Our friend and teammate Sushila in Nepal recently returned from a group visit she took to some of our affiliated Philippines communities to garner some first-person experience in the mechanics of The Outreach Process, and engage in some brainstorming about how to best implement it back home.
“The process is long, the work is hard, and outcomes can be slow in coming, but having Outreach’s experience and expertise will indeed free people from poverty.”
“NGOs are continuously working in Nepal with different development models to eradicate poverty here. If development workers in Nepal had followed Outreach’s approach from the start, our country and people would be much further along in their self-sustaining community development efforts.
“Long ago, I internalized a credo that guides me in my work: ‘Go to the people, live among them, plan with them — start with what they know. Build on what they have with an integrated approach. Don’t conform, transform. Don’t offer relief, offer release.’ With the blessing of my angels from Outreach Philippines, I learned that training alone is not sufficient; one needs to act.
“My time with the team at Outreach Philippines gave me a good opportunity to study how to implement the Outreach Process in my home country of Nepal; how to encourage community members to act on their issues and reduce their dependency. People in our country hesitate to speak out about the problems they face because they are not able to raise their voices loud enough to access those institutions that offer support and resources. Without confidence in themselves, instead of acting to solve their issues themselves, they wait for help and support from the outside.
“Until Outreach expanded into Nepal, we lacked an issue-based, action-oriented program, and when other organizations finished development projects in communities, they left, leaving the people there as dependent as they were in the beginning. After my time immersed in communities who have worked with Outreach for years, I’m confident that Outreach’s model addresses peoples’ needs by reaching out to the core of the community and granting them the strength to grow.
“The process is long, the work is hard, and outcomes can be slow in coming, but having Outreach’s experience and expertise will indeed free people from poverty. I thank Outreach for giving me this great opportunity to implement the Outreach Process in Nepal!”
The pleasure’s ours, Sushila. We’re thrilled to have you working alongside us, and can’t wait to see all the miracles yet to come.
How to Help
Support Sushila’s work, and the work of everyone else in Outreach’s orbit — become a monthly donor today.
