The Affero Blog

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.

Much remains to be done. And with your help much more will be done. These established programs are now being extended in partnership with Five Talents and World Concern, which have funded an innovative microcredit program in the village of Lietnhom in southern Sudan. This area is transitioning from the ravages of more than 20 years of war. Almost three years after a peace agreement, hundreds of thousands are still internally displaced and others who have found a home are looking to rebuild their shattered lives.

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.

In the foreword of In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty, Rick Warren writes “The tired and discredited government approaches of simply handing out money to the poor do not work. Charity robs people of their dignity, creates dependency, and stifles initiative. We must not do for others what they can do for themselves. Instead, we must provide what we have been blessed with – knowledge, training and opportunities.” I thank God for leaders spending themselves to offer empowering training initiatives on the front lines in the hard places like Sudan alleviating poverty of community and poverty of stewardship.

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.