Re: Nonprofit helps the poor find their voice
Ronald J. Bartle (snuffy@berlin.snafu.de)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 03:47:11 +0100
// -- //
>
> Note also the assumption that homeless/poor/marginalized/disenfranchised
> need to know how to better parent.
practically all of us parents could do with grasping every and any
opportunities
to lean to be better at the incredably wide-reaching and deeply
fascinanting
_job_ of parenting!
Would Einstein have rejected the day to day chances to improve on his
faculties as a mathemeticion and cosmological-psysicist-philosopher -
because
he was allready better than some!? I sincerly doubt it..!
This is, simply, a victim-blaming
> cosmology, and does little more than give the message that "you're not
> good enough; and you need to change to get "better"...or "more
> successful."
>
> Under this system, nothing happens to challenge, or to even address the
> need for people on the margins of society to interrogate and challenge the
> *etiology of how they became labelled as they were...
Who defines "poor or illiterate" as being labels at all .. for many of
the worlds
poor and illiterate - poverty and illiteracy is such a real everyday
fact of
a gawd damned difficult life - that the luxury of semantical diatribe
about
stuff like "labels and labeling" would tend to remain a sealed book to
them
like the rest of this literate mumbo-jumbo being exchanged with the help
of pc's etc- nowadays the very embodiment of "riches and societal
well-being"
or so we are frequently led to beleive in the popular press.
in fact, no real
> awareness of labelling obtains, in the words of one of the tutors.
Q.E.D.
>
> Another concern I have is that poverty pimps may be "enriched" at the
> expense of those whom they believe they "help" by more than money.
>
> Self-esteem is one consequence of helping...one feels that one has "done
> good"...made one's contribution to society...helped others, less fortunate
> than they...
- so you are argumenting that to live the life of an uncareing faschist
automaton with no perception of a need to reinforce ones own self-estem
by doing good and feel good at having done good etc - is "better!?"
- or is the cryptic key needed to crack the special code necessary for
understanding this twisted and slipper text buried in a tiny microdot
on the base of the monitor here some place...!?
>
> Great ego boost for the p.pimp...not so great for the ...pimped.
being helped to haul oneself out of poverty thru the mechanism of
literacy is not very legitimate and laudable way to constructivly
boost one's own ego in a way that may well empower one to
help others emjoy the same ego boosting effect.
>
> This is a *great idea, but should be implemented by advocates...yes,
> advocates who are or were, peers of those to whom the offer information,
> resources and experience.
- let's see now - have I got this right - a literacy programme comming
from within
the catholic church is wrong cos of
"vatican-mafia-banking-gold-stealing-near-slaving
-middle-american-historical-mission-house-manipulation-and-historical-bending-of-earlier-beliefs-etc-etc.
is bad in the same way that...
a-self-proclaimed-advocate-who-MIGHT-have-been-the-victime-subject-of-abuse-by-elements-on-the-fringeof-the-military-industrial-complex-if-he/she-did-not-have-the-necessary-skills-and-knowledge-to-cope-with-and-adapt-to-the-challenges-of-thier-potential-oppression-in-a-way-that-allowed-them-to-come-to-a-possible-intellectual-accomodation-with-thier-percieved-realities-
is good... in the same moment
as these arguments in end effect could very well really boil down to
nothing much more or less than hundreds more remaining in illiteracy and
poverty to bolster one or anothers religious-historical or the opposite
biggotry...
or wot!?
- puting it another way.... if one can't beat them - then one should
join them perhaps - and as far alledegly -errantly- wrongly(!?)
developing religions are concerned - most of us can find a few big
lads/lasses and afford a bit of scrap timber and some 8 inch nails|a 10
pound hammer - let that person let me know when they have been running
thier "show" a couple of millenia with NO divergence and corruption!?
>
> We *can help ourselves, and we *can be advocates without poverty pimping
> (let's find a way to -- albeit long and drawn-out -- say what that is
> every time, ok?)...
> This is an issue I've been wrestling with for a long time...advocacy.
- hey is that "all??" - let me buy/fed-ex you a beer pal!??
>
> I was a single parent with two young children...no help but Welfare and
> school...then worked my way through several years of school...I'd been
> homeless, actually, more than once in my life (and dread the possibility
> of another such experience!)...am I not a fair advocate for all the groups
> mentioned above? Is accepting recompense (monetary) for what I might
> do...is *that poverty pimping? Hell, I'm *still poor!
