The Affero Blog
Clean Water and Sanitation as a Business
By Rob Harvey in Articles,News
What if your next cup of water was going to make you or your children sick? Imagine being scared of your own bathroom or being forced to go outside to relieve yourself. What would it be like to walk past broken pumps and overfilled latrines every day of your life?
Nearly 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion do not have improved sanitation. The healthy and economic impacts are staggering. Around the world, dirty and diseased water leads to a cycle of sickness and poverty. Without safe water, communities struggle to teach their children, grow food, and earn a living. They can’t develop. Hope remains elusive. You can help change that by supporting programs run by organizations like Lifewater International or The Water Project. When a materially poor community or school receives a new water project, women no longer spend hours searching for a source of water. Children, especially girls, return to school. Water-borne illnesses are reduced. Hope is restored.
As our very own Barak recently posted, the United Nations declares water to be essential for full enjoyment of of life and all human rights. Yet governments struggle around the world to provide clean water and basic sanitation. There is a growing crisis. Who will help the majority world develop solutions these challenges?
This week I was talking with Mike Schneider, of GiveToWater.org. He was recapping these stats:
880 million people lack access to Clean Water. 5,000 children die every day from water related illness. 5.5 billion adult productive days are lost every year due to diarrheal diseases. 40 billion hours are lost every year due to time spent fetching water in sub-Saharan Africa. $15 – $20 can provide clean water for one person for at least 20 years.
More than 50,000 rural water points in Africa (36% of the total) are non-functional. In Sierra Leone the figure is 65% (UNICEF). A safe water source alone typically reduces water born disease by only about 25% or less (WHO). Even a short period of breakdown for a well can eliminate annual health benefits. The estimated cost of universal access to clean water is $42 billion – the estimated cost of repairing existing infrastructure is $350 billion. So the problem isn’t going to go away (WHO). In some countries 40% or more of government water and sanitation budgets are not spent – there are local resources lying unused (Wateraid).
Barak points us to pioneering work that creatively addresses the need to move beyond welfare and charity and towards true community development that fosters fully functional and enduring work. Water for People utilizes the power of the free market to address the world’s sanitation crisis. The key to sanitation as a business is to make ongoing sanitation services the goal, rather than the installation of the latrine. When sanitation services are profitable and businesses see everyone without a latrine as a potential customer, businesses—rather than development organizations—will expand latrine coverage to increase their profit margin. Thus many more people will have access to toilets than they would with typical programming.
Digging wells is the easy part. We know that solutions must last to make a long-term difference. We at The Affero Project celebrate the courageous organizations working with the enterprising poor and empowering local capacity to extend access to safe water, improved sanitation, hygiene education and the skills needed to pass these resources to future generations.
Grandmum Adopts Child Soldiers – You Can Help
By Rob Harvey in News
Mary and I are looking forward to participating this week in the Nashville Benefit Dinner for International Justice Mission this week. Gary Haugen and his team at International Justice Mission serve as a human rights agency rescuing victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals perform rescue missions and provide aftercare to victims. They courageously prosecute perpetrators and promote functioning public justice systems around the world.
As I shared in a previous post, human trafficking is one form of modern day slavery. Affero aims to be a part of the modern day abolishment movement. Human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. We can stop it. We are working to bring it to an end.
But what about the child soldier? After 9/11 I remember reading an article in TIME about Mukhtar, an infrantryman in Afghanistan’s rebel army. He could shoot a man in a beard from a standing position at 200 meters or point out camouflaged Taliban bunkers through miles of dust. His platoon leader said the green-eyed soldier was perhaps the finest he commanded. Mukhtar took the compliment with a shrug of his skinny shoulders. “I have been in the army a long time,” he said. “So I should be good at my job.” At the time, Muktar was a four-year veteran of Afghanistan’s desert war. But he was only 15 years old.
The military use of children is widespread. There are international laws and dedicated organizations like Project: AK-47 committed to liberate child soldiers. The truth is many of the world’s youth have never known peace. Some kids are taken from their homes and forced to fight. Others join the war because there is little else to do and to keep their bellies filled. In countries with limited electricity or running water and few roads, many boys must forgo school to make money any way they can, even following cows with upturned palms to catch excrement to sell as fuel. Joining the army guarantees free food, clothes and cigarettes plus the chance to swagger. “When you fight for your people, you become a man,” says Shukrullah, 12, who strolls the mountainous streets of his country with a loaded, unlocked Kalashnikov. For these youngsters, it doesn’t matter that most soldiers have not received their $25 monthly salary for three months. “This is a very good life,” says baby-faced teenager Safaullah, sitting in a trench awaiting battle. “I can eat good rice, play chess with my friends and fire many interesting weapons.”
