Success

Anti-malaria training program in western Africa
by STeP UP Sao Tome, the in-country NGO.

We know that help is most successful when it is no longer needed. The greatest assistance the United States can give to developing nations is the achievement of self-sufficiency and sustainability.

~U.S. Agency for International Development

The same applies to our individual efforts to help others.

There are always immediate needs, of course.  Getting through this day or this year is impossible for some.  A war, a drought or disease, a regional upheaval; such things cause displacement and suffering that call for help just to survive.

Beyond lending a hand with today's immediate needs, what helps a family or a country make their way forward to a sustainable life of their own?

The successes and failures of recent decades answer the question.  Investments in education, technology, government, health, all can make a difference.  The key element needed for success, however, is a clearly defined goal coupled with the long-term commitment to get there.

A one-time gift to feed a family is deeply appreciated.  It makes surviving the day or the month possible.  A long-term investment may be what's needed to make a difference in the days and years to come.

For a family in Kenya living at the survival level, helping them keep their kids in school is at least part of the way forward for them.  Sponsoring the oldest son's advanced education is culturally appropriate as he will step in alongside the father to provide for the family.  Helping them start and operate a small business is culturally appropriate as that's the viable option for rising above poverty in their economy.  Chickens, agriculture, a small motorcycle to be used as a taxi service, shoes and tools for basic life labors, all are possible options. The key element remains necessary; a clearly defined goal coupled with the long-term commitment to get there.  It's something a friend can do; small-scale, focused, attentively refined to keep on track.  It's much more difficult for a government program to accomplish.

The best options available to westerners who want to be effective are both small and large.

World Vision is perhaps the most effective organization available to us.  While they offer child sponsorship, the actual work on the ground is community based.  Their workers will spend a couple of decades in a community, helping them get on their feet and on a path sustainably forward.  The sponsored kids are served well, but the assistance extends to include their family.  Schools, roads, wells, agriculture improvements, basic business education, and more are offered within the cultural context in usable forms as the members of the community are equipped and resourced to tackle the issues.

Kids get mosquito nets for their homes in the battle

against malaria.  One among many  STeP UP
projects that really help.

In-country NGOs like STeP UP are precisely on target and accountable, recommend by knowledgeable folks at the U.S. Embassy.  They're good folks whom we know personally and coordinate with through every month.

Churches in the U.S. often have direct connections to foreign organizations that provide direct, accountable, and effective assistance.

Best first option, perhaps; go see for yourself.  You can learn more in a week abroad than in years of study and speculation.

Body Language

What we communicate is not limited to the words we use.  Expression and gesture, body language and tone ... all that and now, emoticons!  I made up the numbers, though.

Welcome to the new world of vocabularic emoticonisms!  :)

There is no rigid agreement yet on the icons or their meanings. Emoticonical speech is a digital/graphical extension of non-verbal expression and is a relatively young language component.


The origin of such non-verbal content rests perhaps with the instinctive facial and gestural expressions we all find in ourselves.  It is normally subconscious, but can be conscious and deliberate if we choose.  We can deliberately be welcoming, respectful, appreciative, encouraging, or otherwise without saying a word; just expression and body language.



Emoticons are digital fill-ins for all of that normal body language content, of course.  It's a recreational and entertaining form of the non-verbal things we do naturally, and it's just a small foray in that direction.
 
Body language is hugely informative.  If we're perceptive, we'll see these things clearly in children. Even without emoticons, children show us the open expression of their heart without any filters being applied.  A perceptive person notices such things and is careful to read body language clearly in order to understand what is being communicated.

An extraordinary minority will speak up here and point out that they learned this particular skill from their dog. Dog people are usually nicer. We probably need puppymoticons.

P.S. There's a wealth of wisdom available in understanding how our communication actually works.

He that wisely holdeth his tongue and considereth first his noble goal, doth a service to both himselfeth and to himeth whom he wouldeth have otherwise clobberedth.

James 1:19
(It was that kind of a week)

The Light

Rust: “I tell you Marty I been up in that room looking out those windows every night here just thinking, ... it’s just one story.  The oldest.”

Marty: “What’s that?”

Rust: “Light versus dark.”

Marty: “Well, I know we ain't in Alaska, but it appears to me that the dark has a lot more territory.”

Rust: “Yeah, you're right about that.”

...
...

...

Rust: “You're looking at it wrong, the sky thing.”
Marty: “How’s that?”
Rust: “Well, once there was only dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.”

Consumerist Norms

From a UCLA study of today's middle class family:

• Managing the volume of possessions was such a crushing problem in many homes that it actually elevated levels of stress hormones for mothers.

• Only 25 percent of garages could be used to store cars because they were so packed with stuff. 

• "Master suites" for parents proved the most common home renovation, yet the spaces were hardly used.

• Even with clement year-round weather, families rarely used their yards, even if they had invested in outdoor improvements and furnishings.

