Project Planning and Development (Week Six)

I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.

Jesus Christ (John 17:4, NIV)

Lance Rawlins, who currently works for the Women and Children’s Advocacy Centre, taught us on Project Planning and Development. He has a degree in Business Management, which he has been able to utilize in advising and training people working in grass-roots development projects. After looking at concepts such as a relational definition of poverty and an asset-based approach to community development (as opposed to a needs-based approach) we got the chance to get started on planning our own community development project. Instead of trying to plan every aspect of how to move forward with the preschool (Shepherd’s Heart) in Malawi, for the purpose of this week I narrowed it down, as Lance suggested, and focused only on the aspect of motivating and empowering the caregivers/volunteers through training.  

The premise for a relational definition of poverty is that God is relational. He’s triune and deeply values relationships. He longs to be in a relationship with us and has created us to live in a relationship with each other and with creation. In his teaching Lance defined the foundational relationships in our lives as our relationship with God, with ourselves, with each other and with creation. We were created for intimacy with God and community with each other. As for our relationship with ourselves, our identity can be built on the understanding that each of us has been created uniquely in God’s image, with inherent worth and dignity. These qualities are not something we can lose or do anything to gain, or even give to someone, for that matter, since they’re innate in every human being, including those who may be looked down on or pitied by society. In relation to creation, we’re created for stewardship over it, not to exploit the resources we have, but to take care of creation and steward our resources well.

In materialistic terms we may be wealthier than the people we are working with, for instance in the developing world, but in terms of relationships, intimacy with God, an understanding of inherent worth and dignity in every human being, including ourselves, a sense of community, and stewardship over creation, we may be a whole lot poorer than the people we’re working with. Thinking in relational terms shifts the definition of poverty to all of us. It makes us see that we are all rich and we are all poor, and forces us to have a more holistic view on people and communities. It urges us to break away from a mentality Lance described as the god complex, a mindset that may not be blatantly obvious, but nevertheless finds its expression in more subtle ways, allowing us to think along the lines of “I’m rich. I can teach you” or “I’m Christian, so I have all the answers”.   

Asset-based community development logically follows from a relational definition of poverty. While a needs-based approach focuses on a community’s deficiencies that need to be fixed, usually by having outsiders come in to address them, an asset-based approach is built on the capacities and skills of the people actually living in the local community. The asset-based approach engages the local community in investing themselves and their resources into building the community, whereas the needs approach, denying basic community wisdom, removes the community from itself and leads the residents to believe they cannot bring about change themselves and that their well-being depends on the people coming in.

When we want to be part of a change for the better in a community, we ought to “start with living and by taking the small steps” Lance explained. He encouraged us to start looking at communities in relational terms, to view people and communities more holistically and first and foremost, to start within ourselves, by asking how we should change our own thinking and what we can do differently.