Children in war-torn regions of the world need our help. As I shared in a previous post, Affero is committed raise friends and funding to provide education and food for the orphans. Now consider a place like Uganda. Where 20 years of civil war has decimated it’s population to a litte more than 30 million and a median age of 14.9 years. Who will go and serve this young nation? Who will serve these children, provide day care, schooling, medicine and food? Meet Irene Gleeson.
An Aussie like our very own Lucas, she visited Africa and was moved by what she found. In 1988 she founded Childcare Kitgum Servants and left her beachside home, her four grown children and her grandchildren. This mighty grandmum courageously towed her caravan to the war zone of Kitgum and gathered her first 50 war-traumitized children under a mango tree and began to teach and feed them.
Today, Irene and her team give full day care, schooling and much love to over 10,000 children in five schools. They have established medical and malnourished feeding clinics and a AIDS hospice and infant orphanage.
Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and exploited as combatants. Easily manipulated, children are sometimes coerced to commit grave atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians using assault rifles such as AK-47s and G4s. Some are forced to injure or kill members of their own families or other child soldiers. Others serve as porters, cooks, guards, messengers, spies, and sex slaves.
But by sharing this post and joining the movement, you are changing all this. You are partnering with Irene and other champions working day in and day out as teachers, nurses, builders, drivers, counselors and cooks.
Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time.
Ordinary people can stop this. Your support is life changing for these kids. Thank you.
Freedom from Hunger
By Rob Harvey in News
Hunger kills. This year nearly 9 million children younger than 5 will die needlessly, more than half from hunger-related causes. It’s hard to get our heads around numbers like this. Our minds barely grasp it.
Try this. Count to six: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Another child just died from hunger-related causes. That’s right. Every six seconds a little boy or girl somewhere in the world dies because they are under-nourished.
We know that our bodies need food to remain strong and fight off illness. Outright starvation is real. More common, however, are illnesses that move in on vulnerable children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger. What can be done to help these children?
Heroic organizations like Freedom from Hunger concentrate services on the world’s poorest nations where an overwhelming 32% are moderately to severely stunted — seriously below normal height for one’s age.
As I’ve shared in a previous post, we can fight poverty with education and sustainable economic development strategies. Freedom from Hunger brings innovative and sustainable self-help solutions to the fight against chronic hunger and poverty. Their able staff have already trained and supported 72 partner organizations in 16 countries to deliver microfinance, education and health-protection services to more than two million women and families in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Doing development successfully is not easy. Microfinance is a powerful self-help support service, providing credit and saving services that are affordable, flexible and reliable. This assists the poor in reducing the uncertainties of cash management and allows them to borrow for needs and opportunities such as starting or growing a small business. Organizations like the Chalmers Center are doing pioneering work, training those with material resources how to help in ways that truly empower, rather than create dependency.
To add further value to microfinance, new approaches to offer women access to healthcare services and medicines are being developed. Practical health education prepares women in their community microfinance meetings to implement better health, nutrition, business and money management in their daily life. Efforts that invest in mothers and their determination to feed their children and protect their health are working. They are saving lives. Affero researches and supports those with proven programs offering training and collaborating with local partners who expand the reach of these life-saving initiatives and ensure that services are delivered effectively and sustainably.
One in every six African children dies before their fifth birthday. Among the causes are diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection and pneumonia. HIV/AIDS and malnutrition contribute to one-half of children’s deaths – and most of these deaths could be prevented. Rigorous studies have documented that those who participate in programs like these shared in this post benefit from value-added microfinance programs and have more money and assets available in the household, a greater sense of personal empowerment to take action in the family and community, better business practices, better health practices, and better-nourished, healthier children.
All mothers want their children to live happy and healthy lives. How will you help them today?
