah Mary Molano and the Catholic Community at Stanford for nominating me and being a guiding rock these past few years, and my mother, who couldn’t be here today, but was the first person to show me what it looks like to aim for a life that seeks to follow and glorify Christ with every breath, step, and ounce of energy you have.

     For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been very uncomfortable with inconsistency. When I was younger, it really bothered me whenever my mom would promise me something, like a trip to Pizza Hut, only to forget her promise a week later and fail to follow through. In 2001 I went back to Togo, my birth country, for the first time and was extremely confused and disoriented at the reality that most of the world lives in a very, very different way than we do here in the US, and that through various economic structures, our prosperity depends heavily on the oppression of so many.

     In high school, I found myself increasingly angered by the rhetoric of politicians on all sides with inconsistent platforms—for the immigrant but not for the unborn; or for the lives of the elderly, but not the poor. Unfortunately, our world is filled with a lot of inconsistency, so I’ve spent most of my life being very, very uncomfortable. So, imagine my elation when I started doing some research on Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the namesake of this award, and discovered that one of the many things he was most famous for was his Consistent Ethic of Life. This idea – that Christ’s teachings about the sanctity of life and the Love we should have for our neighbor should propel us to want to not only protect the unborn, but care for young children in unstable environments, strive to give opportunities to young adults in order for them to thrive, show compassion and forgiveness even to criminals and those who have done us harm, and tend to the bodies and souls of the sick and elderly – this idea made perfect sense to me.

     I strive to weave a consistent thread through my principles, thoughts, and actions, and in doing so, I consciously try to think and act like Jesus. Because of God’s grace, I’ve been able to realize that Jesus’ overwhelming love calls us to provide charity, yes, but it also calls us to do more. Charity is needed, but sometimes it can serve as a band-aid. I feel that Jesus loves us so much that if we had a wound, he wouldn’t just give us a band-aid. He would be willing to help us find what it was that gave us the wound in the first place and take precautionary measures to make sure that it doesn’t ever harm us again. This is called justice. And since Jesus loves us this much, we’re called to Love others just as much, and to seek justice for all.

     It’s because of this idea of justice that my mother and I started Hidden Talent Foundation. We could have just collected money and given charity to people in the village where she grew up, but instead we realized that we could connect those people with resources here in the US that would help them to take full advantage of an education and vocational training, so that they won’t have to rely on charity, because charity is important and has its place, but it can also be unreliable, unsustainable, and inconsistent at times.

     Justice is what drove a group of us at Stanford to not raise money and donate it to the local shelter, but to work for over a year and establish our own shelter, where guests had a voice in how the shelter operated and what services they received. This Love is also what is embedded in the mission of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and this genuine desire to restore and maintain the dignity of every person is what necessitates that we look for the root causes of poverty and injustice, instead of just treating the wounds on the surface.

     I love people because I see Christ in people. I don’t think any of us could ever stand idly by and watch Christ suffer, so it’s physically impossible for me to stand by and watch people suffer. I truly believe that we were meant to help prepare the Kingdom on earth before Christ returns, and so I strongly believe that through Love and through the seeking of justice, we will realize our obligation to build the kingdom. Thank you again, and I hope that we can continue to use God’s grace to help one another realize, one, how far Love really calls us to go, and two, that we each have a part to play in building the Kingdom of God.