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The Heart of the Matter:
Holistic Values-Based Community Development
Dr. Jim De Vries
Senior Vice President of Programs, Heifer International
Delivered at Wheaton College on February 23, 2007
Introduction
It’s a pleasure to be here and to address you on this important occasion. I appreciate your personal interest in the issues of hunger and justice and Wheaton College’s commitment to make such issues an important part of the curriculum and learning and action experience. I also appreciate the opportunity to share with you about the experience of Heifer International and the lessons we have learned about being a good neighbor over more than 6 decades.
I am not going to spend a lot of time reviewing the many hunger statistics which are now widely known. It is estimated that there are now about 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty and most are living in rural areas and are depend on agriculture for their food and livelihood. While some progress has been made in reducing the number of hungry, recently this trend has been reversed, largely due to the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS.
The fact that one out of 10 children will die before the age of five is amazing and I would call it a sin in light of the fact that we have the technology and even the financial resources to prevent most of these deaths.
Heifer in Nepal
Instead of focusing on these statistics which can be overwhelming and disempowering, let me tell you about my recent visit to Nepal. There I participated in Heifer International’s hallmark activity: the passing on of the gift from one group of women to another.
Neighbor helping neighbor Heifer style. Let me take you along for a moment. In Chitwan about 5 hours out of Kathmandu we are met by a large crowd including over 100 women dressed in bright saris sitting on mats. The groups are easily identified by the fact that all members wear the same “uniform” sari.
After formal introductions, we are blessed by the placing of a red ‘tika’ mark on our forehead and leys of bright flowers around our neck. A traditional oil lamp is lit as a sign of hope and worship and we are informed that the rows of women represent the Sahara and Chhimeki women’s groups. Sahara will today pass on the fifth generation of goats to Chhimeki. The ceremony will be witnessed by the group, which will after about 18 months receive the sixth generation pass on. This is sustainability and program expansion and neighborliness in action!
The Sahara women then sing a cornerstone song accompanied by a drummer and a graceful interpretive dancer. The song is their own composition with practical advice such as “feed your animals well and give them a clean place to sleep.” “All of our blood is red so let’s not think about caste”; “girls and boys all need education.” “Participate in the meetings and save money each month.”
Finally the moment comes when goats are passed to the POG recipients. The joy in the room is palpable. There is much laughter, and pride shows on the faces of the Sahara women. Accompanied and assisted by husbands and children 25 women pass two goats from their arms to those of a member of the Chhimeki group. But before doing so the women exchange flower leys and rub the red ‘tika’ powder on each others face.
The value of the goats passed on is more than what one woman can hope to earn in a year! In addition to the goats all of the women also voluntarily pass on small packages of feed, fodder seeds and deworming tablets
Next on the program is a gift of rice to Heifer Nepal to assist with the girl child scholarship program. The pile of rice which I estimated at about 140 lbs is the result of daily “saving” of a handful of rice by each group member. It is inspiring to see women of such meager means still able to reach out and help their neighbors in need.
Sustainable Development
This brings me to the fundamental question I want to address today: What results in sustainable development? What brings about the type of transformation I witnessed in Nepal and which we have seen in so many countries? How can Heifer be a good neighbor to the world?
Jeffrey Sachs in his recent book The End of Poverty asserts that the major factors which have limited success are the structural challenges such as lack of access to markets and modern production technology and lack of dollars. His answer is the “big push” which will get people over the proverbial hump to sustainability. William Easterly offers a counterpoint, noting that large schemes have almost universally failed and that little progress has been made after spending billions. Instead he asserts we need local solutions based on the dynamism of individuals [p.368].
A recent study by the Economist and the Copenhagen Consensus project on ending hunger and malnutrition also concluded that investments in technology are the most effective means to increasing the income of hungry people [Economist.com May 6, 2004]. The Gates Foundation in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation has also decided that technology is the solution by launching what is being referred to as a ‘green revolution” for Africa [press release].
While technology such as improved genetics in the form of livestock or seeds can play a part, I will argue that the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. In other words, sustainable development depends on personal and community transformation. At its core are the values and attitudes of people or their spirituality. In my opinion, spirituality is the widely neglected essential key to sustainable change. Here I am not referring to religion but rather to the spirituality that is common to all people and is expressed in their beliefs, view of what is right and wrong, their culture and their view of the transcendent. Kurt Ver Beek [Development in Practice, 10, pp 31-34, 2000] refers to spirituality as a development taboo. His review of 6 years of development literature found that “the subject conspicuously under-represented in practice” even though it is clear that it is a major force directing people’s relationships and actions.
I have seen that there is a lot of wisdom among the farmers we serve, many of who are illiterate. When I asked a Muslim farmer in Jordan why Christians in the US might want to donate a cow to a farmer such as himself in Jordan, he stated: “ I think it is because of the love God has placed in the hearts of people.” There is a real and significant difference between someone receiving assistance from the government or a bank and receiving that assistance from a neighbor.