Stop Human Trafficking
By Rob Harvey in News
Mary and I just registered to join International Justice Mission for the Nashville Benefit Dinner later this month at the Nashville Convention Center. We are thankful for the host committee and sponsors pulling together for this event and are honored to be invited. IJM President and CEO, Gary Haugen, will be speaking at this swanky event and we’ll enjoy a live performance from Amy Grant, one of Mary’s all-time favorites.
As I’ve shared in a previous post, Gary and his team at International Justice Mission are champions of justice and hope. They serve as a human rights agency rescuing victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals perform rescue missions and provide aftercare to victims. They courageously prosecute perpetrators and promote functioning public justice systems around the world.
What do you know about human trafficking? Did you know that every day a young woman is being tricked, a young child is lured, and a poor man is coerced from from their home or country and compelled to work with little or now payment. These people are being exploited. This trade is a modern day form of slavery. Some are forced into prostitution, others forced labor. Human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world. And it is big business with the total annual revenue for trafficking in persons estimated to be between $5 billion and $9 billion.
Our friends at The Home Foundation are dedicated to the ending human trafficking both domestically and abroad. Through advocacy, education and relief efforts, they work courageously to end the suffering of women and children sold into sexual slavery.
There are as many as 27 million slaves world-wide. 85% of those victims are women and children. The devastation from this evil is tremendous in far-off places like India and Eastern Europe – but also a growing problem in the United States. Organizations frequently offer rescue and restoration to victims internationally because the need is so tremendous in these high-risk areas. However, little is being done to address the need for shelters here in the U.S. In fact, in some instances exploited girls are being kept in jail until they can speak out against their perpetrator because there was no other safe place to keep them.
To learn more about the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, you can read this Trafficking in Persons Report from the U.S. Department of State. At The Home Foundation’s website, you can learn about their collaborative effort with other shelters dedicated to the restoration of survivors of sex trafficking. This association helps set forth guidelines to ensure that victims receive quality care to heal and re-integrate into them into their communities as wholly functioning individuals engaged in life. Restored and free from their past.
Take a minute and think about this. Can you imagine the suffering and long term effects from the trauma and abuse you would experience as a woman or child trafficked? Funding through Affero helps The Home Foundation with their vision to establish an educational conference to assist those serving this unique population – giving them tools to further develop their programs in the cities and homes where they serve and give them opportunities to network with other professionals serving in this field. This work aims to bring together experts in the field to equip and develop workers dealing with human trafficking here in the U.S.
The issues victims of trafficking face are huge, including; post traumatic stress disorder, disassociative identity disorder, night terrors, detachment, eating disorders, cutting, sexual trauma and much more. This conference deals with these issues while offering practical help and advice on running shelters in the U.S.
Established shelters dedicated to the total restoration of an individual rescued from sexual slavery will have a huge impact on the face of modern day slavery and the abolitionist movement of the 21st Century. When victims become re-integrated into society they can speak out against perpetrators and affect change for other victims. This will help move us closer to achieving our ultimate goal: a day when slavery is truly eradicated.
With your help, we are developing this association and quality shelters across the U.S. Each home is dedicated to HOPE, OPPORTUNITY, MENTORING, EMPOWERMENT, & SPIRITUAL SUPPORT. Thank you for your prayers, for giving and sharing this great work with your friends.
A World of Good
By Rob Harvey in News
I first learned of ODW through their work after the floods in Pakistan. There are amazing people and organizations doing amazing work to end extreme global poverty. This is very good news. ODW asks supporters to consider the impact of your one day’s wages, which they calculate to be equal to about 0.4% of your annual salary. At ODW, 100% of your donations go directly to organizations and projects.
As I’ve shared in a previous post, Affero is a movement of people, stories, and actions to alleviate extreme global poverty. Whether you intend to give a day’s wages or a little as $1 a month, we invite you to join the movement.
Consider this: 75 million children are out of school around the world. This would be like every primary school-aged child in Europe and North America being out of school.
Receiving an education is vital to the eradication of poverty worldwide and crucial in rebuilding devastated countries and economies. Much work has been done in this area in the past 10 years but more needs to be done. In South-Asia the adult literacy rate is 63 percent, nearly 20 percent lower than the global rate, while only 43 percent of females are likely to attend secondary school. In some African countries like Burkina Faso, the adult literacy rate is only 23.6%. Access to primary education and schools for all children is a vital need to combat this major global problem. With your help, organizations like Doulos Discovery School are making a difference.
