Morning Star Fishermen Fight World Hunger By Teaching People to Fish

by Abraham Paulos

The mission of Morning Star Fishermen is best summed up with its motto: "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to raise fish and the whole community eats." Morning Star teaches its clients how to feed themselves, to offer a permanent solution to the problem of hunger by providing alternative methods of raising food.

Morning Star improves the lives of the people within the communities it serves by raising the quality of the food supply through education, rather than handouts. It is an all-volunteer organization that focuses on education and training. This focus is due to its recognition that there are many other organizations that have more and better resources and expertise to locate community need and build these systems. Instead, Morning Star Fishermen teaches the members of the community in which the project is being built the art and science of Aquaponics as well as the skills needed to promote community involvement in a project.

The Aquaponics method uses a minimum amount of space and resources as it recycles water and waste in the system. This process reduces the need for large amounts of water as needed in traditional fish farming. The waste, which was previously thrown away in the traditional method, is used to grow vegetables rich in the vitamins needed by malnourished people.

Its primary goal is to teach students how to be teachers and leaders in their own communities. The involvement of students in the training helps drive the development of decision making and leadership skills necessary to build and run a community fish farm. It also teaches others how to continue this process of education and expand the network of teaching facilities and fish farms that is the backbone of the Morning Star Fishermen system. In order to develop the level of commitment necessary to build and successfully run a farm, the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills through active participation is key to the success of the training programs.

Morning Star Fisherman directly involves the people in the community. It is primarily an educational institution so the involvement of students is integral, not only to its teachings about how to build and maintain sustainable food supplies, but in the evaluation and efficacy of its programs. The students come from all walks of life around the world and a wide variety of educational backgrounds. It is their input into the process that allows Morning Star to modify the educational programs to fit their specific needs. Morning Star tackles the needs of the world community by providing educational opportunities, which help students meet the nutritional needs of their communities.

The Morning Star Fishermen is a well-deserved winner of the Harry Chapin Self Reliance Award (HCSRA) administered by Reinvesting In America (RIA). The HCSRA is awarded as a cash grant to outstanding grassroots organizations in the U.S. that have moved beyond charity to creating change in their communities. Winners are judged outstanding for their innovative and creative approaches to fighting domestic hunger and poverty by empowering people and building self-reliance.

Funding for the Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award will be used to reach the local migrant farm worker community. The majority of the award will go towards training instructors from the local migrant farm worker community in the skills of aquaculture, aquaponics and teaching so that they could teach those in need in their community. The remainder of the award will go towards translation of its teaching materials into Spanish to overcome the language barrier. By creating trained members of the community and providing educational material in their native language, Morning Star Fishermen's methods of raising fish and vegetables in backyard and community-based systems will easily reach the migrate farm worker community in Pasco County. Community members will be able to raise rather than buy their own fish and vegetables thereby reducing poverty and teaching members useful skills.

Morning Star realizes that the true source of poverty and malnutrition has more to do with social structure and iniquity; however they believe that by addressing the malnourishment of body and mind they can level these inequalities. Morning Star shows people in deprived communities there can be change and a better way of living through empowerment within the community.