• Fragmented dinners — those in which family members eat sequentially or in different rooms — are common.

• Only 3.1 percent of the world's children live in the United States, but U.S. families buy more than 40 percent of the toys consumed globally. 

• Several homes in the study had at least 250 toys on display, and most had at least 100. Untold numbers of other toys were tucked away in closets and under beds.

• CELF researchers estimate that each new child in a household leads to a 30 percent increase in a family's possessions during the preschool years alone.

Can you guess what the rest of the developed world looks like?

Moving on to Europe, new research by UNICEF has shown that children in the UK feel trapped in a "materialistic culture" and don't spend enough time with their families.

The research gives an in-depth comparison of over 250 children's experiences across three developed countries: the UK, Sweden and Spain.

Children in all three countries told researchers that their happiness is dependent on having time with a stable family and plenty of things to do, especially outdoors, rather than on owning technology or branded clothes.

Despite this, one of the most striking findings is that parents said they felt tremendous pressure from society to buy goods for their children; this pressure was felt most acutely in low-income homes.

OK, this part is a broader look at developed nations from the UNICEF study, and you're going to hate it.  And the part that follows is even more annoying.  

(click on the charts for a larger view)

These are things that require families to talk and think and perhaps change, for their children's sake.

Children's relationships with peers and parents can vary widely across national and cultural borders.

Cultural norms surround us, but we needn't conform thoughtlessly.  

We're encouraged that thoughtful choices can make the difference for which we so sincerely hope.

Pv22:6

For a quick look around the world at kids and toys, here's Toy Stories!  

And for a look at where children sleep, here's Bedtime Stories!

Too little, too much

Working internationally gave us a chance to review our thinking on 'enough'.  Enough food, shelter, education, employment, health care, ....  enough is good; it makes the difference between a gracious existence and a daily struggle for survival.  Moving along that line, where does it become too much?  

Children, particularly the youngest, can be misshapen by wealth and privilege.  It can do too much for them and leave them without the life skills they'll need. Keeping their stuff organized, taking care of their clothes, household tasks, interacting with adults, and prioritization among demands, all are learned first as a child.
Or not.

If a child is given everything they fancy and more, what does that teach them to expect?  Will life disappoint and discourage them? Will they spend their adult efforts on 'having' things instead of 'being' anything?  Is having 50 pairs of shoes a noble goal?

If you have money in the bank, clothes in your closet, a place to live, and food in your fridge, you're in the world's top wealthiest 10%, by the way.

These west African children and their families (pictured) are living on the edge of 'enough', but interestingly, they're an extraordinarily gracious culture. Children relate well to adults, they participate in discussions and decisions, and they share the family workload. They have the skills and insights to participate in community, and they work hard to do well in school. Their community has virtually no crime or violence, and children are safe anywhere. It's not an easy life, but it has none of the fail points common in the developed world's raising of children.


From the developed world,  a mother talks about her journey through the issue of excess with her children, "I equated giving them stuff with making them happy, a message that our consumer driven culture hammers into our psyches from the time we our born.  Oh, what a lie!"  See  Why I took my kids’ toys away


Does more stuff make us happier?
Is there such a thing as 'too much'?
What's the goal?

Recognizing that our children can be warped by wealth, are we curious what might be happening to us as well?

Parents 'Trapped in Cycle of Too Much Stuff and Too Little Time for Kids' Says New Unicef Study - See more here.

Great Heart

Can a child have a great heart?

A child can indeed learn great things like justice and compassion and generosity ... and then live a magnificently great-hearted life!

Can we encourage a child's thinking?

Some thoughts:

• we can explain the basics, but a child will have to grasp and act them out before they're real.
• a child's attitude about money will be like mom's and dad's. it's learned from example.  that's a tough one, but not set in stone.
• a child may not be able to relate to the poor or those in need.  it's also learned. that's another tough one.  we don't teach class distinctions usually, but kids learn them from unspoken things.  it can change.
• a young child's first awareness of injustice may be in abandoned pets or abused animals or some such; it's a legitimate start.
• you can, of course, just talk a lot about charity and the poor starving people overseas.
• talking without doing deadens conscience and insulates from reality.
• talking without doing is the same as walking by on the other side of the street.
• or you can gather up the family and do something! 



Youngest member of a gracious family, east Africa

• children learn more from what we do than from what we say.  
• they learn even more if they themselves get to be part of doing it.
• a child can befriend another in a moment and truly care.  
• stepping in alongside another because you care is more instructive than a thousand lectures.
• down the street or across the ocean, unless you help your children see the larger world, they'll think their small part is the norm. It's not, of course.

Friends in a rowdy neighborhood, just minutes from where we work, west Africa

Here are some odds and ends along the same line of thinking ...

Where Children Sleep

Children's Toys

What Children Eat

Childhood's End

The Adult Mind - Part I
African Life
Lip Service
Why Educate?