CHE Boot-straps and Hold-backs

How come we still have CHE pastors asking us for financial assistance? Why are they just not doing some of the resource saving things that we’ve taught? We’ve had a chance to step back and reflect on these questions during this “holding” period for many things in the pandemic.  Overall, I have to say I feel a little bit let-down with how our pastors have done in implementing the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) principles for the three years we’ve been mentoring some of them.  Many of them are using the key ideas of “Integrating Physical and Spiritual” and “Prevention is better than Cure,” but we’re still not going very deep in the ideas of “Development is better than Aid” and “Multiplication/Replication.”  

Going through this time of COVID and the racism conversation in the US has given me some more to think about in terms of the whole Development/Aid/Upward Progress/Multiplication ideal.  At one point I had some clearer insight into how difficult it is to help people develop their resources when they have so much going against them.  It’s relevant to CHE because the whole idea of CHE is to teach people how to problem solve, prioritize, and have creativity with their local resources. The first activities we teach them to do are supposed to give them confidence that they can do significant things to solve their own problems. The expected result is then they can take off on an upward ascent to involving the whole community, eliminating problems, and building up resources and tools to have healthy and thriving households. One problem that has been highlighted for me is that many people have too many extra barriers to follow this path even when given the knowledge and vision.  

A model for irrigating a garden with left-over water

It reminds me of the examples pointing out how many predominately African-American neighborhoods in the US remain depressed despite the “freedom” to pursue the “American Dream.”  One historical perspective traces it to how African-American families didn’t receive benefit from the post WWII programs to help middle class families own homes and build credit. This gives some perspective for me on why we don’t have a lot of people in the Sahel having big success in just following the steps that seem accessible to us as middle class, well-educated, development-type workers.  

There are many factors that go into why people can or cannot afford to try different things in their life.  There are cost trade-offs for trying something new that are not always obvious from the outside.  There are other factors that block people from being able at the right time, especially in a farming society that has many other demands on time and finances.  

My heightened awareness of the struggles doesn’t take away my disappointment that the evangelists’ households haven’t been transformed into the community development agents that I’d like in the relatively short time we’ve been working with them. But it does encourage me to give more grace and seek better understanding when things don’t just always follow this upward path. Before I wouldn't have expected to see any similarities between CHE and a “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” mentality. But now I realize that also means I can’t expect people will have the same ability to succeed if they just try to follow the solid method we’ve laid out.

-- El Padre