Ask a westerner to make a change for the good in the Developing World and the first thing they want to do is build a building or buy some medicine.
That’s how we problem solve best, with our credit card, or so we think,But the truth is solutions to some of the really challenging problems facing the third world, can’t be simply bought.
In fact infusing huge sums of cash often exacerbates the problem.Family planning is one of the most challenging issues on our planet. In the slum environments where we focus our efforts, it is absolutely crucial that we help women gain control over their reproductive lives.
We can give build as many schools, fund as many feeding programs and give as many microloans as we want, but we’ll never catch up the unending river of unwanted pregnancies that continue to burden women and their families with more children then they can possible care for with the meager resources they possess.
All the best NGO’s recognize this and devote significant resources to solving this problem. But like all good NGO’s, their solutions involve buying things: clinics, condoms ,birth control pills and depo-provera.