Tag Archives: Sustainability and Self-Reliance

How is Poverty Measured?

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Having traveled to the field for my work with Heifer, I’ve seen true poverty firsthand. Heck, I can find poverty within my own neighborhood. So I know what it looks like. But just how is it measured?

Poverty in Uganda

Photo by Brooke Edwards, courtesy of Heifer International.

The World Bank, which measures a lot of data points in more than 200 countries and has a very thorough website specifically for sharing their data, has a video that explains how they measure poverty.

It’s important to measure things that you’d like to end. If we’re going to end poverty, we have to know where we’re starting from. But I feel like this video really leaves some major considerations out. It appears income and consumption are the primary measures of wellbeing. So, once a family earns enough income and consumes enough goods, they’re considered “above” the poverty line. But are they really out of poverty? Just how easily can they fall right back “below” the poverty line?

At Heifer, we work hard to ensure our participants – individuals, families and communities – truly move out of poverty so they aren’t likely to fall back into poverty. We do this by helping them build assets, grow savings and develop real security. These accomplishments allow them to be more resilient to things like natural disasters or an illness in the family.

Freedom from poverty in Malawi.

Freedom from poverty in Malawi. Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

What do you think about how poverty is measured? What else seems to be missing? Tell us in the comments section below.

Self-Reliance: Not Just for the Rural Poor

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American Food Culture

Photo by JasonTromm, used under Creative Commons.

One of the identifiable turning points in my young adult life was a course I took as a sophomore in college called “Food and American Culture,” taught by Allison Wallace. It was one of those classes where you learn things you almost immediately wish you could unlearn, but of course can’t. It was the first time the concept of self-reliance was introduced to me, though it took a long time for me to internalize exactly what that looks like.

Last month there was a major snowstorm in central Arkansas (if you don’t live here, you possibly heard about it on the news). Thundersnow and Snowpocalypse were a couple of nicknames it earned. My family and I missed it, spending the holidays in the typically-snowy, but snow-bereft on that visit, foothills of the Smoky Mountains.

Every time there’s a storm like this, where thousands of people lose power and grocery store shelves are shopped bare, I remember a particular story Professor Wallace (well, we actually called her Allison, such was the culture of the College) told. Though I don’t remember all of the details so well–Allison, if you read this, please forgive any creative license I take with your story–the overall message resonated so much it sticks with me nearly 13 years later.

Arkansas snow storm

Photo by jball359, used under Creative Commons

Allison had lived in Maine, where the winters are typically harsher than in Arkansas. A snowstorm had hit, and many in her community were without electricity and other resources. As time passed and people continued to go without power and access to things like grocery stores, one community member in particular, an older woman, became the boon of the neighborhood.

Did she have an all-terrain vehicle that could drive everyone to the store? Nope. She had skills. A variety of skills once known by many and now forgotten by most. In fact, I’ve forgotten her list of skills. The two that stuck out for me were: She knew how to grow food and, importantly, how to preserve it.

Backyard garden

Photo by Pip_Wilson, used under Creative Commons.

As a college sophomore who lived on cafeteria baked potatoes and 10-cent ramen back in the dorm room, the thought of growing my own food and “living off the land” seemed remarkable. Completely unattainable. As a somewhat older and wiser person, I now see it’s not just doable, at least to some degree, it may be the key.

Having visited Heifer project families in Uganda, Peru and Ecuador, I have seen the difference between families who cannot provide for their own needs and those who go beyond that and can enjoy true security as they build income and assets and help their neighbors. One of the linchpins to this security is diversity of resources and skills.

Self-Reliance in Ecuador's Dry Forest

Though I'll never have as much land as Flor and her husband, Don Juan, who live in the Dry Forest in Ecuador, I will remember the diversity of their small farm forever. They grew their own fruits and vegetables, raised their own protein (fish), grew insect-repellent flowers alongside their crops, and produced their own natural fertilizer. Photo by Dave Anderson, courtesy of Heifer International.

When I come home and compare these families’ security with that of my own family I see how untenable mine really is. If it came down to it, could my family provide itself, long-term, with food, water, shelter and clothing? As of now we could eat eggs with rosemary and a side of figs (season permitting), cooked over a campfire.

I don’t believe we’re headed for a real cataclysmic shift anytime soon, but as these major storms (not just snow; this is Tornado Alley we’re talking about) happen more frequently, as  food and fuel prices continue to rise, I’m more and more seeing the value of being at least a touch more self-reliant and on being part of a community with similar goals.

Food preservation

Photo by jazzijava, used under Creative Commons.

