Steve Werlin
Regional Coordinator
"Chemin Lavi Mayo" Graduation Program
Fonkozé
Haiti
We talk to them about how they are managing their assets, we talk to them about their health, we talk to them about how their children are doing, we strategize with them. So over the course of time, they become different people. Because helping people emerge from extreme poverty is not just about making extreme poor people richer, it's not simply a matter of money, it's about changing who they are. Because there is a lot that goes in becoming extremely poor: a lot of habits, a lot of attitudes that need to be changed for a woman to succeed. Women have to believe, have to really know that their own activities can support their children. Unless they really believe that, just giving them assets for them to run a business won't help.
There is an American proverb that really underlines the work that we do “give someone a fish and they’ll eat for a day, teach someone to fish and they’ll eat for a life time.” The philosophy that underlies our program is that that’s just not true, it takes more than giving someone a fish it takes more than teaching them to fish they need fishing poles and they need nets, they need an accompaniment that’s encouraging them and assuring that they know what they are doing over the long term. They need to have their own health and their children’s health taken care of so that they can go fishing. So there are a lot of things that go into someone taking herself and her family out of poverty