Did you know that 900 million people to do not have access to clean water and lack basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease? Our friends at Lifewater International envision is a world where every person has safe water, improved sanitation, hygiene education, and the skills they need to pass on these resources to future generations. For three decades, Lifewater has worked to provide safe water to communities around the world by working with in-country partner organizations. Lifewater has seen thousands of communities and almost two million lives transformed by clean, safe water and improved health.
Thank you for joining the movement and for sharing the good news. Together, we share the stories and raise awareness. Together, we are doing a world of good.
School and Food for the Orphans
By Rob Harvey in Articles
Orphan Care. There are an estimated 147 million orphans, defined as a child who has lost one or both parents. 13 million of those have lost both parents and 95% of all orphans are over the age of 5. The rebuilding of communities and sustainable poverty alleviation can never be accomplished if we fail to care for the worlds children who are poor and orphaned. There are many wonderful organizations that provide clothing, shelter, food, schooling, community development, hygiene necessities and much more to these children.
In July, Affero members selected Lifesong for Orphans to receive the month’s giving. Lifesong helps to “bring joy & purpose to orphans” …helping to replace ashes with beauty, give joy where there is mourning, and instill hope where there is despair. I thank God for Lifesong and how they turn adversity and struggle into strength and victory! That’s really what they are about – helping to turn despair into strength, joy and victorious living! A “Lifesong” for the children, if you will…
Lifesong for Orphans works to break cycles of hopelessness in orphans lives by creating in-country solutions for approximately 2000+ orphans in Ukraine, Zambia, Ethiopia, Liberia, India, and Honduras through in-country adoption/foster care, transition homes, job-skill training, and mentors.
Now is the time to bring joy and purpose to the orphans in our world. In Zambia the orphan crisis is great, with an estimate of over 1,000,000 orphans (8-10% of the population). Some other stunning realities:
1 out of every 5 individuals is HIV+
The average life expectancy is 30.5 yrs
Only 10% of all children attend school regularly
25,000 children worldwide die everyday of malnutrition
A hungry orphan or vulnerable child is not able to concentrate in the classroom and has a difficult time learning.
Lifesong began school and feeding programs in Zambia for 175 orphans & vulnerable children to help solve this problem. They provide an education –adding one grade each year, and providing 2 meals each day (breakfast & lunch) For breakfast each receives fafa, a porridge-like food that provides the nutrients that each growing child needs. The lunch menu rotates through a cycle of fish soup, beans, eggs, nshima, vegetables, etc.
In Kitwe, Zambia the Lifesong school is the only school in the community providing 2 meals a day. Your votes in July helped Affero towards it’s goal to support 150 orphans, ages 3 – 17, for 1 year.
As I shared in a previous post, there are 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day. 840 million people do not have enough to eat. That’s a lot of hungry people. As a member of The Affero Project, you are a member of a global tribe working against poverty and injustice. We each give a little and and mobilize these resources to worthwhile causes like Lifesong feeding the orphan and raising up leaders with love and a basic education. Thank you for giving and for sharing posts like this one. Remember to invite your friends to join the movement. Together, we are the change we want to see in the world. We are making a very real difference in the lives of orphans in Zambia and around the world.
Girls Are Not For Sale
By Rob Harvey in News
Rachel Llyod
Rachel Lloyd is a champion. She is also a survivor of human sex trafficking. As a child she was exploited commercially in the industry, first as a nude model at age 14 and then as a prostitute three years later. After a few years, Rachel left the sex industry and immigrated to the United States to work with incarcerated adult women, and later working to end domestic human trafficking. She began working with adult women who were coming out of prostitution, as well as women incarcerated at Rikers Island and county correctional facilities. She also reached out to women working the streets on Hunts Point in the Bronx. She now runs Girls Educational & Mentoring Services which empowers young women, ages 12-21, exit the sex industry.
Very Young Girls is an exposé of the commercial sexual exploitation of girls in New York City as they are sold on the streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows barely-adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them, documenting their struggles and triumphs as they seek to exit the commercial sex industry. The film also uses startling footage shot by pimps themselves, giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of exploitation begins for many women. Very Young Girls will change the way law enforcement, the media, and society as a whole look at sexual exploitation, street prostitution and human trafficking that is happening right in our own backyard.
