Check out my previous blog for some context… This is part two. Helpful hands? As the HUD Secretary, the context of Carson’s position focused on government’s role in domestic poverty. He said that he believes that government can provide a "helping hand" to people looking to climb out of poverty. But he warned against programs that are "sustaining them in a position of poverty. That’s not helpful", he claims. I agree, of course. That’s probably not a surprise to anyone who’s spent more than ten minutes talking to me about 410 Bridge’s development model. The government should help. Safety nets are needed, helpful, and a good thing. But it shouldn’t create programs that keep people from thriving on their own. It shouldn’t create systems that promote passivity and disempower people. Carson’s comments got me thinking and was another reason I wrote my book – If You Really Want to Help. Shouldn’t non-profits be held to the same standard? Shouldn’t non-profits, especially faith-based organizations, resist programs and activities that perpetuate poverty? Here is a true story I share in my book to illustrate the point. I was invited to meet with a faith-based organization who, allegedly, wanted to change their approach to helping the poor. This wasn’t entirely accurate, but nonetheless, I was told that they wanted to learn more about the 410 Bridge community development model, and I was more than willing to share what we do. They’d been working in the same area of the same country for over 30 years. Meet Frank I met with one of their senior guys (let’s call him Frank) and representatives from a partner church. We chatted for a while, and I learned a little more about their organization. They maintain an in-country operations center that US teams from the church visit regularly. The operations center is the hub of their effort to help the people in the area. Frank was especially excited to talk about the impact their organization was having on US short-term teams. He said, “Kurt, we both know that the transformation that happens with US teams is amazing. But left to their own devices, US teams will just mess it up. I’m sure you’d agree that we have to control what teams do and when they do it.” There’s truth to his point for sure, but that’s another topic for another time. One of the church representatives jumped in. “Yeah, but you never allow us to build relationships with the people. We’re always in the compound. We never get to interact with the community.” Her comment felt less like a statement of fact, and more like an indictment. I asked Frank to explain what teams do when they visit. “The first morning, teams sort donated clothing and shoes. In the afternoon, people from the community come to our compound and the teams distribute the clothes & shoes. The second day, the teams create nutritional meal packets from food we ship in from the US. In the afternoon, people come to the compound to receive the meals. The third day, the teams distribute baby formula…” I stopped him there and asked if anyone could simply come to their facility and receive clothes, food, or baby formula. Frank laughed (a little too mockingly) and said, “Of course not. We work through the local church. If people need something, they go to their local church. The church gives them a voucher, and then they come to the compound to redeem the voucher for stuff they need.” At that point, I interrupted and asked if I could ask a clarifying question. Before I did, I tried to soften the blow by confessing that I’m known for being direct; some might say radically honest. I explained that people usually say something like, “That’s OK, Kurt. Feel free to be direct.” Until I am. Cost of Transformation Anyway, I asked Frank the following question…. “You talk about the transformation that occurs within US teams because of their visit. It seems that this transformation comes at a cost to the people you serve. At what point does your organization recognize that the cost to the people you serve outweighs the benefit of the transformation to the US team members?” “What do you mean?” He asked. “I mean that transformation comes at a cost to the people your organization serves. When is that cost too great to justify the impact on the US team?” Frank missed my point. He was quick to point out that the clothing, food, and baby formula didn’t cost the poor anything. It was all free. “I understand,” I said. “But this supposed ‘transformation’ comes at the expense of the poor. You’re doing more to perpetuate the problem than solve it. And, equally as bad, you’re illustrating a broken and unhealthy model to the US teams. Your visitors think that this is an effective way to address poverty and it perpetuates their broken perspective. In my view, you’re turning the people you serve into beggars.” Yikes! As you might imagine, Frank wasn’t too thrilled with that last statement. A Material Problem The point is this… I’m guessing that Frank’s organization has read all the books – When Helping Hurts, Toxic Charity, etc. – and would probably say that they agree. They quote principals like involving local leaders, working through the local church, not pushing our ideas on the people we serve, etc. Yet, in practice those principals go by the wayside. Why is that? Like so many people and organizations looking to help the poor, this story is a great example of seeing poverty as a material problem. It’s financial. It’s about stuff. When you define poverty as solely a material problem, your solutions will be solely material. And that simply does not solve the poverty problem. The questions for these organizations are, “When will it stop and when will the people claiming to care about the poor – especially the faith-based community – stop stripping them of their dignity? Also, when will we move from simply agreeing that good intentions are not good enough, to a place where our actions actually reflect our Christian worldview?" A Worldview Shift I’ll tell you when… and I can only speak to the faith-based community here. When we begin to think differently about our perspectives of the people we serve. We’ll stop when we stop seeing the poor as a set of problems to be solved and start seeing them as the solution to their poverty problem. We’ll stop when, once and for all, we separate what we give and how we give it from our need to feel good about ourselves. It appears to me that the approach of many (too many) faith-based Christian organizations resembles more of a secular approach to poverty than a Christian worldview approach. All physical. The people we serve have been wonderfully made by their Creator. Let’s help restore their dignity, not disempower them by doing for them what they have the capacity to do for themselves. ~Kurt In his book – If You Really Want to Help – Kurt lays out a fresh blueprint for redefining the war on poverty, how to win it, and how we fight the battle together. His book will be released February 28, 2023, and is available for pre-order here.
