3 Routes to Self-sufficiency

Imagine this: you live in a country with 60% unemployment…you constantly suffer from malaria, TB, and skin infections…the people around you won’t even talk to you, much less hire you.  How would you provide for yourself, or support your family?  That’s the situation that most of our 1000+ clients were facing when they started the CFA program and that hundreds of thousands of other HIV+ Kenyans are waking up to daily.  The good news is that these people CAN support themselves, and we see them doing it every day!  I firmly believe that helping people out of poverty goes hand-in-hand with caring for their physical condition and spiritual needs, and I’ve observed that self-sufficiency arrives in 3 distinct ways:

1. Strength of Body and Mind

Many of our clients have the skills to work a trade or the land to farm, but they can’t take advantage of these opportunities because they are physically weak, many times to the point of being confined to their bed for months on end.  For these people, our workers serve as the link to hospitals and clinics, making sure they get the right medication and then teaching how and why to take the drugs.  We help them to eat nutritious food and live in a sanitary way that prevents infections, and soon those who were bedridden are ready to work.

Other clients have lost their emotional strength and simply given up.  They think that with HIV they are destined to die tomorrow, and they see no reason to work, take medicine, or farm their land.  When our staff sit with them and teach them that they can live 15, 20, 25 years – that they can see their children grow up – they take advantage of every opportunity and turn their lives around.

From clients in each of these situations, we hear a constant refrain:  “I was so down, but now I am strong!”

2. New Skills to Apply

After their health has stabilized, some of our clients still don’t have a trade, land to farm, or any other source of income.  This is when the 18 empowerment seminars they experience can revolutionize their chances.  They learn skills like soap-making, cooking, and charcoal-making, and these simple trainings lead to an income-generating activity that puts them on the first rung of the ladder out of poverty.

3. Wise Strategy

For those clients who have a skill or who start running a small business, we often see situations where a person is working but their situation just isn’t improving.  That’s where this third route to self-sufficiency becomes so crucial.  Our staff and outside trainers spend time teaching the clients about business strategy, from product choices to marketing, and financial skills, like saving and budgeting.  We also connect them with sources of financing and credit.  Together, understanding and resources allow them to take their ventures to the next level.  Soon, they not only have the income to simply fend off starvation, but they are saving enough to send their kids to secondary school or move their families into better housing.

In each of these three situations, people don’t need much to get started.  I am continually amazed with how Kenyans facing poverty will strive and push and dig deep to do everything they possibly can to improve their situation.  More than anything, everyone wants to provide education and a future for their children, and they will go to amazing lengths for this.  Often, all we need to do is pick them up and get them to take the first step, then they are off and running!

Duncan Teaching

Great Leaders Serve

As we come to the conclusion of studying this book I want to testify that my life will never be the same.  This is because I have been able to learn a lot of things. First, I want to thank God for CARE for AIDS which has given us this opportunity to learn and grow.  I also thank God for Chick-fil-A for continually allowing us to use their materials which are very resourceful.  I promise that we aspire to grow like you!  Last but not least I would want to thank God for our own- the team leader -Justin Miller. I have never met a young person who is as concerned about the growth of his team members.  This man sleeps and dreams about our growth as Kenyans.

In this blog, I will not chase many rabbits, instead I will share with you just few things that the Lord has taught me through two books “Great leaders Serve” and “Integrity” by Dr. Henry Cloud.

1. Integrity is the sum of who I am inside, and who I am will always determine how I lead. Among other things, I also realized that as a leader with integrity, I need to be able to create and maintain trust.
2.  As a leader, I should work hard to gain the complete trust of the people I lead because by doing so, I capture their full hearts and following.
3. I realized that every leader should be looking back to check the kind of wake they leave behind.
4. I learned that those who succeed in life are those who realize that life is largely about solving problems.
5. I realized that for me to succeed as a leader, I must learn how to lose, because losing is part of the game.
6. Lastly, as a leader I should not make myself bigger than I am. The bigger I see myself, the more I remain entrenched in an underdeveloped perspective.  And ironically, the smaller I become, the closer I get to the fullness of life.

But these are not all; I have just shared few things that were very meaningful to my life.  Glory to God!

How could these points from Cornel affect the way you lead in your own life?  What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned about leadership in your experience?  Leave a comment for Cornel with your thoughts! 

New Team Member Announcement!

Over the years, God has brought some of the most talented individuals into the path of CARE for AIDS, and I am pleased to announce that we have added another tremendous team member to our U.S. staff, Kyle Flora. He will officially be joining our team next month, and he will assist us in extending our reach to new donors and ministry partners as well as by leveraging his background in media to help us develop in the area of communications. I will let him tell you more of his story once he gets settled, but I wanted to share some principles with you that were reinforced for me during this selection process.

Kyle interacting with our clients at Central Baptist in Kisumu

Over the last few months as we were making this hiring decision, I used a framework for this decision that I learned from Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Community Church. This model that he calls the “Four C’s of Team Selection” has had so many applications in my leadership journey, and once again, I found myself revisiting these criteria almost daily as I examined Kyle as a candidate. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this model, I think it will help you in making good hiring decisions in the future. To read more about this, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Bill Hybels’ book called Courageous Leadership.

The Four C’s of Team Member Selection:

Character – This one is first for a reason. It is so integral to the selection of a candidate, but it does not always receive the attention it deserves. The implications of lapses in this character will have a far greater impact than you can imagine. Does the candidate have a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and do they possess qualities such as integrity, humility, hard work ethic, etc.? These are traits that can be molded through good parenting or counseling, but we as leaders should not spend time trying to develop these in new hires. We need to select for character.

Competence – Our work is too important to settle for less than the best available talent. More importantly, we need to seek out proven talent and a track record of success. Despite being a smaller organization, we have set our sights high in this arena, and God has honored that by providing exceptional leaders with a wide array of gifts and abilities.

Chemistry – So much of your time is going to be spent with this new person that they need to have a positive effect on you. They should give you energy as opposed to draining you of it. They should encourage you and build you up as opposed to being critical or negative. The better that they can relate to you and the rest of the team, the easier it is to collaborate effectively and achieve more.

Calling – This is the newest addition to Bill’s criteria, but I believe it is so important. Without a calling, the rest of the criteria don’t matter. Can you detect a sense of purpose and passion that can only be from God? Especially in the work we do, our team members must be willing to make personal sacrifices. That includes time away from family and maybe even passing up more financially lucrative opportunities. Without the calling, it wouldn’t be long before a team member begins to lack motivation and passion, and as a result, their character, competence, and chemistry would all diminish with it.

Do you agree with this set of criteria? Would you assign more or less value to any of them?