World Congress of Families V: The Developing World is the First World of the Familyby Staff
August 13, 2009
AMSTERDAM, (christiansunite.com) -- Moira Chimombo (Executive Director of SAFE), Dr. Farooq Hassan (a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan), Christine Vollmer (founder of the Latin American Alliance for the Family), Yuri Mantilla (Focus on the Family's director of International Government Affairs), Dr. Moise Napon (the general secretary of the Christian Relief and Development Organization) and His Majesty, Drolor Basso Adamley I, King of Ghana held a panel discussion for members of the media on the afternoon of August 11, 2009 at World Congress of Families V at the RAI Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
While the theme of the panel discussion was "The Developing World is the First World of the Family," the thrust of the speakers' remarks affirmed, as the King stated, that when it comes to policies and cultural attitudes that promote the Natural Family, the rest of the world can make a significant contribution and has a "great deal to teach the West."
Dr. Hassan echoed those sentiments and said that "there are many things the East has to teach the West and the West has to teach the East."
Vollmer stressed that "the underdeveloped world is beginning to teach the developed world humanity."
Napon, observed that "our values are blurred by a global vision," and Mantilla and Chimombo addressed that blurred global vision within the context of HIV/AIDS prevention and the struggle to promote the cause of life around the world.
Mantilla, stated that the prevailing view in developing countries is that, "population is not the problem" and referred to policies and values which affirm abortion, population control in this time of worldwide population decline and devalue the Natural Family and traditional marriage as "a neo cultural imperialism" which "promotes a culture of death."
In the context of the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Chimombo said the world must realize that AIDS is not just a medical problem but a "behavioral problem" as well and advocated a "family approach" to combating HIV/AIDS.
In the end, the panel appeared to agree with an observation posed by the moderator, Larry Jacobs, Managing Director of the World Congress of Families projects.
According to Jacobs, the tradition of referring to developing countries as the "Third World" can be inaccurate in many respects.
While there can be little argument that the economies of many Western nations are more robust than the economies of emerging nations, the economy is only one measure of the richness of a society and when it comes to the strength of the family, countries that are part of what has been traditionally called the "third world" are actually the "first world."
The World Congress of Families is the premier gathering of individuals and organizations that promote the concept of the "Natural Family" from around the world.
World Congress of Families V will continue through the evening of August 12, 2009.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60 countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society. The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (
www.profam.org). To date, there have been four World Congresses of Families - Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007). A fifth World Congress of Families is being held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 (
www.worldcongress.nl).
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