Confidence, Dignity, and Hope

The path is made by walking. African Proverb

Walk through the villages in the central Kenyan bush country today and you will see evidence of the GHNI Transformational Community Development program - TCD. The new borehole in Attir, the wellness center in Gambella, enterprising women in Ola Nagle dealing in goats and plastic chairs, irrigated farming plots in Shambani, sturdy homes in Bulesa Dima, and dorms for orphans in Gem. Then there are school buildings, a wind pump, the Empowerment Center training facility, the water spigots in front of modest homes, ... signs of the program in action.

Here are some examples ...

Before                                   After 

Homes in Bulesa Dima

Before                                   After 

Water supply in Attir

Before                                  After 

Primary school in Gambella

It’s tempting to measure progress with these visible signs of change. They are important; it’s easy; we are familiar with this approach to measuring success. But there is this thing ... the most common and meaningful sign of TCD success:

  

 

Before                                    After

People in the villages in central Kenya

Look all you want; you’ll not find any difference in the two images. And that is the true power and beauty of TCD.

During the time when GHNI partners with a village, a helping hand is given to overcome significant obstacles; together they travel a path where villagers apply themselves to projects, which are designed to be low cost, low tech and locally appropriate. They use their skills, and, with coaching from local GHNI staff, learn new ones. Their involvement in the projects, often requiring them to overcome setbacks, leads to restored CONFIDENCE. There is also the satisfaction and DIGNITY of providing much needed changes for their own village, their own families, and themselves.

The TCD partnership will end. It will not be easy for the villages going forward. The Kenyan bush is harsh, aggressive, and unforgiving. Walk through a TCD graduate village today, I suspect you’ll see “poverty.” The material state of things gives that impression. In some cases, it may not have changed much since the time the village entered the program.

However, the promise of TCD is there. You can’t take a picture of it, but you can sense it in the attitudes of the people around you. There is excitement and pride in their voices when they talk about their new business enterprise or how they are using the wellness training to improve health in the village. Though the material side of their lives may not impress, confidence and dignity have been restored in their lives, addressing what those who live in poverty say are its harshest embodiments: “... shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation ... hopelessness, ...” (When Helping Hurts; S. Corbett & Brian Fikkert; pg. 53).

Confidence and dignity are the foundations of success, fully realized when HOPE is restored. Villages emerge from the suffocating grip of extreme poverty; the pathway of a sustainable, self-determined future unfolds before them.

Epilogue

People don’t take trips, trips take people. John Steinbeck

I went to Kenya for the first time in 2011, a trip I took to visit Ola Nagele, the village I had already connected with as a sponsor. That trip took me to a place of new challenges. There was that of helping people who obviously could use a handout to get by, one that was pretty easy to meet.

But the deeper challenge of providing a helping hand up is another story. TCD has structure and purpose, plans and reports; there are successes and there are setbacks. All of these things are its arms and legs. But the intent to restore confidence, dignity, and hope is its heart.

I returned to Kenya because I believe it is important to experience the changes in the people. I returned because I have confidence the program is changing the people there in ways that will benefit them for years after the village graduates. I returned to experience and share the dignity – the satisfaction - that comes from being a part of something important. And I will return again, because I have hope that the work will continue to make profound changes in the lives of people who, once hurting and hopeless, can now look forward to a sustainable, self-determined future.