CraigsList Prostitution Sting Shows Illegal Sex Trade Still Rampant. A year after investigating prostitution via Craigslist, MSNBC has gone undercover to once again probe the illegal sex trade on Craigslist and see what the site has done to “clean up its act” since last May. The report found that prostitution on Craigslist was still prominent, even after the site had promised to crack down.
MSNBC’s Jeff Rossen rented a hotel room in New York City, then contacted individuals who had posted ads on Craigslist’s “Adult Services” section. Once the escort arrived at the hotel, “within seconds, it was clear this was all about sex,” Rossen reports. Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal compares the sex trade on Craigslist to “an online red light district” that’s “as obvious and plain to you as Times Square was in the 70s or 80s.”
The New York Times has a story estimating Craigslist’s sex-related revenue to be around $36 million dollars, or something close to a third of its estimated $100+ million in revenues. Many ads are are related to prostitution, and some to underage prostitution. So obviously Craigslist is being investigated yet again over this revenue. The fact that the company is fiercely private about its revenues and organization doesn’t make the picture any easier.
We believe the end of modern day slavery will come from individuals who gather together to push on businesses, media, and governments to support their existing values for human rights. We believe that this is a bottom-up movement that needs dynamic information, sustained inspiration, and most importantly, tactile activation. Will you join the movement?
CALL+RESPONSE produced documentary film that reveals the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets: there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. CALL+RESPONSE goes deep undercover where slavery is thriving from the child brothels of Cambodia to the slave brick kilns of rural India to reveal that in 2009, Slave Traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined.
There is a sea of change happening in human rights activism. The world’s issues cannot be solved alone by governments and non-profits, but require community-based participation. As a feature film, CALL+RESPONSE serves as a deft tool in the hands of 21st Century Abolitionists. We believe this is a fight that must that is won with passion, innovation, and commitment. What’s your response going to be?
Relief and Development: What a Difference the Difference Makes
By Rob Harvey in News
Adapted from Mandate eNewsletter written by Steve Corbett and Dr. Brian Fikkert from The Chalmers Center
Do you remember the major earthquake has devastated China, leaving millions without food, adequate clothing, or shelter? Have you followed the trend of the growing number of homeless men in our cities? Men who are also without food, adequate clothing, or shelter. At first glance the appropriate responses to each of these crises would seem to be very similar. After all, the people in both situations all need food, clothing, and housing, and providing these things to both groups seems to be the obvious solution.
The material needs of these people may be similar. Yet these people face different crises in very different situations. As is explained in with in one webinar I recently watched, applying the same remedy to each situation might very well do harm. As in all situations, truly loving the poor requires careful analysis in order to design the appropriate response.
A helpful first step in thinking about working with the poor in any context is to discern whether the appropriate approach is to use relief, development, or some combination of the two. “Relief” can be defined as the urgent and temporary provision of resources to reduce immediate suffering from natural or man-made disasters. Relief is the first response that comes to most people’s minds when they see the suffering of others. “Development” can be defined as a process of ongoing change in which people are moved closer towards being in right relationship with God, with themselves, with others, and with creation. As people develop, amongst other things, they are better able to support themselves through their own work.
Both relief and development can be appropriate interventions. But if we do relief when we should do development, we can actually hurt the very people we are trying to help. For example, giving food to an able-bodied person who persistently refuses to take advantage of opportunities to work will simply enable them to continue to live irresponsibly, thereby hindering their “development” of better relationships with God, with themselves, with others, and with creation. In such a situation, not providing this person with relief would be the loving thing to do. But that doesn’t mean that our responsibilities towards them end. On the contrary, our neighbor in this instance needs “development,” which will be far more time-consuming for us, as we seek to walk alongside of this person and help them to develop better work habits.
Diagnosing the Situation. How can you discern whether relief or development is the appropriate approach? Unfortunately, there is no magic formula, but there are some principles you can use.
