The 'why' behind the initiative...

“To Whom Much is Given, Much Will Be Required.”

Often, we lose sight of the fact that many of us have received a lot in life, and we tend to want more. Not being satisfied with our lot makes us blind to how much we have been given, and our desire for more material things outweighs our need for them.

Over the years, I have practiced a principle I learned from my parents’ actions, which is helping those poorer and less fortunate than ourselves. My parents always reminded me of this powerful quote: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Before I founded this organization, it dawned on me that I had been supplying fish despite having the tools available to teach others how to fish for themselves. What I really needed was to consider alternative ways to practice the principle of helping others become self-sufficient rather than simply lending a helping hand.

I am reminded of the story of Rejimon from a village in Kerala, India. Rejimon does various jobs around the village and usually knocks on doors to find jobs he can help with. When overseas-based people return to the village to visit family, they often invite Rejimon and the many likes of him to their houses to assist with any repairs. On many of these occasions when I was in the village and needed Rejimon’s help around the house, I have often given him one-off gifts of a few hundred rupees ($10 USD), but my relationship with Rejimon always ended there until I would visit again. Flying back from my last visit, I realized his situation was not changing, nor was I involved in his life enough to learn more about his family and circumstances. In a way, I felt good having done a noble act by giving him some money; however, this did little more than give me comfort for a few days.

That got me thinking. If I were to try understanding Rejimon’s life situation a little better, perhaps I could find ways to help him help himself. Maybe if he had a car, he could run a taxi business and pay for his family’s needs, or maybe I could get him a fruit stall that might allow him to earn a decent, steady income, paving the way for a better life. In turn, this would allow him to send his children to better schools and get educated, thus improving generations of a family that has been steeped in poverty.

If I could help Rejimon with the initial means of earning more than what he does scrounging for odd jobs by way of a zero-interest loan, this would make him accountable to a project and process that provides him and his family with a better life, allowing them to get out of this cycle of poverty. Once Rejimon has repaid his loan, he would pay forward to others the help that was afforded to him. The idea from the onset is always to put back into the program those collected repayments.

The collected loan repayments could also be invested on his behalf and used to help another child get a full education; this would be someone who would also hopefully come back to the network in the future and help others break the cycle of poverty. That way, we create a vast network of people who were once helped and proceeded to help others in the same situation. As a result, multiple lives are changed, and multiple lives continue changing.

If I did this alone, I could make a small impact on a few lives. Though, if I could get a bunch of people to join in, we could make a bigger impact. With that in mind, if we get a multitude of people to take part in our mission, anything is possible. Together, we can make a big difference for many lives and generations to come.

Joe K