Corbett and Fikkert continue to get me thinking in When Helping Hurts. Many of us involved in some sort of relief and development type ministry begin by looking for needs and then we seek to meet those needs. We see hungry people on the street and so we buy them a sandwich or we find someone suffering with a medical condition and so we bandage their wound or provide them with adequate medication.
These two men suggest that there is a better way to begin: Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). They posit that rather than looking first for needs in a community, one should look for resources. There are different ways of doing this but what is essential is discovering what a community has to offer (eg. the ability to cook, the ability to repair a bike, small amounts of money, etc.) and then finding ways for that community to put those assets to work. This builds confidence in the people, teaches them that they have talents and gets them to work at changing their condition rather than turning them into dependents who look to outsiders for aid.
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