 Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. This axiom, believed to be of Chinese origin, is of course immediately recognizable. We are a charity but our aim is self-sufficiency, not dependency. Our work is teaching and not merely giving. Take our healthcare programs. They may, at first blush, look like outright charity, but they are not. The hospital and the clinics are staffed and operated by Nepali’s with support from Mountain Fund. We are working with the local community to develop governing boards who own and operate these facilities for the community. By helping these community organizations to develop the management skills they need we are in the process of creating locally managed health care networks with the ultimate goal of self-sufficiency. Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, in his book “Development as Freedom,” talks about health care and education as basic freedoms. These basic freedoms must exist if people living in poverty are to be empowered toward economic development and ultimately self-sufficiency. “Without a healthy and educated population no nation can hope to devise the economic systems needed to lift itself out of poverty” says Sen. The act of charity, defined here as giving someone something, is itself not going to bring about any real or lasting change. In fact it is likely not going to bring about any change at all. For most of us this can be seen clearly every Christmas morning. Gifts are unwrapped at a furious pace, only to be ignored and stuffed into a closet a few days later. Getting something, with no investment of your own, seldom provides a sense of satisfaction, pride of ownership and responsible behavior flowing from that ownership. If a village were to get a health clinic for example, with no investment on the part of the village, can we rightfully call it “their” clinic? I think to be correct you’d have to call it a clinic on loan to the village. Without ownership there is no responsibility. If it is not mine, how much do I really care what happens to it? Our hospitals and clinics are locally owned and operated. We require that the community is heavily invested in the outcomes and further that they have responsibility for the outcomes as measured by their own community standards. Community boards decide if a project is needed and, if so, what the community will contribute and where they can help. The success of the project needs to be viewed in terms that the community values and accepts as truly being successful. It’s not about charity, it’s about development. Don’t think “donate” but rather think “invest.” When we ask for your support, really we are asking you to make an nvestment in communities. These communities are also investing but cannot, given the extreme levels of poverty they face, invest enough resources to become self-sufficient at this time. I emphasize at this time because, with a small investment from you, they can become self-sufficient over time. Economist Jeffery Sachs, author of “The End of Poverty”, uses a way of looking at the road to self-sufficiency that expresses it well, I think. People living in poverty, as extreme as this, need to get one foot on the rung of the ladder in order that they can
begin the climb out. Your support of what we do at Mountain Fund is that first step onto the ladder. |
Poverty & Hunger
Ward 9 Pokhara, Nepal could have been the setting for Slumdog Millionnaire. The people of ward 9 are homeless squatters living in tin shanty homes on government owned land.