- wonderfull - not even a trace of self-centeredness or egoism in any of
us at all
anywhere in the universe - great - thats what humanity needs...e e e has
got comming to it anyhow.. real LEADERSHIP.... no no - no German
langauge transx of that one - not from me.. gimme a break I am still a
_british_ mil. veteran even when I do live in Berlin a while! ;)
>
> I can't get a handle on how and when representative democracy becomes
> poverty pimping...we elect legislators (lots wealthier than we) to
> *advocate for us...to speak for us...to be our voices...sometimes we elect
> jerks, and out they must go...but the idea of choosing, when necessary,
> someone to speak for someone else...is that so very bad? Is this a yes/no
> issue...always?
well hell no .. er - or yeah i suppose if you look at it from the other
end of the bar...
m'lord.
>
> Sorry, I'm not really criticizing the program itself,
- me niether....!
or even the motives...
aw shucks - you cought me now... or...on the other hand...
> of the volunteers...although I'd feel better if I heard more of what *they
> get from the experience...and even *better if I heard that it was
> peer-driven...
this pawiouson has neeeever eveeeer been to brighton england have they
now-....?
>
> I just needed to give something considerably less than $.02.
well I will certainly 2-nd that pal.. [..scratch scratch .. let me see
now
.02 plus 2 x 0.2 minus the summ of the summs one first thought of and
....
yeah .. shure thing .. amen bro! He _has_ sussed this one.. er .. i
think!]
>
> Thanks. PatM
JeeeeHaaaw! dammit.
Enclaimer: my opinions are not my own but fully reflect the
social-political order that has
payed munificently to de-pattern me and all my hairs and sucksessors.
wow - nearly as
really .. really .. really good as the dingbat-spice gals .. whoopeee!
>
> On Sat, 17 Jan 1998, H. C. Covington wrote:
>
> > Forward by Sonny ...........
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Date: Saturday, January 17, 1998 9:12 AM
> > Subject: Nonprofit helps the poor find their voice
> >
> >
> > http://www.philanthropy-journal.org/nonprof/voices0198.htm
> >
> > ***Nonprofit helps the poor find their voice
> >
> > VOICES, a nonprofit that teaches reading and writing to low-income adults
> > and children plans to open an adult magnet school later this year. Called
> > RISE, the community learning center will use literacy to develop skills in
> > parenting, job readiness and citizenship. Leslie Waugh reports.
> >
> > >From the article....
> >
> > A lot of well-meaning people advocate on behalf of the poor.
> >
> > But what happens when the poor speak for themselves?
> >
> > You hear VOICES.
> >
> > VOICES, a five-year-old nonprofit organization based in Raleigh, is a group
> > of writers who teach literacy and communication skills to adults and
> > children in homeless shelters, low-income housing projects, prisons,
> > day-care centers and government agencies that serve the poor.
> >
> > But beyond simply teaching the basics of reading and writing, VOICES uses
> > literacy to show students how to become better parents, how to find jobs
> > and how to get along with other people.
> >
> > ....
> >
> > "I've been influenced as a writer by Charles Dickens and as a Catholic by
> > Mother Teresa," he says. He concedes he's no Mother Teresa, but in VOICES,
> > he says, "we're dealing with a lot of people whose voices haven't been
> > heard or mattered.
> >
> > They're excluded from lots of opportunities and often are unable to speak
> > for themselves. What I can do is use writing to give others tools to use in
> > their own lives.
> >
> > *****
> >
> >
> > Peace,
> >
> > John Freund, C.M.
> > Vincentian Center for Church and Society
> > St. John's University Jamaica, NY 11439
> >
> > http://www.stjohns.edu/vincentianctr AND http://www.cptryon.org/vdp
> >
> > freundjb@stjohns.edu 718 262 8826 Voice 718 262 8695 Fax
> >
> >
>
> ************************************
> "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
> and you have found out the exact measure of
> injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them...
> Frederick Douglass
r.b./ participant in european commission XIII dir telematics projects
for the elderly and disabled.
-and now you beleive at least 50% of that statement - ok? Jeez is
IT late...! <here> ;)
--
Ron Bartle - Royal Air Force Veteran - Hobby Journalist - 24h wired Bed
& Breakfast in Berlin, Germany. http://www.snafu.de/~snuffy -
snuffy@berlin.snafu.de +49.30.6884295