Of receivers of help to change agents: how mothers are redefining solutions to poverty

Before viewing only as help receivers, mothers in disadvantaged areas around the world are becoming agents of change, since the non -profit Catholic organization Unbound It gives them power to create paths out of poverty and serve as community leaders.

“Since our foundation in 1981, our mission, our reason for being, our approach from our founders, has been promoted by a central belief in letting the people we support make the decisions,” said Ashley Hufft, president and executive director of UNBOUNT, A CNA, Ewtn News English agency.

“This comes in part of his own faith, from Catholic social doctrine, but those who are closer to the problem … make decisions,” he said.

To further execute its mission, UNBOUND has implemented several programs, including Poverty Stopcht and Agents of Change, who maintain decision -making power in the hands of those who can “effectively improve their families”: mothers.

Poverty Stoplight

Unbound is “driven by empowerment, the dignity of the person (and) the establishment of goals,” said Hufft.

The organization advanced in this mission through an association with the non -profit organization Paraguayan Foundation and its accompaniment tool, PoverTy Stopcht.

“What Poverty Stopcht has done with this association is to bring us a tool … for families to help better what are the goals that relate to multidimensional poverty indicators, help establish their goals and help see the target achievement per finish,” Hufft explained.

Unbound works “in 16 countries and with more than a quarter of a million families. So the techniques and methods that work on a small scale do not necessarily work on that scale,” said Dan Pearson, director of International Programs of UNBOUNT, to CNA.

Until June, Unbound is the largest implementer of Poverty Stopcht, with more than 250,000 participants.

The first step of the program is that “the families themselves determine the dimensions of poverty in their area,” Pearson said. “We know that poverty is not just about money. It is a whole range of lack of opportunities and options.”

They determine the most relevant poverty indicators within their specific location. Families examine key indicators such as income, employment, housing, education and health to have a better idea of where they are.

Then, mothers and families themselves define what “poverty”, “extreme poverty” and “without poverty” mean, which Pearson described as a “revealing” step.

“We were surprised that most of the families we served had never had a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve. They see people rich on television and know that they will probably not get there,” Pearson said. “But where do they try to get there? How would that look tangible?”

“Then, the third step is self -evaluation,” Pearson continued. Families decide which areas of their lives are in “red” for extreme poverty, “yellow” for poverty or “green” for without poverty. “With up to 50 indicators in each location, families discovered that they were already green in some areas.”

After finishing the evaluation, families establish priorities. They are given a “life map” that shows the red, yellow and green points for each of the indicators, and they identify in which ones they want to focus now.

Then they receive a cash transfer from Unbound to help with their new established goals. “Being the certainty of some income on our part helps them plan in the longer term, because that decision -making horizon extends for weeks or months. And we make better decisions when we have a longer horizon,” Pearson said.

A June evaluation He found that, since the implementation of Poverty Stopcht in 2020, Unbound’s families “have registered about 300,000 achievements,” said Hufft. That is, their indicators have passed “extreme poverty without poverty, or poverty without poverty.”

Pearson attributed success to the fact that “the families themselves maintain control over the decisions that affect their lives.”

“Ultimately, families, and in particular mothers … are the experts,” he said.

Agents of Change

Mothers “are not doing it alone, in any way,” said Hufft.

UNBOUND offers direct guidance through their local teams that provide training, support and resources. But what is especially unique is that families participating in Unbound’s programs work together to help and encourage each other.

In 2001, Unbound began its model of small groups in India, gathering 25 to 30 mothers in groups that meet monthly to receive additional support. Now, there are more than 11,000 groups worldwide.

“When we started to see some success with PoverTy Stopcht at home level … we tried to find out how to take that to the community level, again, without sacrificing the control they have about these decisions,” Pearson said. “We look at those small groups of women and create a program called first Agents of Change”.

The program places women who know local challenges better in front of the search for solutions. They determine how funds are assigned to support community ideas that improve life and help break the cycle of poverty.

Unbound recently reserved a Innovation fund of $ 500,000 to finance more raising approved projects. 10 to 12 subsidies will be financed from $ 20,000 to $ 60,000, focused on addressing urgent needs identified by those who experience them.

“The difference, however, is that they do not present those proposals to us, neither our donors or our partners,” Pearson said.

“Our partners abroad work with the communities to select a representative of each country”, who then make up the committees received by the Program proposals. They decide which ones to finance, giving women “the experience of being on the financier side, of having to weigh priorities in competition within the community.”

The approved subsidies of the Innovation Fund will help thousands, including 600 families in San Marcos (Guatemala), who will receive access to drinking water thanks to the “Sustainable and Accessible Water Supply System program: Source of life”.

Another approved proposal is called “Disability is not inability”, developed in Tanzania, which is “equipping a technical center for children with special needs” to help 100 sponsored students and not sponsored by UNBOUND.

The future of Unbound

“We are barely scratching the surface of what is possible and our responsibility in non -profit international organizations is to find new ways to create a framework where the community itself can take control of its future,” said Hufft.

“One of our strategic objectives is the elimination of poverty. If you usually look at the state of our world and … the number of people living in extreme poverty, seems overwhelming,” said Hufft. But “what Unbound is showing, now with data thanks to Poverty Stopcht, is that it is possible.”

“When you take family by family, individual by individual, it is possible,” Hufft concluded.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.