I found out about this book from our India team that is reading the book in conjunction with the online class offered by the Chalmers Institute. The good folks at Chalmers are the ones who put the book out.
This is one of the two best books I have read this year (I will review the other soon). Having worked cross-culturally and with the poor for years now I intrinsically know some best practices and try to keep things like dependency out of the picture. But this book pulls together some very good new thoughts on the subject.
The book begins with a story of the author saving a woman's life (a former witch doctor living in a slum) by purchasing $8.00 worth of penicillin for her. It's a great story with a great ending. But then he goes on to explain later in the book how that was a big mistake that hurt him and the community he was trying to help.
I was not able to find fault in what transpired until he unpacked the wrong in it and how it could have been done in a way to build up the community. The book is filled with teaching stories that change your thinking on how to help.
One of the most helpful ideas in the book is the realization that how I would define poverty as a Western person not living in poverty is very different than how a person who lives in poverty would define it. A major problem is people not understanding what is broken and then still trying to fix it.
The premise is poverty is broken relationship and we all suffer from it.
I found so many of the principles transcend working with the poor and are good practices for anyone working cross-culturally.Pick up this book and read it. You won't be disappointed.
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