PovertyCure is an international coalition of over 250 partner organizations and 1 million individuals spanning 143 countries and counting. We produce films and educational resources advancing partnership-based solutions to poverty that challenge the status quo and champion the creative potential of the human person.
In our efforts to combat poverty worldwide, we too often fall into paternalistic, donor-recipient models that fail to distinguish short-term relief and long-term sustainable development. Oftentimes this approach can have tragic unintended consequences. Our call to solidarity with the poor means more than providing institutional assistance and aid. It demands a deeper view of the human person predicated on an appreciation for the creative capacity of each and every human person. Effective compassion situates those afflicted by poverty not as objects of our charity, but as subjects and protagonists of their own integral development. When we understand people as made in the image of God and endowed with his divine creative spark, it changes absolutely everything about how we understand poverty and development.
Its time to shift our focus from aid to enterprise, from paternalism to partnerships, from poverty alleviation to real human flourishing.