wfn.org | India: 'What DWS Gave Us Cannot Be Repaid'

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

India: 'What DWS Gave Us Cannot Be Repaid'
LWF Field Program Aims at Overcoming Poverty by Cultivating Self-Reliance

ALBURY, Australia/GENEVA, 21 May 2004 (LWI) * Amodi Murmu is one of the
oldest women in her village in West Bengal, India. She is a leader and
community spokesperson, especially for the women. Government officials
visited her village, Natundihi, to see if the success stories they had heard
were really true. They asked Murmu how the field program of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF) Department for World Service (DWS) had helped the
village. She responded: "DWS did not help us too much/not with money. But
what they gave us is far more valuable and cannot be repaid. They have given
us confidence and have shown us the way to work for ourselves." 

Mr Howard Jost, director of the LWF/DWS program in India narrated Murmu's
story before participants in a DWS consultation for the Asia region. "More
than half of the world's poor live in India. Three hundred and fifty million
people live below the poverty line, on less than one US dollar a day. Our
approach to overcoming poverty and suffering in a sustainable way is to
cultivate self reliance," he stressed.

He quoted Murmu as having said to the government officials: "We don't want
this progress to stop. Our children and grandchildren will continue this
effort. They will go to good colleges. They will become doctors and lawyers
and teachers. Rich people and poor people are all the same. The only
difference between them comes from their opportunities. We are making our own
opportunities!"

Jost said there was "a multitude of obstacles" to reducing the suffering of
the poor. "But we consider that the people in each place are the ones who are
best able to take the necessary actions to overcome those obstacles, if they
have been empowered to do so." DWS India works in communities for four to
five years and then withdraws, moving its resources to new communities, and
leaving behind people who are capable of continuing the process of economic
and social development without further support.

"We see ourselves as cultivators rather than manufacturers, as enablers
rather than providers, as facilitators rather than doers," Jost said. DWS
India does not provide charity or relief, except in cases of emergency. "Our
contribution is to enable people to do things for themselves."

Community's Willingness to Contribute Resources a Measurement of
Self-Reliance 

Jost cited one measurement of self-reliance as the willingness and ability of
a community to contribute its own money and work toward accomplishing its
goals. The people's ability to mobilize resources from governmental and
non-governmental organizations is the next step. In 2003, DWS India spent USD
2.2 million on three projects. The program's contribution was 58 percent,
while the remainder, amounting to USD 920,000 came from the communities
themselves.

DWS India made considerable progress in 2003. The program withdrew from 36
communities having achieved self-reliance; and intensive work was commenced
in 388 new communities. This represents a 21 percent increase in the number
of communities with which the LWF field program is working. There are 1,635
communities "now walking with us on the path to self-reliance," representing
a total of 500,000 people, Jost said. 

In addition, 846 new self-help groups were formed during the year,
representing a 42 percent increase over 2002, and an increase of 38 percent
from 2001. "So DWS India staff are now working with and walking with twice as
many groups as they were at the end of 2001," Jost said. This has been
accomplished with staff and expenditure at about the same level as 2002. But
expansion to the existing programs is not foreseen Jost cautioned, as both
staff and budgets already are being stretched to full capacity.

The May 16-21 meeting near Albury in New South Wales, Australia, focused on
the theme "Quality Monitoring for Impact," with an emphasis on defining
desired outcomes and their prerequisite assessment methods. In attendance
were directors and other staff members of the four DWS programs in
Asia/Bangladesh, Cambodia, India and Nepal/and representatives of donor
agencies supporting LWF/DWS in the region. (687 words)

(Written for LWI by Linda Macqueen, editor of The Lutheran, the Lutheran
Church of Australia magazine.) 

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now has 136 member
churches in 76 countries representing 62.3 million of the almost 66 million
Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas
of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology,
humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects
of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service. Unless
specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or
opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article
contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with
acknowledgment.]

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