What do you think? Do you have any self-reliance skills already built? Are you learning to sew or grow a garden? Have you made any New Year’s resolutions that fall into this category? Or do you think this is purely the business of hippies and hipsters? Tell us in the comments section.

Sustainability Summit Connects Atlanta to Heifer’s Work

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This weekend in Atlanta, Heifer and Oglethorpe University will host our first “Sustainability Summit.” I am excited to take part in this event, which I know will be a meaningful and impactful program, connecting Heifer’s important work with donors, volunteers, students and others in the Atlanta community.

I will be speaking about our efforts to scale up our work and how this will help us achieve our mission of ending hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. Other speakers will include Betty Londergan, Heifer 12×12 blogger and Oglethorpe First Lady; Keo Keang, Heifer Cambodia Country Director, and Jeffrey Scott, Heifer USA’s Director of Social Enterprise Development.

Sustainability Summit: Sok Pheary Feeds Her Pigs

Sok Pheary of Cambodia, gives her pigs fodder from her field. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

I look forward to sharing with the Atlanta community Heifer’s incredible story and showing how our work can increase in reach and impact yet remain true to our roots in sustainability.

I know “sustainability” may seem like an overused term, to the point that it’s becoming watered down. But at Heifer International, it’s always been at the core of our mission and work. In fact, our work can be viewed as sustainable from three different but integrated lenses:

  1. Improvements in participants’ lives are maintained after projects are completed
  2. Donations have the capacity to endure beyond the original gift through our Passing on the Gift model
  3. Projects are always designed and implemented with environmental sustainability and improvement in mind

This weekend, in addition to sharing our work with Atlanta, I’ll host a three-part blog series covering these facets of sustainability and how Heifer applies them. I hope you’ll follow along and contribute your own thoughts about how genuine sustainability must not be allowed to become obsolete.

If you’re in the Atlanta area and want to attend the Sustainability Summit, there’s still time to register for some of the events. Go register now.

Thrift Ensures Security in Honduras

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Following a recent Heifer Study Tour to Honduras, Virginia Tech students were given an assignment: Choose one photograph from the trip and explain why you chose it and which of Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development it embodies. Over the course of this week, we’ll share these images and words to give you a look at how much of an impact seeing Heifer’s work in the field can have. Read other posts in the series here.

Thrift ensures security

Nate Foust-Meyer, Crops, Soils & Environmental Sciences, VA Tech: The difference between ingenuity and necessity became blurry during my time in Honduras. The bio-digester we helped install was built gracefully. Pieced together with old tires, pvc , plastic sleeves, and a coke bottle it was effective, rustic and beautiful. It was seldom clean cut, but always worked and always used materials efficiently. In this image a heifer is feeding on corn stalks. The red apparatus in front of it is used to remove the outer fruit from the coffee beans. Since the picture was taken in March, the end of the coffee season and therefore the time when income begins to shrink, families whose only source of income or sustenance is coffee will likely begin to grow hungry–but others, like the one that this cow belongs to will do better. The education, training, and sense of empowerment that comes with a heifer project also brings a sense of security; knowing that their food is available and not unaffordable  has freed the people in this community from the bondage of worry and fear. The sense of constant thrift and inventiveness is necessary to the people of rural Honduras. They use the supplies they have to feed those they love as best they can. It is their thrift that ensures their security.

Food Sovereignty on Horseback

Rial Tombes, Enviromental Policy & Planning, VA Tech: This picture was taken on the first day that we arrived in Trinidad de Copan. It was Tuesday evening, around 5:00, and one of the first things we did was walk down the dirt road from our hostel to visit the town boot maker. The Boot shop was small. A few people in our group decided to buy a pair. Those not getting their feet sized were milling around outside. It started to drizzle. We were still getting used to our surroundings and because of that felt like it was ok to look over walls into people’s backyard and look at their chickens, goats, pigs, etc.

In the distance, the group started to see a man riding down the road atop his horse carrying a bundle of corn. I can only imagine that he was on his way home from a long day of work in the fields. This man provided us all with a reminder that we were in Honduras, where having goats in your backyard, riding to and from work on horseback, and waking up to the crowing of multiple town rooster was normal. After our long journey from Tegucigalpa to Trinidad, it was this moment where I understood that I was not in Virginia anymore. I believe the CAFS cornerstone, Food Security and Food Sovereignty is showcased beautifully in this picture. This man is living his life with the hope of providing for his family and contributing to a strong local economy. Also the Heifer cornerstone, Sustainability and Self Reliance, is represented here because somebody had to harvest to corn and bring it to market or to the family table.