Connecting the coffee mugs

The families were like a bunch of coffee mugs with no spoons or mobile phones or napkins.

That is to say, we need to connect the coffee mugs.

There was a church program to increase food security in the village. There were no regular meetings, but every so often a grant would provide cows or goats or pigs that would be distributed to the community according to need. Most vulnerable families received first.

Once livestock was given, instruction provided, the families returned home. However, families were still isolated. They did not come together, and even if they were Christians, they did not pray together. The families considered themselves very different and for various reasons did not feel comfortable praying with those other people.

After everything, the families still had a poverty mindset. There was no money to care for the cows if they got sick, and there was little incentive to do so because they might just get more animals through the next grant.

A few years later, our savings program was integrated into the food security program. This is how things changed:

People met together. They heard that they could save money together, let it grow, and have access to larger lump sums of money. Perceptions changed. Before if someone was given a cow, he then had more disposable income for drinking or smoking. Now, the more he saves the more he has. The money has purpose and the community begins to take account of their assets. Not only do people meet together, they rotate meeting in each family's home. After they meet and save money, they fix one family's roof and next week work another family's field. Now, the communities cherish praying together because they truly share concerns, and they also share enthusiasm.

No more isolation. Community reconciliation. Praying together, working together. Perceptions of poverty change when people are empowered. That's what we try to do with our savings training. We don't just train in counting money, that's why other groups in the region that do similar self-help models are asking our "champions" to help their groups, too.

Our champions are bringing the coffee mugs into the village and connecting them with straws and pens and napkins. That changes the poverty mindset.