The Truth About Poverty — JENNY STOECKER

I'm launching my first ever blog series with VisionTrust and I'm nerdily excited about it—hope you like it!

Poverty.

Immediately associations, images, and relationships pop into our brains as we hear the word.

But what is “poverty” exactly? And how can we really come to a place of alleviating a burden that affects the majority of the world?

At VisionTrust, we’re firm believers that education is one of the most effective resources available to break the cycle of poverty—not only for those in the majority world1, but just as importantly, for those with the desire to help.

With the best of intentions, the general public decides they should take action. So they give their money or time, crossing their fingers that it will make a real difference. But so many well-intentioned people don’t have the time to research where their money’s going, what it’s doing, or even what to ask to actually assess these questions.

Before I started working for VisionTrust, that was me. The more I learned, the more I realized how little I truly knew (and still have yet to learn) about empowering people in poverty. It didn’t even cross my mind that I could actually hurt the very people I was trying to help.

The more I learn, the more I’m excited to share so we can end extreme poverty in the next 25 years (yep, it’s possible). Thus the inception of this series, “The Truth About Poverty”, where we’ll shed light on the lesser known complexities of poverty. Over the next few months we’ll talk about everything from Jesus’ thoughts on poverty, to the reality of orphanages, to feminism. If you have specific questions or ideas you’d like addressed, leave a comment below and it just might turn into a blog post.

Thanks for joining me!

1 ”Majority world” is a term used to refer to what used to be called the “developing world” in order to move away from stereotypes that countries must "develop" to be more like the West.

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