A good rule of thumb outlined in the When Helping Hurts self study course is that you should not habitually do for somebody what they can do for themselves, for if you do so you will undermine their development as stewards of their own gifts and abilities. Many well-meaning ministries routinely violate this principle, thereby doing serious harm to the development of the very people they are trying to help. For example, years ago one of the authors of this article helped to mobilize his church to volunteer at a homeless shelter. The church members graciously bought food, prepared a meal, served it to the residents of the shelter, and cleaned up afterwards. The homeless men were never asked to lift a finger in the entire process, thereby confirming their perspective that they were incapable of taking charge of their lives. A more developmental approach—and a more time-consuming one—would have involved the homeless men in every stage of the process, from planning the meal, to shopping for the food, to helping with serving and clean-up.
Providing Relief Effectively. If you determine that relief is the appropriate response, there are some principles that can help to make your efforts more effective.
First, relief needs to be immediate. If a person is in the midst of suffering from a crisis and cannot help themselves, a timely response is crucial. For example, when a large-scale, natural disaster hits, the victims cannot wait weeks while churches or organizations try to think of what they should do. Neither can they wait while organizations and churches try to secure funding. What is true for large-scale disasters is true for the battered woman who has bravely come to the church office seeking safe shelter. Sending her back home to wait while the church tries to find her some alternative shelter is not a good relief response.
In order to provide timely relief it is important to engage in disaster preparedness. This means simply looking ahead and forecasting the types of relief situations that the church or organization may encounter. Financial, material, and human resources can be identified and secured to be ready to be put into play at the right time. We can obtain or create a directory of services that are available in the community to address relief needs. We can organize ourselves by identifying who would be ready to give of themselves to help someone who is in the midst of a crisis. Such help could include opening their home for a few nights, providing transportation to an agency or taking a person out to eat.
Relief is temporary, provided only during the time that people are unable to help themselves. Determining when to stop relief is never easy. On the one hand, we can make the mistake of ending our assistance too early. An uninsured family facing ongoing medical bills due to an unforeseen health emergency may need more than a single gift of $100. On the other hand, if relief is given for too long, it can do harm. Because the primary relationship in relief work is that of provider and receiver, prolonged help can move beyond appropriate alleviation of suffering to the creation of unhealthy dependency. Again, do not habitually do for people what they can do for themselves.
Doing Development Successfully. The majority of poverty in the world does not stem from some temporary crisis such as an earthquake in China. Hence, providing temporary relief is unlikely to solve most of global poverty. A longer approach that gets at deeper issues will be needed.
What are those deeper issues? What is the cause of poverty?
Engaging in development work must understand its long-term nature. Development is a slow, ongoing process of change. It involves addressing large, foundational problems that are not quickly or easily fixed. Often we are addressing decades or even centuries of brokenness on both the personal and structural levels. Bringing reversal or renewal can also take such lengths of time.
Second, everyone is living in poverty at some level, and thus everyone is in need of development. While many of us are not economically poor, we are all poor in the sense that we are all suffering from the effects of the fall. Embracing this truth is crucial if we are to have the humility of heart and mind that is necessary in order to help the economically poor. Such an attitude helps combat feelings of superiority as well as the god-complex that leads us to believe that we need to “save” the poor. Both of these mindsets can create paternalistic actions and programs that communicate to the economically poor that they are inferior to us. What is needed are people who are broken and ready to have their own lives changed even as they seek to be agents of change in the lives of others.
Third, development needs to be done at the individual as well as at the societal level. Thus, housing development can be the rehab of a single home of someone in your community, or it can be a major housing renewal throughout the neighborhood. Development can be tutoring a child after school, or it can be the creation of a quality school in the community.
Fourth, it can also be said that development is a process carried out through the vehicle of “products.” For example, wells for clean drinking water, improved crops, rehabilitated housing, more small businesses, and new schools are all products. They are easy to photograph and document. But the process used to create these products is at the heart of development. Did the low-income people participate in the process in such a way as to increase their knowledge, attitudes, skills, and power so as to better provide for their families and to create stronger, safer, and healthier communities? Did the well-to-do enter into the development process with the economically poor, or did they try to do development to the poor? If it was toinstead of with, then it is unlikely that real development occurred.
Indeed, one of the central factors in the quality and thus impact of the development process is the type and degree of participation of the poor in their own development. The more the poor are at the planning table, the more they are fully engaged in implementation of these plans, and the more they have a voice in the evaluation process (i.e. measuring success), the more effective the development process will be. The role of the worker in such participatory development is to be an encourager, a catalyst, a facilitator, and a networker.