Let me share with you how Heifer’s perspective of development has changed over the last 6 decades. This change parallels those of the wider development community.
Heifer’s Values Based Holistic Community Development model
Heifer has come to realize that sustainable change depends on a very fundamental and deep change in people and the communities they share. It depends on their beliefs and values. Paulo Freire the South American educator in the 70’s called for the liberation of the oppressed not by someone else but by themselves as the primary actors in their own transformation [Pedagogy of the Oppressed] The Bible calls for people to be transformed by the renewing of their minds [Rom 12:2] or to be born again. This type of change is fundamentally spiritual.
In the early 90’s Heifer decided to make a memorable list of the key concepts of sustainable and just development, which we have since referred to as our Cornerstones. Each of you will hopefully have collected a brochure listing and defining what are now Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones. One essential cornerstone which we added in the mid-nineties is Spirituality. These Cornerstones reflect our understanding that development, which in our case is more accurately called transformation, is a holistic process. It involves the whole person and the whole community or group to which the person belongs.
We have based this view of holistic change on our view that all people and even the groups to which they belong can be seen from 5 aspects or facets which make up one whole organism. While for analysis one can look at the different aspects, one cannot affect change in only one aspect of the person or community. The whole is inevitably affected. Thus change is an organic process, not a linear or reductionistic process.
The following illustrates our view of people in terms of five key aspects.
The body represents the physical aspect. This refers to one’s physical status or well being and is directly related to nutrition, income, clean water, medical care, etc. In terms of Heifer, this is where we consider improving income and nutrition through the provision of livestock and related improvements in the farming system, water supply, cook stoves, etc.
The head represents the mental aspect. This of course refers to the person’s knowledge and skills. Heifer works with people to educate them in new technology, but also in good accountability, group leadership, planning and evaluation, etc. Knowledge, skills and competencies are critical to change.
The hands represent the social aspect. People are social beings and relationships are critical to an individuals well being and to the group. Significant sustainable change requires group effort and group support. Heifer therefore spends significant resources on strengthening groups and only assists people in the context of a group.
The heart represents the spiritual aspect. This focuses on a person’s beliefs both about themselves and about the transcendent and is often referred to as their culture. It represents what is of value to them and what they consider to be right. Common beliefs and values bind groups together to work effectively toward a common goal. This Spirituality is a tremendous resource or asset. Heifer respects diverse cultures and beliefs, but at the same time we recognize that a change in values as well as such things as ethical leadership and strong commitments to equity and justice is critical to the achieving sustainable change. This very fundamental aspect has been neglected in international development work but has in the last few years begun to emerge as a critical component.
The fifth aspect is the feet which represent the environment and the fact that people are integrally a part of nature or creation. In a very practical sense, people are what they eat, drink, grow, raise, live and breathe. One of the drawbacks of much work to protect the environment has been to neglect the people who are an integral part of that environment and the main actors in terms of influencing their immediate surroundings. Thus for Heifer environmental stewardship or what we in practice refer to as agro-ecology is a critical component of any action in a community.
Again let me stress that while it is helpful to think about each aspect and what actions and values it entails in terms of our transformative work, they are in fact only components of a living whole. To change one is to change the whole and often it is impossible to change one aspect without deliberately affecting change in several others.
This holistic change perspective thus leads us to see change as transformation. Changes in values lead to changes in behavior and vice versa and in turn these affect living conditions, relationships and a person’s spirituality. In our experience, it is the deeper changes, the changes of the heart which drive and sustain the transformation process. People’s spirituality which is expressed in their values, ethics, motivation and relationships is the neglected factor in development largely because as noted earlier, development has been considered a matter of income and material well being.
Based on this understanding of people and the transformation process, Heifer has developed the Values based Holistic Community development model. We decided to illustrate this in the form of a living organism, a tree.
The roots of the tree embody the cultural and organizational values of both Heifer International and our partners. Common shared beliefs [spirituality] serve as the foundation and anchor for our collaborative work to end poverty, hunger and environmental degradation.
The soil and nutrients represent the efforts of donors, partners, volunteers, support staff and others whose resources help us grow and reach out to families and the communities where they live.
The trunk symbolizes Heifer’s participatory and appreciative approach – an orientation to our work that provides solid support for families through sustainable small farm enterprises and community development.
The branches signify how we do our work as an organization – the holistic, people-centered techniques and diversity of methods that we use to achieve our objectives.
The fruit illustrates the outcomes and impact of our collaborative efforts … the tangible and intangible differences being made in the lives of families and communities. Within the fruit are the seeds for replicating change in society and nations.
More from Nepal – the field
Let me illustrate the process by sharing some more detail from our program in Nepal. I shared with you how the women are passing on the gift, as required by Heifer. But motivated and guided by their spirituality, they have gone well beyond by passing on medicine and some feed as well as collecting rice so they can sponsor the girl child to go to school. In addition they have made a number of voluntary investments in the community as well as in helping each other and their neighbors.
