Many years ago, I experienced a transformation in my consciousness while seeing the children of the people I have been giving food away to coming as adults to get some free food. I then realized that I was part of the problem! I had become a poverty manager, keeping people dependent and poor but more or less well-fed. That experience was a part of a larger one where I became a believer in the idea of the value of the individual and the power of liberty and free markets economics. My journey began long before, in Puerto Rico, where I grew into a committed and active communist household. But that is a long story to be told at another time.
A system that looks at the poor as passive recipients of magnanimity rather than as active participants in their realization is a system that treats them like dogs, like pets.
But the poor are not to be seen as poor victims of forces outside of their control. They are persons, with the moral capacity to know the truth and do the good. When we focus on their capabilities and their capacity for human flourishing, instead of looking always at what they lack, the entire exercise of poverty alleviation changes.
The poor become the protagonists of their own story, instead of being g scenery in the drama of our good intentions. And that is why we started the Self Reliance Clubs. Two years ago I visited one of those massive “stuff giving” events where seas of black and brown kids were given their school supplies coming from the hand of well-intentioned strangers. “What are the kids learning here?” I asked myself. Well, that there is a free lunch and it does not come from my own effort or from mom and dad. They were learning that there is benefit in dependency and that after all a disconnect between reward and accomplishment is not that bad. They were learning the most destructive system of thought; one that sees them as incapable.
The question we must always ask is not whether or not we should help the poor. As we know, everyone answers yes to that one! The question is how to do it in effective, efficient, and (more importantly) dignified ways. The question is what kind of incentives is built into a program attempting to help others. Through our club the kids get a savings account, work in all kinds of entrepreneurial initiatives, earn money, learn basic economics, and then buy their own school supplies. No hand-outs, only a hand-up. The real need is met but it is met in the most profound way: by reconnecting reward to accomplishment.
We start in elementary schools as to help children internalize these values, and the club follows the child into middle and high school. One neat aspect is that we avoid introducing new activities into an already packed school day. Instead, we redefine the meaning of already existing activities in such a way that children understand themselves as earners and creators of wealth.
As times goes by, children see themselves as protagonists of their own story, as subjects endowed with meaning, not simple marionettes of happenstance. Our Self-Reliance club is not a school supplies program but a values program that uses school supplies as the instrument to teach valuable lessons.
You can learn more about our Self-Reliance Clubs by contacting me at [email protected].
Ismael
A system that looks at the poor as passive recipients of magnanimity rather than as active participants in their realization is a system that treats them like dogs, like pets.
But the poor are not to be seen as poor victims of forces outside of their control. They are persons, with the moral capacity to know the truth and do the good. When we focus on their capabilities and their capacity for human flourishing, instead of looking always at what they lack, the entire exercise of poverty alleviation changes.
The poor become the protagonists of their own story, instead of being g scenery in the drama of our good intentions. And that is why we started the Self Reliance Clubs. Two years ago I visited one of those massive “stuff giving” events where seas of black and brown kids were given their school supplies coming from the hand of well-intentioned strangers. “What are the kids learning here?” I asked myself. Well, that there is a free lunch and it does not come from my own effort or from mom and dad. They were learning that there is benefit in dependency and that after all a disconnect between reward and accomplishment is not that bad. They were learning the most destructive system of thought; one that sees them as incapable.
The question we must always ask is not whether or not we should help the poor. As we know, everyone answers yes to that one! The question is how to do it in effective, efficient, and (more importantly) dignified ways. The question is what kind of incentives is built into a program attempting to help others. Through our club the kids get a savings account, work in all kinds of entrepreneurial initiatives, earn money, learn basic economics, and then buy their own school supplies. No hand-outs, only a hand-up. The real need is met but it is met in the most profound way: by reconnecting reward to accomplishment.
We start in elementary schools as to help children internalize these values, and the club follows the child into middle and high school. One neat aspect is that we avoid introducing new activities into an already packed school day. Instead, we redefine the meaning of already existing activities in such a way that children understand themselves as earners and creators of wealth.
As times goes by, children see themselves as protagonists of their own story, as subjects endowed with meaning, not simple marionettes of happenstance. Our Self-Reliance club is not a school supplies program but a values program that uses school supplies as the instrument to teach valuable lessons.
You can learn more about our Self-Reliance Clubs by contacting me at [email protected].
Ismael