Restoring Relationship: Literacy & Development
By Rob Harvey in News
Imagine your life without being able to read this post. Or do basic math? What would life be like? How would you earn a living? If your child were sick, how would you understand the treatment? How would you know your basic human rights?
To many women in Burundi, Malwai and Sudan, not having basic reading skills can make social inclusion, empowerment and improved quality of life a seemingly unachievable goal.
For almost ten years, Mothers’ Union Literacy and Development Programme has been working diligently to address this. Their trainers provide life-changing education – not only offering training in reading, writing and arithmetic – but support for marriage and family life, often ending cycles of violence and abuse within the home. These programs are rolled out by more than 1,400 volunteer facilitators which makes for an extremely cost-effective way to train the more than 73,000 people they’ve reached so far.
Many have faced great personal upheaval. Imagine militias burning your home and raping or killing your loved ones. Then you and your surviving family flee your village looking for help. As a refugee, you end up in a large camp. And this camp offers little hope to provide for itself, so even if you where used to subsistence farming, you must now rely on food distribution and are dependent on relief aid.
Innovative “Cash for Work” program provides jobs. World Concern’s ground-breaking program pays refugees in Africa for community service. It gives dignity to displaced and hungry people who work to receive payment. The projects these laborers complete help their communities to become more sustainable. One group of workers dug large ponds for catching water to be used for irrigation and animals. Another built low rock walls, called bunds, to reduce erosion on the hillsides and raise the water table which makes the land more suitable for planting crops.
Education and job creation are transforming lives. Adult education is providing foundational support to local savings mobilization and business development training. Accredited learners are establishing productive businesses and greater income using their newfound skills. Learners are becoming mentors and transferring crucial financial knowledge and business skills so desperately needed at the community level.
As I shared in a previous post, the aim of The Affero Project is to engage a global tribe working against poverty and injustice. We seek to bring about change by aggregating small donations and mobilizing these resources to worthwhile causes like these empowering people to help each other out of poverty through education and job creation. Together, we can join in and give in ways that make a BIG difference to others and us. In fact, it’s life-changing for the givers who embrace their own relational poverty with the materially poor around the world.
Fighting Poverty with Education and Economic Development
By Rob Harvey in News
Part of our mission at The Affero Project is to fight poverty, create jobs and transform lives by empowering the poor in developing countries. At times, we do this by partnering with organizations offering technical assistance and using innovative savings and microcredit programs. We support business training and holistic development strategies.
What is the need? The world has deep poverty amid plenty. 50% of the world’s population of 6 billion people survives on less than $2 a day. 20% of the world’s population survives on less than $1 a day. 20% of the world’s children never reach their fifth birthday. 50% of the world’s children suffer from some form of malnourishment.
When Helping Hurts. I posted “Not all poverty is created equal.” this weekend as my status on facebook. An interesting conversation followed. It seems that many folks recognize that many times in our attempts to alleviate poverty, we hurt the poor and ourselves.
One friend commented on my post pointing to a resource written in part by Brian Fikkert.
Good Intentions Are Not Enough. We need to address faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty. Many times our assumptions lead to strategies that do considerable harm to poor people as well as to themselves. “When Helping Hurts“ addresses these assumptions and offers several principles and strategies for poverty alleviation. It unpacks the distinctions between relief, rehabilitation, and development. The authors explain the difference between asset-based and needs-based strategies. Effective development is not done to people or for people but with people.
Is microenterprise development a proven solution? Microenterprise development is a very efficient way to help the poor in developing countries. Watch this quick video to catch a glimpse of this great work being done by organizations like Five Talents. With just a small amount of money, enterprising individuals can begin to break out of poverty. Providing poor entrepreneurs with capital and training to start and expand small businesses creates income for healthcare, education and food on the table.
77 participants trained in Ghana, West Africa
What type of jobs are we talking about? The majority of businesses are in food production and sales, street vending, brick manufacturing, shoe making, carpentry, auto repair, beauty salons, office services and tailoring. These businesses provide a lifeline for families overcoming poverty.
With your help more enterprising poor will receive funding, consulting, or training. Will you join us and share with others how we can partner with people in the some of the poorest countries in the world? With your monthly giving, we can support great organizations financing thousands of $50 to $300 loans to poor entrepreneurs in countries like Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
How many lives do you see being impacted in this third world market?