Week 4: Teach a Man to Fish...Feed Him for a Lifetime

As our group has been meeting and narrowing down which social entrepreneur to work with, it has been tough because we are all on different pages for the most part about what would be interesting. Yet, on our last Tuesday morning we were lucky enough to stumble upon the website for "The Barnabas Network". This is an interesting group who works on making some of the less fortunate in our local community more self sufficient. They provide job training, they pick up and donate gently used furniture, they offer encouragement to these people, and so much more.
Growing up I always went to a place, such as a soup kitchen or homeless shelter and always had the mind set of just easing the people's immediate need, whether this be a plate of food or a place to sleep. Yet the interesting thing about this place, and so many other social organizations we are learning about, is that they really emphasize bringing the people some permanent change. Meeting immediate needs is usually the most obvious and most of the time the easiest. Yet the saying "Catch a man a fish-feed him for a day, Teach the man to fish-feed him for a life time" comes to mind when I learn about places like The Barnabas Network. I am glad to see that they have this idea, because this is what needs to happen in order to start working seriously on the millennium goal of poverty, not only in places like Africa-but in our own backyard as well.