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If you haven’t heard by now, I wrote a book. It’s titled “If You Really Want to Help” and it will officially become available on the 28th. In it I share the origin story of 410 Bridge and how we seek to redefine the war on poverty. A few years ago, the Washington Post published an article about a statement Ben Carson made during a SiriusXM radio interview with Armstrong Williams. Carson said that he thought poverty, to a “large extent”, was a “state of mind.” He went on to explain his position, but as you might imagine, he took a fair bit of grief, in large part, from folks who don’t agree with his politics. Like most issues these days, we can’t seem to take a position on a topic without someone being offended. Mr. Carson’s comments were no exception. Mr. Carson’s comments are at the very heart of my book. Allow me to explain… Fairness... As I waded through the responses to his comments – ignoring the visceral, hate-filled nonsense – the reasoned arguments against his position were, not surprisingly, from the secular perspective. Secular being defined as physical only. No God. We’re all just evolved animals. Cogs in an infinite cosmic wheel. Truth is relative. And so on… The notion that poverty is purely a material or financial problem always leaves me scratching my head. Outside the context of a catastrophic event (natural disasters, war, etc.), the reality is that poverty doesn’t just happen. I’ve come to see firsthand that it’s rooted in how people view themselves. How they view their relationships with each other, the environment, and most importantly, what they think about when they think about God. It flows from their assumptions on how the world works (or should work) and the choices they make based on those assumptions. It’s about worldview. I’m learning that those who see poverty through a secular lens – purely physical, disregarding the spiritual – invariably look for someone or something to blame. Blame the poor for their poverty. Or, more commonly, blame the non-poor. Blame the injustices of colonialism, overpopulation, the lack of resources, infrastructure, or political systems. They’ll call for the redistribution of wealth or preach about “fairness.” Spoiler alert: Fairness is a myth. Andy Stanley says it best, “Fairness ended at the Garden.” What is the worldview? In his book Discipling Nations, Darrow Miller said it this way. “A worldview does more to influence people’s flourishing – their prosperity or poverty – than does their physical environment or other circumstances.” And oh, by the way… It feels a little hypocritical of those on the secular side to dismiss the role worldview plays in the fight against poverty. To them, a non-secular worldview is irrelevant, after all, because life is rooted in the physical. There is no God. There is no spiritual element to consider. Truth is relative. Humans are evolved animals, that’s all. We live. We die. That’s it. Yet, their secular position is also rooted in a worldview. We all have one. It’s unavoidable. The choices they make are based on their assumptions of how the world works. Their choices drive their behavior. In essence, their secular worldview becomes their religion. But none of this is terribly new. Folks way smarter than me have written about this stuff for years. “Discipling Nations” was first published 20+ years ago. More recent works like When Helping Hurts (Corbett & Fikkert) and Toxic Charity (Lupton) all talk about the dangers of viewing poverty through the material lens. Volumes have been written. Almost everyone I meet that works with the poor has read them. There’s plenty of data out there to support it. We even point to the trillions of dollars spent to eradicate poverty, yet we don’t really talk about the link between poverty and worldview. Why is that? I have my thoughts and there in the book, so I’d be grateful if you would read it. Our focus at 410 Bridge is on how to effectively help the poor shift their worldview and thrive. To help them know that God loves them, that He has a purpose for their life, and they have responsibilities. To help them see the fruit of being a Godly parent, spouse, teacher, business owner, and leader. To help them see that an abundant life is possible. To help communities be compassionate, full of dignity, purpose, and freedom to thrive without being dependent on outsiders. If you’re familiar with 410 Bridge and our work with the global poor, you know that we’ve never defined poverty as a material problem. We see it as a worldview problem. Since the beginning, we’ve held fast to the idea that if we were really – I mean, no foolin’ – REALLY going to help communities break the cycle of poverty, we needed to look beyond their physical challenges and help change their perspectives. That, in essence, is what I believe Carson was saying. What he labels as their ‘state of mind’ is what we label worldview or perspective. Check back for Part Two as I explore another angle of Mr. Carson’s comments. You can read the full Washington Post article here... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/24/ben-carson-calls-poverty-a-state-of-mind-during-interview/?noredirect=on ~Kurt In his book – If You Really Want to Help – Kurt lays out a fresh blueprint for redefining the war on poverty, how to win it, and how we fight the battle together. His book will be released February 28, 2023 and is available for pre-order here. Belonging To Kwambekenya was one of 410 Bridge’s first communities in Kenya. How the community got its name is rooted in its founding a few decades ago. The people of Kwambekenya lived in the forest just outside the Aberdare National Park. Their high-altitude community is literally at the end of a road that dead ends into the Aberdare National Forest. For years their primary livelihood was to harvest timber from the forest. The Kenyan government, to save the national forest, abruptly stopped the harvesting of trees and told the community to move out of the forest. They were essentially evicted. Thankfully, a large plot of land just outside the forest was owned by the Mbekenya family who were willing to sell their land in small ¼ - ½ acre plots. Thus, Kwambekenya was founded. The community gets its name from “Kwa” meaning “to / belonging to” and “mbekenya” representing the original owner of the land. A Health Clinic When we were invited to visit Kwambekenya, we learned that the leadership was strong as were the people. Their shared struggle of being evicted and establishing a new home created a strong sense of community. We also learned their greatest challenge was the 10 km distance to the nearest hospital. If community members were ill or if women experienced complications during pregnancy, it was virtually impossible to get to the hospital in time. Often the sick would be transported on bicycle or wheelbarrow across bumpy roads. The local 410 Bridge leadership council decided to build a health clinic in their community and asked if we would help. The first step was securing the land. The leaders felt the community could raise 10-20% of the cost from their next harvest. They would also provide all the unskilled labor and a portion of the materials for the clinic itself. We agreed to help. We had a small group of donors and church partners who were excited to participate. Only $800 When the harvest season ended, we had raised our portion of the funding commitment, and we were ready to purchase the land. I visited the community, ready to celebrate this very important first step and move to the building phase. But at the Leadership Council meeting I learned that the community came up short of their commitment. A severe frost had damaged their crops and they didn’t have the funds needed to purchase the land. They were short about $800. The problem wasn’t the amount. I literally had that in my pocket. The problem was that we had donors and church partners on the other side of the bridge thinking we were ready to move forward. We told them the plan and the timeline. They had patiently waited months for the growing season to end. I couldn’t go back and tell them we had to wait another growing season (six months) before we could move forward. Especially for $800! Timing is everything... So, I leaned over to our Country Director and whispered in his ear, “I want to cover the difference and move on.” What transpired after that was a great lesson to me. He looked at me and said, without hesitation, “No!” As I gave him a questioning glare, he continued. “If you do that, you’ll undermine the entire effort. You’ll slow down the process of community responsibility and ownership. If you do that, we may never regain the community’s understanding that it is their land and their responsibility.” I pushed back. “I understand. I really do.” [To be clear, I didn’t understand at all.] “But I have donors on my side of the bridge that are expecting me to come home with progress.” He said plainly, “This is progress. The answer is ‘no’.” My Flexibility Pants Like I said, it was a valuable lesson. It was time for me to don my flexibility pants and leave my watch at home. To create ownership of the solutions, we must work at the community’s pace, not ours. They lead, we follow. In my mind, I was going home empty handed and would have to explain to our partners that we had taken a step back. But we hadn’t taken a step back. The real problem was that my mindset needed to change. A Love Affair With Efficiency Time has authority in my world. We have a love affair with efficiency. If we can solve a setback with a little more money, we tend to do just that. But that approach undermines our model of enabling the self-developing capabilities of the people we serve. I am grateful for the lesson. In the end, the community raised its portion of the funding during the next harvest season. The clinic was built, and it is indigenously sustainable today nearly 15 years after it was built. So, remember, if you ever have a chance to visit a 410 Bridge community, be sure to pack your flexibility pants. ~Kurt In his book – If You Really Want to Help – Kurt lays out a fresh blueprint for redefining the war on poverty, how to win it, and how we fight the battle together. His book will be released February 28, 2023 and is available for pre-order here. It’s one thing for development organizations like 410 Bridge to say that relationships are paramount. The tricky part is how to do that. In my new book – If You REALLY