Growing Our Way Out of Hunger-One Acre at a Time
Today’s economic troubles are a minor bump in the road compared to the desperate poverty of third-world countries. Worldwide, almost three billion people live on less than $700 a year and nearly 250,000 children die each day due to poor living conditions. This poverty does not continue on ignored. In just the United States, there are over 1.9 million nonprofit charity organizations dedicated to fighting these conditions. The trouble with most organizations, however, is that they fail to recognize the difference between charitable donations and empowering people to better their economic and social position. Most of today’s poor can improve their lives if they are given access to the necessary resources. The organizations that provide such resources deserve the loudest applause, for their development of sound economic systems creating the most positive and permanent improvement.
One such organization, called the One Acre Fund, follows a microcredit model to provide agricultural services to over 10,000 small farmers in the poor communities of Kenya and Rwanda. Rather than giving charity handouts, the One Acre Fund treats the farmers as business clients. The program organizes the farmers into producer groups that support each other throughout the growing season, distributes planting materials such as tools, quality seed, and fertilizer. The program also teaches the groups the most effective farming techniques and provides the farmers with market access so they can repay the initial credit, feed their families, and make profit on the surplus.
The One Acre Fund’s slogan proclaims that they work towards “empowering the chronically hungry to permanently pull themselves out of hunger and poverty.” Although the program aims to increase the income of each client by 100 percent, representatives say that “limitless human need demands an ambitious response. Eighty percent of the extreme poor in the world are farmers, and we must aggressively scale to meet demanding milestones.” The One Acre Fund does not limit itself to agricultural training. It also spreads awareness about malaria, respiratory illnesses, and malnutrition, all of which contribute to child mortality and poor quality of ife. Since the One Acre Fund launched its Child Health Program, the child mortality rate in many communities has dropped significantly.
Michelle Gomperts, a 2005 graduate from Bates College in Maine, has worked for the One Acre Fund since March 2009. She is stationed in rural western Rwanda in the Nyamasheke District on Lake Kivu. As a program associate, she controls finances, marketing, and training. Michelle first heard of the One Acre Fund while searching for a job abroad. After working for a microcredit organization in Washington, D.C. and observing the positive impact of the microcredit model on many lives, Michelle was “interested in seeing how international development worked on the ground level and…hav[ing] the experience of working across cultural and language barriers.” She says that while “most of the world’s poor are already economically active…their expenses are more than their profit.” Michelle appreciates microcredit organizations’ commitment to investing in the poor so they can use their abilities and talents to help themselves. She believes that poverty stems from a lack of education and a lack of access to credit, because “without education, farmers [will] continue to use inefficient agricultural methods that produce fewer yields in their harvest. And without access to the credit model, farmers [will not] be able to buy seed and fertilizer that they want.” In her search for international work, Michelle was attracted to the One Acre Fund’s use of the microcredit model to combat those roots of poverty.
In terms of scale and impact, Michelle has seen the program make significant strides toward alleviating poverty. Since its beginnings in 2007, the program has helped more than 7,500 farmers in three different districts. Compared to the original forty farmers from one town, it is not hard to appreciate the program’s efforts. “Our goal,” says Michelle, “is to double [each] farmer’s agricultural profit…We’re just shy of that goal…and on the right track to meet it over the next few seasons.” When she considers the program’s setbacks, she sees valuable learning experiences rather than failures. Such occurrences facilitate future projects of the One Acre Fund. Michelle is confident that the program will serve more East African countries, find new ways to serve the community such as with livestock programs or savings and financial services, and teach the farmers the importance of investing their profits in healthcare and education.
