The Affero Blog
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.
End poverty by 2015?
By Lucas Parry in News
End poverty by 2015. This is the historic promise 189 world leaders made at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 when they agreed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The United Nations Millennium Campaign supports and inspires people from around the world to take action in support of the Millennium Development Goals. More info at www.endpoverty2015.org.
Today I came across The website CommitinSeptember.com. The goal is to get 10,000 people to ask the United Nations to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and take the tangible steps towards reducing global poverty? While a lot of progress has been made, it’s imperative that bigger steps be taken to eradicate hunger, improve maternal health, ensure environmental sustainability, and reduce child mortality. Consider adding your voice to this campaign.
Learn more about the goals set for 2015 by clicking the images below:
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?
A Heart and Mind for the Poor
By Rob Harvey in News
Did you know that 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day? Or that 840 million people do not have enough to eat? That’s a lot of hungry people. Did you know that a billion people lack access to clean water and 2 billion lack access to sanitation? Meanwhile, millions of people die each year from the same malaria we’ve eradicated in the U.S. and 10 million children are expected to die this year from other preventable diseases.
These are the devastating realities of poverty today.
Dr. Michael Miller
This week at Acton Institute, I met with thought leaders and proven practitioners from over 50 countries, all looking to bridge the gap between good intentions and sound economic practices. These are amazing people doing great things. During one session, I had a conversation with Dr. Michael Miller, who shared many crushing statistics and pointed out that the bulk of foreign aid has been largely ineffective in alleviating poverty. Michael reported that not only is there no correlation between aid given and economic growth achieved, many times foreign aid ends up subsiding oppressive regimes and harmfully politicizing attempts to foster development.
How can we change this? We need to have a heart and a mind for the poor.
In their book, When Helping Hurts, Steve Corbett and Brian Kikkert write that expensive and well-intended programs often penalize work, undermine families and create dependence – perpetuating the cycle of poverty. Trillions of dollars have been spent attempting to address world wide poverty. Yet these programs are failing miserably. What can be done?
The enterprising Pendu Luisi at her cafe.
This week I was encouraged by many examples of enterprising leaders developing new models of business succeeding in the poorest of countries, raising the worker’s wages and creating new jobs for others. For instance, you may have heard of micro-lending institutions like Kiva which connect micro-leanders and budding entrepreneurs online. With a few clicks, you can find an enterprising person from across the globe like Pendu Luisi, a 27 year old who borrowed $175 to open a cafe in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Pendu is highly motivated and simply needed to be given an opportunity to engage the powerfully productive free market. With the partnership of a micro-lender, Pendu is a successful entrepreneur with great hope for the future. I keep hearing stories like these and I am encouraged. This is good news and it is spreading. I recently heard the president of Rwanda say that entrepreneurism is the backbone of a new Rwanda. Innovative development efforts are focusing on the individual and are empowering micro-businesses owned and run by the poor like Pendu. This is working. New wealth is being unleashed through new businesses. Through exciting efforts like these, the poor are being given a hand up, instead of being dependent on a hand out. And as Pendu can atttest, business is good. She earns up to $5 a day and has even hired a shop assistant.
View from the Stage at Alive '09
The Affero Project is on the move! We are a growing community working against poverty and injustice, committed to bringing hope and empowering people all over the world. While Marc and Lucas are in Africa this week, Christian and I are headed to Alive ’10, a music festival at Atwood Lake Park in Mineral City Park. We’ll be hanging out with some of our favorite affangelists, showing our “I’m In” promo in between performances and making loads new friends. So watch for my post next week and I’ll plan to share some highlights from this event.
A sign of the times
When I was in downtown Grand Rapids this week walking to a meeting, I saw a bus with one of those “Rent this ad space” signs on it. It read, “MOVE YOUR MESSAGE” and it made me think of you. You’ve hear me say that you are the vehicle for spreading the word about Affero. It’s true. The way we share information on the internet now makes it possible for us to get together and get things done like never before. Thank you for sharing this post on via facebook, twitter and the rest. And if you haven’t already, get on the bus and don’t forget to spread the word. Peace.