Dear needforname,
I just came across this program which is designed to help communities overcome poverty by empowering the individual’s ability to effect changes to her own life. Given your earlier comments, it struck me that this is the kind of program you might want to support in order to effect change in a way that makes sense to you:
A guiding philosophy of the Poverty Stoplight is that the underlying causes of clients’ poverty-related problems must be analyzed and that mentors should work to successfully motivate clients to adopt the specific behaviors that will allow them to overcome their poverty-related problems.
To analyze these problems, Fundación Paraguaya uses the “integral approach” to determine whether a particular problem has to do with the personal beliefs and behavior of the program beneficiary and/or the cultural norms in their community and/or the institutions (or lack thereof) that affect the community. Once the root causes of the problem are understood, effective solutions can be found.
To motivate and empower clients, Fundación Paraguaya uses “the six sources of influence”. These are strategies for convincing the client that adopting the key vital behaviors that will enable them to overcome poverty (for example, the habit of dental care) is both “worth doing” and “within their ability” as well as for empowering them to follow through on their Poverty Stoplight “life plan” for eliminating their family’s poverty.
