Poverty is not a lack of stuff, have you heard us say that before? If it is not a lack of stuff, but we are called to help, what can we do? The answer cannot be to make other people's lives look like ours. We need to empower them to make their own lives what they want their lives to be. They need to own their own development and futures. This builds dignity which empowers communities, over the long term, to solve their own problems and not rely on outside resources. Nothing stifles dignity faster than dependency.
Some of our staff just got back from a trip to the Mathare slums of Nairobi, Kenya. They were visiting an organization there that has been doing development for more than 10 years. The picture above is outside one of the schools this organization runs.
Dependency kills development. If you haven't read the book, When Helping Hurts, now is the time.