Working as a program associate for the One Acre Fund has given Michelle far more than just business experience. The pronounced cultural differences between America and Rwanda have forced her to utilize the power of human relationships in her work. Although Michelle is part American, Dutch, German, Venezuelan, and Canadian, first and foremost she is one of the few whites in the rural African west. Since arriving in Rwanda, the Kinyarwandan word “muzungu,” which translates to a rich, white, and foreign person, has become part of her daily vocabulary. With a smile, Michelle recounts, “when I walk down the dirt road through the market in Tyazo…kids follow me shouting ‘Muzungu! Muzungu!’ The ladies in the market laugh when I try to speak Kinyarwandan. And some people – usually the very young or the very old – will actually touch my skin or stroke my hair, more so if you’re blond, which thankfully I’m not.” Through personal friendships with the community members, Michelle and her coworkers overcome these cultural barriers and appreciate the differences and similarities between America and Rwanda. One difference Michelle has “come to love is the openness and hospitality shared by the [Rwandan] culture…Conversations aren’t complete unless there’s some physical connection – you touch each other’s arms or shoulders as you talk to emphasize a point. And the hospitality extends to strangers anywhere in the country. I’ve often been caught on the road or in the fields during a rainy season downpour – you just run to the nearest mud-brick house and are welcomed in by the family to wait until [the weather] clears up.” Michelle also feels a greater sense of community and family in Rwanda. Community meetings invite all the villagers to learn about country-wide changes and the different programs in which they can participate. On umugandas, or mandatory monthly community service days, the villagers work as a team to repair roads, collect neighborhood trash, build bricks for housing those with AIDS, and do other volunteer projects.
Michelle argues that cultural differences, no matter which countries a person compares, sometimes originate from economic discrepancies. In Rwanda’s case, Michelle says that culture does not “make poor Rwandans live in mud-brick homes, walk miles and miles to poor quality education schools, [or] carry jerry cans of water on their heads from the river to their homes…If they had the means to afford good housing, afford a great school in their neighborhood, and have electricity and water in their houses, they would jump at the opportunity and these differences would disappear. You can see that that is true just by comparing richer Rwandans living in the city in Kigali with poorer Rwandans living rurally. Richer Rwandans in the city still share the same language, values, and culture as their poorer rural counterparts, but some of these visual cultural differences have been siphoned off.” Michelle reminds people not to forget that “culture is not immutable – it’s something that…shift[s] and chang[es] and can do so naturally without compromising a people’s traditions and history.
Just as Michelle gives business training to the Rwandan communities, the communities give her a greater understanding of people. The local staff of the One Acre Fund is typically undereducated, mainly due to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The genocide made refugees and orphans out of many children and drastically interrupted their education. Some of these now twenty-year-old “kids” are just now completing their high school studies. And unfortunately, an extremely small percentage of these students pursue university education. Even so, Michelle calls these staff members “the heart and soul of the organization.” They teach her “that the amount of schooling you have does not necessarily indicate how well you will do at a job. It’s all about the willingness to work hard, the openness to learning new things, and the passion and commitment that all of our staff shares. It’s been inspirational to see a staff member grow from doing low-level logistics work to being our country Field Director with amazing motivational and leadership skills. It’s been great to teach people how to use the computer and watch as a whole new world opens up in front of them…The [local] staff’s passion and commitment motivates the American staff to work even harder to serve the…community.” She hopes that the One Acre Fund will give families enough money to support their children through high school and provide them with a future not solely defined by a farming profession.
Although Michelle originally scheduled to stay in Rwanda for one year, she now plans on staying at least until December 2010. While her future plans remain undecided, Michelle’s time in Rwanda has solidified her desire to pursue management of non-governmental organizations and international development as a career path. She also wants to focus on graduate studies so she can either “return to the One Acre Fund with more knowledge, join a different organization, or maybe start [her] own NGO.” Her experiences in Rwanda extend far beyond her professional development. No matter where she ends up, Michelle knows that the One Acre Fund has positively influenced her perspective on culture, life, and work ethic.
To students interested in international work, Michelle definitely recommends joining a nonprofit organization. She emphasizes the significance of working within these organizations, saying, “each nonprofit is driven by a mission instead of sales and revenues like a regular company. This means that no matter what your role is in the organization, you get to feel connected to an overarching goal that positively changes the community you work in.” Also, “nonprofits are passion-driven projects. You might not get a huge salary, but you get a wealth of experience and the motivation to do your daily job.”
Michelle also has a few pointers for those looking to work or study abroad. She suggests “reading the newspaper so that you know what’s going on in the world, studying a language in high school and college…and try[ing] to get into a study abroad program during college to get some experience [working abroad].” Finally, the idealist website (www.idealist.org) offers a great listing on short-term international volunteer positions.
For more information about the One Acre Fund, visit its website at www.oneacrefund.org.
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