When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself

by Steve Corbett

Despite an estimated $2.3 trillion in foreign aid dispensed from Western nations during the post–World War II era,2 more than 2.5 billion people, approximately 40 percent of the world’s population, still live on less than two dollars per day.

The role of the outsider in this approach is not to do something to or for the economically poor individual or community but to seek solutions together with them.

It all goes back to the definition of poverty alleviation. Remember, the goal is to restore people to experiencing humanness in the way that God intended.

This can accentuate our American idols of speed, quantification, compartmentalization, money, achievement, and success.

Projects become more important than people.

Middle-to-upper-class North American believers have to accept that their power has silenced their brethren at home and abroad more than we realize.

People who have power seldom think about that power, while people who do not have it are very aware that they do not.

use a “go-as-a-learner” message.

Emphasize in particular that we are all poor, just in different ways.