Earlier during our visit, one of the members Ms. Mona Shrestha of the Narayani women’s group had explained the changes the group experienced. “Before we had no savings. We had no identity but were only known by our husbands’ name. We had a lot of sickness and fear. We avoided those belonging to the untouchable caste. We did not invest in the education of girls because we knew when they married they’d “go away”.
After the training and eventually receiving the goats “we got united and were inspired to take the ants and honeybees as our examples. Our incomes have improved; we get our children immunized and practice reproductive health. We have eliminated the caste system and sponsor children of the ‘untouchables’ to go to school. We plant trees and use manure to improve our gardens. We have cleaned up our village and we have formed a children’s group which received poultry and has already passed on the gift. And we received the ‘Women in Livestock Development Award’. This has added to our savings, which allows us to borrow money when we need it and even to lend it to those outside of our group as long as one of our members guarantees repayment.” The group has become a force to be reckoned with in rooting out corruption and domestic violence.
As the example from Nepal shows, Heifer’s intervention was primarily to train the group in our cornerstones values, participatory planning and animal management and then to provide the goats with the agreement they would pass on the gift.
But Dr. Shubh N. Muhato, Heifer’s Country Director is quick to point out that the livestock are not the most important thing. “The most important thing is cornerstone training.” It “transforms” communities and the families which make up the “social action” groups which are at the center of Heifer’s work. It helps develop a sense of hope and a commitment to work together for change. It builds the values which are critical to sustainable change.
The result is a holistic transformation. The women and the community are not the same as before and are literally transformed. I believe the fact that it is neighbors helping and teaching neighbors is critical. This type of assistance or neighborliness goes straight to the heart. These women are helping others to be transformed; something which no outside agency can do.
I could give you examples from Tanzania, Albania, Ecuador, and many other places where we work. The process works in various cultures because it builds on that culture and respects it at the same time as it asks the group to examine their values and see how they are affecting change in their community. Years ago Paulo Freire referred to this as conscientization or a deep awareness building process. This is best done in the context of working together as neighbors to bring about a tangible change such as starting to keep a good dairy cow or reintroducing alpacas to the Andes.
The Future
Heifer has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and we believe that growth will continue. So what about the future?
First, we will definitely continue to change and adapt while staying with our basic mission of ending hunger and poverty and caring for the earth. We are serious about being a learning organization which to us means to learn from those we serve, to learn form our colleagues and to learn from our own experience. As the time line showed, we have made many changes over the decades while at the same time retaining our core identity and mission.
One thing we have learned from our participants is that they have tremendous resources and a will to change. So, our job is growing more and more into a process of accompanying them in their transformation process. We have learned that they are at the center of the transformation process, and that they are not helpless souls waiting out there for someone to come and rescue them. We are tremendously strengthened by the strength we find among those we work with.
Another thing we have learned is that the reason many are poor and hungry is that they face major systemic obstacles such as inequity in prices and access to resources, international trade barriers and subsidies, lack of support for such basics as education and health care, and lack of political access or power. For Heifer this will mean greater engagement with policies and practices which affect development. We are currently developing a whole new programming thrust to address policy and systems change. For example in Kenya we are helping farmers to get access for their milk products to the national market. In the USA we are working to help farmers have the right to market their livestock products directly to consumers.
I’m sure you are familiar with the now common adage of “give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and your feed him or her for a day.” We realize we must go beyond just teaching to making sure the person has access to a pond from which they can catch healthy fish in a sustainable way. So, Heifer supplies the livestock and not just the training. However, to be sustainable the pond must have access to a good water supply and we cannot have people draining the pond at the same time as we are trying to fill it. Thus we work not just with one farmer, but with a community. In addition, taking the analogy a step further, to get income, the person must be allowed to sell the fish at a fair price and cannot compete with highly subsidized imports of fish. This means that Heifer and others have to be active in changing systems which militate against the small scale producers.
Another component of this policy and systems emphasis is to affect other organizations which are major and minor players in international development. Thus for example we are advising the Gates foundation on how they can effectively spend their dollars in the livestock sector. We are also working with University of CA Davis to see how best to help people avoid full blown AIDS through good nutrition and community based health care. We are also mentoring other organizations in the Heifer approach and hope to do much more of this in order to widen our impact.
Finally, we recognize that such change requires public support and action. Thus another new direction for Heifer is to expand our public education work outside the USA. We have had a significant public education program in the US for many years, including experiential learning at several Learning Centers around the country. Educating the public and decision makers is important globally as they create the policies which either hinder or support sustainable development. They also are the consumers of the products produced by our participants. And their actions among other things have a strong impact on the environment.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by showing you a brief video about our work with one group of people who have for years suffered tremendous discrimination and marginalization. The Roma people often referred to as gypsies, who we are working with in several countries in Europe. I believe you will see that transformation and being a good neighbor is much more than providing goats or teaching a person to fish. The matter of the heart is really the heart of the matter.
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