Sorry for skipping out on class a little early today, but it was for a good cause!
Kelly and I attended "Making Poverty History" which was given by Scott Lacy, Ph.D. the executive director of African Sky, a non-profit working to end inequality and extreme poverty in Mali, a country in West Africa.
Dr. Lacy did a great job presenting on this topic. He gave a lot of facts and statistics and then backed them up with personal stories of his experiences over the past 16 years helping in Mali.
He started off talking about how fighting poverty is the biggest social movement in the world. The UN also created the Millennium Development Goals which include ending poverty and hunger, universal education, child healthcare, combating HIV/AIDS and many more. There goal is to halve poverty by 2015 and end poverty in our lifetime which is a HUGE goal. Dr. Lacy said that the World Bank estimated that halving poverty in the next 5 years would cost $20 billion. That sounded like a lot until I learned that $1.3 TRILLION is spent a year on global military. Seems like ending poverty could be a little easier than we originally thought huh?
Dr. Lacy told many great stories about what he has done in Mali. He has a "teach them to fish" philosophy, where he will initially front groups a small amount of money when they have an idea to start a project, like making and selling peanut butter or soap, or holding literacy classes for women in their village, and then let them go with their idea and work for themselves. These projects tend to work out incredibly well because people can work for themselves and see their hard work thrive. He also said being grateful and accepting thanks from those he helps builds their self esteem and puts them on a peer level, instead of making them feel like a charity case.
Overall I really enjoyed his presentation and anecdotes about his hard work. People like Dr. Lacy are incredibly inspiring to me. If only I could be as good of a person as people like him are. Its something to strive towards.
Chels- Well written blog post and really insightful. Made me wish I had heard him speak too. I think one of the nice thing about some of these events is that they can really get us to step back think about the bigger picture of things. Thanks for sharing!
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