Give a Man a Fish You Feed Him For a Day Teach a Man to Fish You Feed Him For a Life Time

Danisio DeLuz is a 32 year old with a wife and a baby living on the island of Sao Vicente in the country of Cape Verde 500 miles off the coast of West Africa. He was struggling with no job and no way of providing for his family.

Although Danisio had no job opportunities in front of him he was directed to a free course that would help him start his own business with a micro loan of $1,000. While that may not seem like a lot in America it is more than enough in Africa.

The free course helped Danisio focus on the skills he already had. In his previous work experience Danisio expressed a skill he had in making fiberglass. It was something he already knew how to do and loved doing it. The course helped him understand how to incorporate his already known skills into his own business. They also helped him see that while there were already companies on his island that made fiberglass he could create his new business in fiberglass boat repairs, which his island sorely needed.

After completing five week coarse Danisio created his small business called "Fibribot Conserti" right off the harbor with the money from his micro loan. Within one year he had paid back the micro loan and within two years he became one of the biggest boat repair shops in the country.

Danisio is just one of the examples of how the right kind of humanitarian aid can go a long way.

U.S. foreign aid has been judged by its intentions, not its results

James Bovard wrote a article on the CATO Institute website expounding how the United States may be a very generous giver when it comes to humanitarian aid yet the results are discouraging over the years.

I was frustrated after reading this article because it suggested that the U.S. foreign aid doesn’t help and will never help. James Bovard needs to change his perspective a little. The reality is that U.S. foreign aid helps millions but is not historically very effective in solving long-term problems. Part of the ineffectiveness happens because we are not providing struggling countries with the correct types of aid.

Well-intentioned programs such as the U.S. Foreign Aid - “Food for Peace” attempts to help the hungry but at the same time only provides a crutch to those in need. As the saying goes “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day - Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.” While the momentary relief provided by most humanitarian aid programs is beneficial, we must find a way to permanently fix the problems and enable people to become more self-sufficient

Unfortunately the problems will not be solved just by government foreign aid. Individuals must also feel the need to contribute time and money to help others. Some people rationalize that they do not want to contribute to humanitarian projects because they read articles like James Bovard’s focusing on their ineffectiveness. We all need to do what we can to help others but individually we should be wise in contributing to programs that are working toward long-term solutions to the problems.

My name is Jared Lambert. I have created this blog to try and create an awareness to the needs of welfare for the people of West Africa. I have lived in parts of West Africa over the years working with different corporations on their humanitarian aid efforts. Through these experiences I have developed a love and admiration for the wonderful but extremely poor people of West Africa. I have focused the majority of my efforts on a group of islands called Cape Verde. Which are made up of 10 islands about 250 miles off the west coast of Africa. Nine of the islands are inhabited and there are a little over 400,000 people scattered among the islands. The islands are very diverse. The capital city is Praia (which is Portuguese for "beach") and about 115,000 people or one-fourth of the population live in Praia. The smaller islands are where the poorest people live. One island, named Fogo, which is basically a volcano in the middle of the island with some villages around the edges. The people on Fogo and the other outlying islands live a very primitive lifestyle. Most of the men on the remote islands rely on fishing to make a living. The average income is about the equivalent of $2 U.S. per day - just barely enough to stay alive. The people of Cape Verde are in desperate need of ways to help improve their employment skills and ways to produce income.

So, the purpose of this blog is not to create an awarness to the need of humanitarian aids, but instead create an awarness of the humanitarian aids that are teaching those in need how to live self sufficiently. While living in Africa I came to a realization that the humanitarian aid given to the people in need were merely helping sustain them on a day to day basis. It was not a solution to the problem. In fact in many instances it only created a dependency on the aid. It was just after this realization that I came home to America and started my own charity that would use its funds to teach them how to gain employment or help them start their own small business. The second part of the funds generated from the Charity would go towards helping them plant Prosupis Trees to add vegetation to the islands and provide them seeds to the knowledge necessary to plant and grow vegetables from their own gardens. The intent is to help them become more self-sufficient and give them some resources and knowledge to better help themselves.

If we could spread the knowledge around that by simply changing the way we give humanitarian aid rather than how much of it we give, we would see a great change sweeping through the world by helping others help themselves. Throughout this blog I will be writing about all the ways others have found to give smarter to the needs of the people in third world countries, and how we all could give in better ways to the humanitarian efforts throughout the world.