One
team we have been working with for four years just completed the transition of
moving from an NGO model to a business model.
Let me state upfront that an NGO model for blessing communities and
reaching people in Jesus’ name is a great model. My research shows that the NGO model is
equally effective in reaching the unreached as a BAM or B4T model. Nonetheless
if we are working in an NGO we need to ensure that we are providing services
for the community which are bringing benefits to the people that the people
want, and not benefits that we (the foreigner) believe they want, or worse,
providing benefits that simply make us feel good about what we are doing.
An
example of this has to do with my friend Saleh. Saleh lives in Dakar and works
as a taxi driver. Dakar is a Wolff and
French speaking city. I speak neither of
these languages and for as much as I travel my sign language is not great
either. We met one day when I was in a
hurry to get to a meeting. Saleh was
sitting nearby in his cab listening as I was standing on the street and trying
to get two taxi drivers to understand my English. He called out to me in
British accented English, “Can I drive you?
I know where that is.” I think
we’ve all experienced the heavenly sound of our native tongue when in a foreign
country so I immediately deserted these two francophone drivers for Saleh.
As
we drove off we began to get to know one another. I explained I was in town for a week of
meetings with the director of an NGO I mentor.
Saleh seemed as happy to talk to someone in English as I was. He told me his story–how he grew up in a
rural Muslim village. He’d come to the
city to study, learned English, had two young daughters and recently completed
his MBA. At this point I exclaimed “MBA!
What are you doing driving a taxi!”
Surprised at my outburst, he replied, “Well sir, there’s no jobs here
and I need to feed my family.” I told
him how much I appreciated him taking time to learn my language and how rare it
was to find a taxi driver I could actually talk to. By the time we reached my
destination, I asked Saleh to meet me every morning that week. Partly I wished to share the Lord with him
and partly as I did not wish to deal with the language barrier.
For two days he drove me around and we discussed a variety of spiritual and
non-spiritual matters. On the 3rd
day we were riding together with Chuck, the director of the NGO. As we were driving I introduced Chuck to Saleh. I then asked, “Saleh, Chuck here runs a large
NGO. They have projects in several West
African countries. They build schools
for your people, provide clean water, build and staff clinics and hospitals,
plus they also give medicine and food to needy people. Saleh, I am thinking of investing in one of
these projects, which one of these projects do you think is needed most by your
people?”
Saleh
paused, looked at me in the rear view mirror and said quite pointedly, “NONE OF
THESE.” Not surprised, but curious I
asked, “What do you mean?” He continued,
“Sir, you asked what do we need. What we need are jobs. For you see if we have jobs, we can get for
ourselves, food, water, medicine. We can
build and operate our own schools and clinics.
If we have jobs, we can meet our own needs. You Western imperialists
come and give us what you want us to have. You think more of yourselves than of
us. We appreciate what you do for us,
but we do not respect you. If you want
our respect, help us to be able to care for ourselves. Help us to create jobs so we can work for
ourselves.”
What do you believe is the greatest need of a human being?
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