Saturday, February 5, 2011

When Helping Hurts (Review)

I stayed up late last night finishing up a book called When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. I surprised myself staying up reading it because the first third of the book much like a long drawn out painful memory.


The first third defines poverty--not only material/financial poverty but poverty of the soul. Growing up in Indonesia, I saw first hand what poverty looks like. I talked with people who had a complete lack of hope. I played with their children as peers. The description of poverty in this book is good, but no description can compare with seeing it--and no amount of seeing can compare with experiencing it (which I have not).

The middle third of the book deals with general guidelines on how to help the materially impoverished without doing more harm than good. One of the main concepts that I gathered from this section was the difference between relief, rehabilitation, and development. If you provide one of those three at an inappropriate time or quantity, further damage can be done. It's also very important to empower the materially poor to organize and implement their own way out--which helps to rehabilitate their emotional poverty. There's quite a bit of discussion on that point (and the others I've mentioned), but this is meant to be a short review.

Practical actions fall into the final third. Short term missions take up a chapter, but the authors take the view that short term missions more often do more harm than good--based on the principles and nature of poverty outlined in the first 2/3 of the book. "For the first time in US history, more poor people live in suburbs than in cities." Building relationships, teaching finance, and enabling people to have the self-confidence to move forward are key in alleviating poverty in our own back yard. The authors spend a bit of time covering the various micro-loan or small-business seed loaning that now takes place around the world--enabling the materially poor to start their own businesses out from under the thumb of malicious loan sharks.

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert did a great job explaining what poverty looks like, where it comes from, and how it can be helped. They also did a great job outlining the dangers of certain types of relief currently in use and the long term negative impact they have on society. This book is definitely on my must read list.whenhelpinghurts.org

1 comment:

  1. Greetings from Southern California.

    I added myself to follow your blog. You are more than welcome to visit mine and become a follower if you want to.

    God Bless You, ~Ron

    ReplyDelete