101 / 210
[
] 99
C
onfronting
F
amily
P
overty
and partner. Further, it fostered dialogue among family
members, especially between husband and wife. It initiated
change in family management and prioritized the needs for
educating children, work management, budgeting of money,
decent clothing, healthcare and socialization of children.
This approach called for designing appropriate modules
for programmes, assessing the manner and method in
which poverty eradication was being addressed at different
levels in the family, and evaluating it against the param-
eters stated above.
Questions were then raised about the meaning of develop-
ment. Who controls the destiny of humans and who controls
development moneys? Where does development start, end,
exist? More basically, what do we understand and imply by
development? Is it mere economic well-being, commodifica-
tion of life, market economies, trade, excellent infrastructures,
shopping malls and material benefits, or does it need to go
beyond commodification and materialism? How do policy-
makers understand development? Is structural development
spoken of and made synonymous with human development?
The goal of each different strand that constitutes devel-
opment, such as technological development, structural
development and economic development, needs to be iden-
tified. Economic development cannot be an end in itself;
it needs to be used towards sustainable human develop-
ment. As long as inadequate understanding and lopsided
approaches continue, political will cannot be galvanized or
maximized and poverty will remain. Millions of dollars will
continue to be spent on different forms of development and
the problem will be addressed from the wrong platforms and
by the wrong voices.
An evaluation of three years of this approach indicated that
many marriages showed signs of stability. Decisions on most
areas of family life were joint ones. Couples manifested a new
degree of confidence because:
• they held the keys to their fertility and could plan their
families through joint decisions and shared responsibility
in family life
• they were empowered to plan, space and nurture the
newborn baby until he/she was old enough to take care of
his/her little world before the next baby arrived
• the dialogue between husband and wife was reflected in
almost every area of their life
• child spacing was a choice willingly adopted and freely
followed, with no side effects or complications
• the couple was happy and the family was in control of its
own destiny with the members contributing to their own
human development process.
The connection between family breakdown and poverty
transmission was a focus of SERFAC’s Millennium
Development Projects in rural areas. With the insights and
experiences gained over a decade, I trained co-workers in
understanding social problems and the strain and systems of
poverty created by social and relationship violations. These
social violations in turn become feeders to existing systems
of poverty and family breakdown. We continued to focus
on the family, primarily the couple, over a period of time
and tried to understand what poverty was doing to them,
the effect of want, inability and deprivation on their lives,
and how they could emerge from it. It was also important to
help them understand how borrowing money creates a cycle
of debt. We showed them how dowries paid by taking loans
set a debt trap for young couples. Through this and similar
means, we were able to minimize borrowing and wipe out
the dowry system from two villages with a total of 420 fami-
lies. Gambling was considerably reduced and so was the use
of alcohol by men.
Many young couples were taught the Billings Ovulation
Method of natural family planning and were happy in their
married life. They began to appreciate the value of content-
ment and unity.
This work was demanding but worthwhile. Our persever-
ance was time-tested. Funds were almost absent because
the family is unimportant to and does not find a place in
anyone’s or any agency’s agenda. Every agency funds the
measurable and the visible, but work with families most
often cannot be measured and results are not tangible.
Despite these severe limitations, changing social climates
and the lack of understanding from all sections of society
which policymakers and religious groups experience,
SERFAC took up the challenge and, on the basis of over 25
years of work, asserts that the family-centric approach is
the most effective way of poverty alleviation.
SERFAC has established three basic principles for family-
centric poverty alleviation:
• marriage stability
• gender equality
• family well-being: child spacing; supporting the care
and positive socialization of children; health, education,
training, employment/work; elimination of discrimi-
nation against the girl child and elimination of sex
selection, female foeticide, abortion and infanticide;
intergenerational equity and equality; and care and
protection of the elderly.
To establish a positive vision for future families, SERFAC has
coined the phrase ‘Family: the missing link in human develop-
ment’. Contrary to undertakings which propound the theory
that only the community and larger institutions are partici-
pants in the development process, SERFAC believes:
• in investment in human capital and that the family is the
first experience of one’s humanity
• that the family is the first and indispensable line of
social protection
• that the family is the foundation from which poverty can
be effectively minimized and eliminated.
These elements are profoundly essential to human devel-
opment which is sustainable and effective, and need to be
incorporated in any developmental process.
The importance of the family in poverty eradication is
summed up by the International Year of The Family paper
‘Families, Agents and Beneficiaries of Social Education and
Development’
2
which says: “Seeing families as key actors in
social development encapsulates a future orientation that
places valuing of children and future generations as the central
objective for the elimination of poverty and inequality.”