Want to Help – I talk about the importance of being invited into partnership with a community. The ACCORD Network – an association of faith-based relief and development organizations – has as one of its core principles that organizations looking to help the poor should enter as guests, co-labor as partners, and depart as friends. Unfortunately, many well-intentioned do-gooders, loaded down with their limited resources, a sense of urgency, and overflowing emotions, have a hard time applying this principle when boots hit the ground. Relationships First The first thing to understand is that projects, no matter how large or small, should be the fruit of the relationships we build, not the other way around. Do we use projects in hopes of building a relationship? Or do we build a relationship, learn about the people, their vision for their future, their strengths, and then follow their lead toward solutions? This takes time and patience; something our side of the bridge struggles with. It’s the ‘enter as guests’ part of the ACCORD principle that gets overlooked. Sure, we’ll give it lip service, but then say things like, “Of course we were invited. We’re here to help and who wouldn’t want our help?” Guest or Savior? But if we’re brutally honest, we don’t think of ourselves as guests. We see ourselves as saviors – the cavalry charging over the hill to save the day. That may be appropriate in times of a catastrophe – flood, earthquake, conflict, etc. – but in a development context, indigenous leadership and community participation lay the foundation for indigenous sustainability. If we get this wrong, we also create a power imbalance between the giver and the receiver. As I outline in my book, One of the ways to prevent this imbalance is to be invited into a relationship by the people we seek to help. When the receiver—the one experiencing need—invites someone into a relationship, they are less likely to see the giver as “them” or “those people” and more likely to seeing the giver as “us.” The tricky part is for the giver to continue to subordinate their hoped-for solutions for the receiver to solutions that the receiver thinks are best. After all, we’ve been invited into their reality, not ours. It’s like being invited to a party and then barreling in the door and spending the whole evening suggesting ways that the host could make the party better. Not only will you make the party extremely unpleasant but also you will do some serious damage to your relationship with the host. Guests are invited. A list of needs or projects that they want you to undertake is not an invitation. Showing up, pointing out all the problems that we see, and announcing how we plan to help is not an invitation either. A Vision for the Future In 410 Bridge communities, an invitation is a formal written request to visit a community and get to know one other. We learn if they have a vision for their future, what they’re doing to accomplish that vision, and their commitment to mobilize and unify their community. They learn what it means to be a 410 Bridge community; what we will, and will not, do. But it doesn’t end with the first invitation. After that initial meeting, if they want to partner, we ask for a formal invitation from the leaders of the community. We believe we should limit our efforts to those actions and attitudes that enhance trusting relationships with our partner communities. So, we enter a place only when we’ve been invited. We do with, not for. They lead, we follow. We allow them to stumble, grow, and fail. And we work at their pace, not the donor’s. And what about short-term trips? And What About Short-term Trips? The same principle applies. Are teams invited, or are we just crashing the party? One of the ways to verify this is to be honest about the itinerary. Who created it? Is the community asking you to participate in what they already have going on, or are you telling them what you want to do when you’re there? If it’s the latter, you’re a party crasher. Listening First Over the years, we’ve learned that entering as an invited guest takes time. It starts with a conversation – questions, not answers, and a bunch of listening. In the end, those questions ensure that our work together is the fruit of the relationship, not the result of some State-side solution to give a bunch of well-intentioned Westerners a life changing experience helping the poor with stuff they don’t really need or want. Take the time to get to know one another. When you show up uninvited, you crash the party. But when you’re invited, you’re welcomed and wanted—and on your way to a healthy, fruitful partnership. ~ Kurt In his book – If You Really Want to Help – Kurt lays out a fresh blueprint for redefining the war on poverty, how to win it, and how we fight the battle together. His book will be released February 28, 2023, and is available for pre-order here. |
About Kurt:Kurt Kandler is the founder and Executive Director of The 410 Bridge. He is passionate not only about breaking the cycle of poverty in communities where The 410 Bridge works, but but also for changing the paradigm of mission for the Western church and how it engages the poor. Archives
February 2023
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