Family Futures

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onfronting

amily

overty

Valuing the work of families

Human relations are unique and family relationships matter. This

foundational premise was developed over several years and the

approach has recently been confirmed.

Fertility regulation using the Billings Ovulation Method of

natural family planning (not the rhythm method), which is a well-

researched, scientific and reliable method:

• recognizes that a decision regarding pregnancy is a joint decision

involving both husband and wife

• raises the status of women, as they begin to speak out about

their fertility and infertility cycle

• helps men to understand their wives and become more

interested in them

• provides an instrument of dialogue between husband and wife

through a chart on which women mark their fertility patterns.

SERFAC worked with couples on aspects like budget, income-

expenditure and saving, and taught them to maintain small bank

accounts. These were additional tools for dialogue between husband

and wife on economic areas and the well-being of the entire family.

It became clear that mere economic alleviation and providing short-

lived schemes offered only temporary respite. Poverty alleviation must be

addressed, keeping in mind long-term and lasting goals. This approach

calls for a belief in human capacity, which has its genesis in the family.

cal growth of children due to poor food, nutrition, hygiene

and housing. Poverty limits the resources needed to eat well

and live a life befitting human dignity. Being malnourished or

poorly nourished, members of such families are unable to build

resistance to epidemics and contagious diseases which create ill

health and pandemics, in turn leading to forms of social isola-

tion and further increasing victimization and social drifting.

Family poverty often leads to children being involved in

household work and outside employment so as to augment the

family’s income; looking after siblings; looking after cattle; and

doing heavy chores because the mother has to go out to work

in fields, the construction industry or other such semi-skilled

or unskilled areas. This ‘need’ often causes poor academic

performance, and participation in school life is inhibited as the

children juggle home chores and studies. Most often they are

forced to study by the light of a kerosene lamp, in a neighbour’s

house or under a street light. Such children often lag behind in

their school work, give up and/or drop out.

Poverty affects the family’s entire environment. There is

more to poverty than having a low income. Poverty affects and

inhibits the social, cognitive, emotional and physical develop-

ment of children, and in adults it does not allow for adequate

parenting. Hence the inability of parents to raise children

and respond to developmental needs and tasks. Lack of basic

amenities blunts their capacity for any form of engagement.

This shortcoming is transmitted to successive generations

and continues as a vicious cycle if it is not interrupted with

appropriate interventional measures which will need to be

combined with psychological and emotive counselling.

These are the essential constituents of poverty. Most

countries have not identified, sufficiently comprehended or

contextualized effective policies to combat, confront and

eradicate poverty. There seems to be little political will and

courage to really confront poverty. Yet, in all countries it is

families who subsidize the cost of democracy, as the adults

enthusiastically cast their vote hoping that it will lead to better

days in their lives and for their children.

To be poor is to be ‘classified’ as unimportant and to be

made to feel unimportant.

The Service and Research Institute on Family and Children

(SERFAC) believes that:

• a family-centric framework for poverty eradication must

place people and their human security at the heart of the

development process

• the process must focus on the family as a social unit and

engage in a strategically unified and multidimensional

approach covering the whole gamut of relationships.

Based on insights into ground realities gained from observa-

tions made during various field experiences in India and other

Asian countries, SERFAC was established with the conviction

that the poor can change their lives for the better if they are

given adequate emotional and physical support for working

towards this goal.

Several experimental initiatives took place over a decade,

trying to identify possible and probable reasons for poverty in

the family. Among the major findings was that lack of stability

in the marriage and family due to abuse, and different forms of

violence in the home between husband and wife and parents

and children, resulted in the breakdown of family relation-

ships at several levels and in different ways. Both causes and

consequences were intertwined and intricately enmeshed.

Any solution had to address the complexities of the problem

and simultaneously address its consequences, giving priority

to the source of the problem(s).

A unified and integrated approach helped to identify an

entry point as well as its branch areas/ramifications, which

pointed to the need for fertility regulation. Such an approach

also clarified the role of parenthood. It took into account the

need for gender balance and recognition of the wife as woman

Image: SERFAC

The Billings Ovulation Method has helped to raise the status of women and

enabled family planning through joint decisions